Closing down signage has returned to 121 Great King St, near New World Centre City, which has housed a dollar shop and variety store for at least the past 15 years.
It comes as Foodstuff plans to demolish the shop building to expand the adjacent New World supermarket.
This’N’That co-owner Philip Tait said people on social media and in-person had remarked the store appeared to have ‘‘always been closing down’’.
‘‘But that's not actually true,’’ Mr Tait said.
The store had once been poised for closure, roughly between 2019 and 2021, back when it was branded ‘‘$2 & More’’.
He ended up acquiring another premises in South Dunedin and chose to rebrand the store rather than closing it, he said.
‘‘That was for a couple of years, which I had to get rid of stock.
It had also expanded beyond $2-priced items to include furniture, costumes, gardening equipment, fantasy figurines and other paraphernalia.
But closing down signs had since returned to the store over the past two weeks, as the building had been earmarked to be demolished in July, Mr Tait said.
The past seven or so years had been ‘‘tough’’ and seen a decline in customers, he said.
‘‘I’m tired.
‘‘I'll definitely miss it, it's alway been part of business for me.’’
As a ‘‘bit of a smart-arse’’, it would be the interactions with customers which he would miss, Mr Tait said.
All stock has been slashed to at least half price and the store was selling its collection of posters, which had proven popular with students, for $1 each.
Mr Tait estimated he had owned about 40 second-hand, variety and pop-up stores to date — the first being South Dunedin’s ‘‘Bargain Traders’’, which he opened in 1983 while in his 20s.
There had also been other $2 & More stores in Mosgiel and South Dunedin.
The Great King St premises was the last of his stores to go and had been one of his longest-serving premises.
He planned to continue his wholesale operations, he said.
