Little Caesars to Stay Open!

M.A. Dworkin

The bad news is, as everyone on St. Croix knows all too well by now, Kmart Sunny Isles is closing down forever. Its inevitable downfall was written clearly on the Crucian retail landscape the moment Kmart closed down in 2023 at Sunshine Mall on the West Side. 

The iconic chain which was originally founded in 1899 as Kresge’s, and opened its first Kmart store in the States in 1962 (renamed Kmart Corporation in 1977) and closed its last big box department store in the States in 2024, had its fate sealed by the changing tide of American retail tastes in shopping.

At its peak Kmart operated 2,486 stores worldwide. It was a casualty of big corporate bungling, being unable to adjust to online sales as did Walmart and other retail giants. It was a casualty of the times where  internet behemoths like Amazon, eBay and Walmart have dominated the retail scene. It was a casualty of the big box and retail 

old-line brick-and-mortars that are slowly becoming dinosaurs, breathing their last breaths as they turn over in the tar pits of modern-day retailing.

But the good news is, the great news actually, for all who love a good cheap, handmade pizza, who need a quick fix on their daily menu, it has been officially confirmed by the St. Croix Times that Little Caesars will remain open! It will not be in the same space and the space it will remain open in is TBA. Quite probably somewhere in the Sunny Isles Shopping Center environs. But it WILL REMAIN OPEN!   

So keep those lovely Hot-N-Ready pies coming out of those perfectly-timed conveyor ovens Little Caesars. The Stuffed, the Crazy Breads, the Puffs, the Italian Cheese Bread, et al. Because the choices for pizza on the Big Island are few and far between. 

As a note: Despite published reports to the contrary, there is no occupant on the horizon to take over the Kmart space. Not at the present time.