Zany Brainy Rainy Day

Zany Brainy (King of Prussia, Pa.), one of the high-flying new specialty children's retailers of the 1990s, announced it has filed a voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition.

The retailer, which filled its high-concept stores with quality toys, games, books, puzzles and multimedia products, helped drive the counter-reaction to big-box shopping in the last decade. As late as last year, it acquired the 60-store Noodle Kidoodle chain, opened 27 new Zany Brainy stores and invested heavily in an Internet strategy. But, said president and ceo Tom Vellios, “a difficult retail climate, compounded by an absence of a 'hot'product, led to a decline in sales, which caused liquidity issues that precipitated our filing.”

The company said it would continue many of the strategic initiatives announced earlier in the year, including “improving traffic in the stores and enriching the store experience through the merchandise mix and the look and feel of the stores across the chain.” Zany Brainy currently operates 187 stores in34 states. The French retailer Carrefour owns about 18 percent of the company.