Walmart, Best Buy, Kohl's Among PA Retailers Closed On Thanksgiving

PENNSYLVANIA — More and more national retailers are choosing to close on Thanksgiving Day, including several of Pennsylvania's largest chain stores. It's part of a growing trend giving workers more time with their families at holidays as in-store shopping continues to drastically decline in popularity.

Among major retailers that will remain closed on Thanksgiving, Nov. 24 are big box stores like Walmart, Target, and Best Buy, along with a slew of others that anchor malls and shopping centers like Macy’s, JC Penney, and Kohl’s.

Below are the major national chains with stores in Pennsylvania that will be closed on Thanksgiving Day, according to BlackFriday.com. It’s a good idea to check local stores for hours this holiday season, because they may vary by location.

• Bed Bath & Beyond
• Best Buy
• Burlington
• Dick’s Sporting Goods
• Hobby Lobby
• Kohl’s
• Lowe’s Home Improvement
• Macy’s
• Marshalls
• Nordstrom/Nordstrom Rack
• Old Navy
• Petco
• Sam’s Club
• Sears/Sears Outlet
• Target
• Ulta Beauty
• Walmart

See the full list of stores closed on Thanksgiving Day on BlackFriday.com.

The holiday shopping season that traditionally started on Black Friday started to creep into Thanksgiving Day about two decades ago as bargain hunters flocked to malls and big box stores in the wee hours of Black Friday morning. At the height of the early morning shopping frenzy about five years ago, 25 or so chain stores opened on Thanksgiving Day, The Associated Press reported.

Stores open on Thanksgiving were criticized both by workers who had to pull themselves away from family, and by consumers at large.

When the pandemic came along in 2020, stores had already started to rethink the strategy after finding the early openings had cannibalized Black Friday sales. Many stores also advertised Black Friday deals for an extended period, further diluting the impact of the Thanksgiving hours.

Giving employees, considered essential workers during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, a day off with their families generated a “positive response” among both workers and consumers, Kohl’s said in a news release last year.

Walmart, which is closing all of its U.S. locations for the third consecutive Thanksgiving, said doing so is “one way we’re saying ‘thank you’ to our teams for their dedication and hard work this year.”

Three states — Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island — have prohibited Thanksgiving hours at big-box stores.