Sport Chalet announced on Saturday that it is closing all of its stores and has stopped selling goods online.

“While our online store is no longer available, all Sport Chalet stores will remain open for several weeks, offering customers the opportunity to use their remaining rewards and gift cards, and to take advantage of great sales,” the chain says on its website.

Michelle De Leon, a department head at the Sport Chalet in Lake Forest, said employees found out about the store closure through their general managers on Thursday.

Employees were told stores will be closing “within the next few months” but were not given a firm timeline, she added.

Everything at the store, as of Friday morning, is 10 percent off, and sales are final, De Leon said.

The closure will especially impact those wanting to get scuba certified, she said.

“I know it’s really going to bum everyone out,” De Leon told The Register.

Other Sports Chalet stores in Orange County are in Huntington Beach, Laguna Niguel, Brea, Mission Viejo, Irvine and Costa Mesa. The store is also in Long Beach.

At the Brea store on Imperial Highway, signs in the window on Saturday said “Going out of Business!” in big, bold black letters.

Mark Weiss, a father of three, was shopping with his 16-year-old son in the store on Saturday morning.

“It blows my mind to think that an organization with stores around the country is going out of business,” said Weiss, of Placentia. It’s one thing for one store, but for all of the stores, this is very sad.”

La Habra resident JP Vielma has been a Sport Chalet customer since 2006, the year he got scuba certified.

News of the chain’s closure was a “shocker to me,” said Vielma, who learned of it from a friend’s text message. “I thought it was a hoax because it’s a pretty good chain.”

Over the years, the part-time U.S. Army reserve firefighter says he has bought at least $3,000 worth of scuba gear — from a Body Glove wetsuit to fins — and has loyally rented oxygen tanks from the Brea store.

“I got all my equipment from Sport Chalet because this is a risky hobby, so you want to be able to trust your equipment,” said Vielma, a full-time outreach business representative for the state of California.

He’s also gotten other athletic goods from the shop to feed his active lifestyle, including running shoes, a GoPro camera and snowboarding gear.

Bloomberg reported Saturday that Vestis Retail Group, which operates the Eastern Mountain Sports, Bob’s Stores and Sport Chalet chains, is preparing a bankruptcy filing.

The company, owned by private equity firm Versa Capital Management LLC, could file as soon as next week, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the process isn’t public.

Sport Chalet has about 50 locations in California, Arizona, Nevada and Utah.

It’s unclear how many people now work at Sport Chalet, but the company reported in SEC filings that as of March 30, 2014 it had about 2,800 workers. Vestis Retail Group acquired Sport Chalet that year and it became privately held.

The chain isn’t the only sporting goods store to hit financial headwinds. In March, Sports Authority announced it would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and close some California locations.

Sports Authority said in April it pushed back its bankruptcy auction amid high interest. The new auction dates are in May. Leases for 109 stores being closed go on the auction block May 4; the sale of pretty much everything else Sports Authority owns will be on May 16.

Sport Chalet was founded in 1959 in La Cañada, where the company is headquartered, and has roots in Orange County, according to the company’s website.

As the story goes, Norbert Olberz and his wife, Irene, put all of their savings into a small ski shop that was on the market.

“During the first year,” the company says, “Norbert and Irene slept in the back of the ski shop, taking showers at night with a garden hose through a screen door.”

Olberz expanded the brand with a 30,000-square-foot store in 1974, across the street from the first shop.

Seven years later, the company opened a store in Huntington Beach.

The company, which says it was among the first sporting-goods shops to sell scuba gear, went public in 1992.

Here is the Sport Chalet’s announcement and what customers need to know.