Unclaimed Freight in Bethlehem, Pa. is closing. Photo courtesy of Unclaimed Freight.

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Former Top 100 retailer Unclaimed Freight here is closing after more than 50 years in business.

Owner Angela Colabella, daughter of founder Joe Colabella, is retiring, bringing about the final chapter for the retailer, which was established in 1972. Angela Colabella took the business over about five years ago, and Joe Colabella passed away at age 91 in 2022.

“It’s a retirement sale. We’re closing out the business. Times have changed for the industry over the past few years, and it was just time,” Angela Colabella told Furniture Today.

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Colabella said her father, the son of Italian immigrants, built on his parents’ strong work ethic and developed a business where he could make a living while treating customers well.

“My grandfather went around the neighborhood, selling dry goods,” Colabella said. “It was in my dad’s blood. He came from nothing. Both of my parents worked hard all their lives to get to where they were. My dad’s concept was to make a little money but give the customers a fair deal.”

Joe Colabella sold Unclaimed Freight, then a 13-store chain, in December 1989 to investment group Valley Advisors. Under that owner, the retailer struggled and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1994. Valley Advisors was preparing to liquidate the business when Colabella came out of retirement, bought back the rights to the Unclaimed Freight name and eventually reopened five stores.

He sold it again in 1999 for $16 million to a Chicago-based investment group led by Larry Manson. At the April 2002 High Point market, Manson admitted the retailer was struggling financially but promised a comeback. Two months later, Unclaimed Freight shut down abruptly, leaving a trail of consumer complaints. In November 2002, Colabella bought the few remaining assets and name rights from banking company Wachovia Corp. for about $100,000.

Angela Colabella said the business had been a fixture in its community for years. She remembered a time when her father bought one of the last DeLorean automobiles off the assembly line in the 1980s and raffled it. Boxing Hall of Famer Larry Holmes was on hand to select the winner.

Angela Colabella said she expects the going-out-of-business sale to take about seven weeks, with a late February-early March target for closing.