[1] The origins of the company date back to 1946 when brothers Al, Mort, and Bob Rickel went into business for themselves in Newark, New Jersey.

In that role, the brothers felt that he could not only sell the supplies to the people but pass along his plumbing knowledge to advise customers on how to fix their own toilets, sinks, drains, etc., and making sure they had the correct parts to perform the repair.

The Rickels then began expanding at a more rapid pace, opening more stores in New Jersey and entering the New York and Pennsylvania markets for the first time.

During this time a corporate headquarters was established in South Plainfield, New Jersey, which also served as Rickel's primary distribution center.

[2] In 1973 Rickel built their South Plainfield, New Jersey executive office headquarters, which doubled as a distribution and storage center that had been expanded to nearly 800,000 square feet by 1988.

The subsequent decade was a time of continued expansion as the Rickel chain grew to over 30 stores by the mid-eighties, including one in the former Ice World arena in Totowa, New Jersey.

However, Supermarkets General's fortunes were starting to turn as the company entered a financial downturn that it stayed locked in, in various forms, for the next two decades.

Home Depot was angered by this and, citing Vila's work for a competing business, pulled its backing from This Old House and its lumber supplier, Weyerhaeuser, followed.

WGBH, the producer of This Old House, responded by firing Vila from the show and replacing him with Steve Thomas in an attempt to convince Home Depot to return, which they did.

Supermarkets General was still in serious financial trouble as Pathmark's sales continued to slide, and the company chose to keep its focus on trying to bring its primary brand out of decline.

The company changed its name to Pathmark Stores, Inc. and began looking for ways to divest itself of its varied retail properties including Rickel.

Despite the addition of so many new stores to its fold, the sales they generated were not enough to fully pull Rickel out of the tailspin it had found itself in; in fact, the sudden massive expansion proved to be another burden on the company's finances.

Also, the battle with Home Depot for market share was continuing to be an uphill one for Rickel, and the chain would soon find itself in significant legal trouble.

[2] The Orange Street location was less than one mile from the Bloomfield Center strip mall where Rickel, at the time, was its longstanding anchor store.

The center is located along Bloomfield Avenue, which is one of the most heavily traveled roads in New Jersey running from US 46 in West Caldwell to downtown Newark near Broad Street Station.

However, like many of its fellow outlets the Bloomfield Rickel was a much smaller sized business than the massive Home Depot stores being built in and around New Jersey were.

The new sales figures from its fifty-nine new stores had not done enough to correct the damage that the years of financial trouble that its former parent Pathmark had left on Rickel, and thus a bankruptcy filing was looming as a serious possibility.

Although Rickel was starting to show signs of recovery that met with positive reactions, reality painted a different picture as the company appeared to be in a state of terminal decline.

The attempt did little, if anything, to either take business from Home Depot or lure customers to Rickel and in August 1997, a plan to allow the chain to remain open until at least February 1998 was rejected.

On October 11, 1997, Rickel vice president for marketing Greg Hanselman made the announcement that the company "ran out of cash" to operate the remaining 49 stores and that the chain was to begin liquidating.