Kars Five-and-Ten Store

I grew up near Montrose and Austin in the 1950s. The neighborhood was residential. We did most of our shopping at Six Corners—Milwaukee, Irving Park, and Cicero—about two miles away. But if we wanted to get something within easy walking distance, we went to Kars.

Kars was located at 4347 North Central Avenue. It was a “five-and-ten” store, which meant that, once upon a time, everything in the place sold for either five or ten cents. If you want an economics lesson about inflation, consider that we now have “dollar” stores.

By the 1950s, most of the stuff in Kars was already priced above ten cents. I can’t remember everything they sold. Mostly they had odds-and-ends, like greeting cards, shoe polish, detergent, handkerchiefs, paint, and so on. They also sold replacement tubes for your TV set, and had a little machine where you could test them out.

The store was located on the first floor of a two-story building. Some people claimed that Mr. and Mrs. Kars lived on the second floor. Or maybe that second floor was just for storage.

Though Mr. Kars was usually around, his wife was the face of the store. She was an elegant lady who spoke with an undeterminable Eastern European accent. When Mrs. Kars was gone for a few weeks one summer, rumor had it that she’d gone on a vacation to Russia, which made her even more exotic for the Portage Park neighborhood.

Kars closed down in the mid-1970s. There’s a Walgreen’s on the site now.

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