Grupo Sanborns is a retailing arm of the
Carlos Slim
Carlos Slim Helú (; born 28 January 1940) is a Mexican business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. From 2010 to 2013, Slim was ranked as the richest person in the world by the '' Forbes'' business magazine. He derived his fortune from h ...
-run
Grupo Carso
Grupo Carso is a Mexican global conglomerate company owned by Carlos Slim. It was formed in 1990 after the merger of Corporación Industrial Carso and Grupo Inbursa. The name Carso stands for Carlos Slim and Soumaya Domit de Slim, his late wife.
...
that includes the namesake Sanborns chain, Mixup music stores, iShop electronics stores,
Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue (originally Saks & Company; colloquially Saks) is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in New York City and founded by Andrew Saks. The original store opened in the F Street shopping district of Washington ...
and
Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
department stores in Mexico, and other formats.
The namesake Sanborns chain began in the early 20th century as a transplant of the American coffee shop (
diner) to Mexico City. Sanborns stores are not easily classified as a
junior department store or any other format commonly found around the world, as they are known for their sit-down
restaurants, and stores also usually have a cocktail bar,
bakery
A bakery is an establishment that produces and sells flour-based food baked in an oven such as bread, cookies, cakes, donuts, pastries, and pies. Some retail bakeries are also categorized as cafés, serving coffee and tea to customers who w ...
,
pharmacy,
newsstand,
books, CDs, and compact areas of
department store
A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...
-style merchandise such as
cosmetics
Cosmetics are constituted mixtures of chemical compounds derived from either natural sources, or synthetically created ones. Cosmetics have various purposes. Those designed for personal care and skin care can be used to cleanse or protect ...
,
candy, clothing and accessories, gifts, home decoration, luggage, small appliances, TVs, cellphones and accessories, laptops, tablets, and small electronics.
Sanborns are located across
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
. Previous locations in
El Salvador and
Panama
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...
have since closed.
[“Sanborns cierra sus tiendas en Eñ Salvador” (“Sanborns closes its stores in El Salvador”), Forbes México, August 27, 2020]
/ref>
History
The retail company was founded in Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...
on June 19, 1903, by California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
immigrants Walter and Frank Sanborn, who also opened Mexico's first soda fountain
A soda fountain is a device that dispenses carbonated soft drinks, called fountain drinks. They can be found in restaurants, concession stands and other locations such as convenience stores. The device combines flavored syrup or syrup concentra ...
. The original location and its lunch counter, across from the main post office ('' Palacio de Correos de México'') is still in operation.
During the Mexican Revolution, troops of Emiliano Zapata
Emiliano Zapata Salazar (; August 8, 1879 – April 10, 1919) was a Mexican revolutionary. He was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920, the main leader of the people's revolution in the Mexican state of Morelos, and the ins ...
used a Sanborns branch located where the ''Libreria Madero'' is today, as a rendezvous point and gathering place. Extant photos show ''Zapatista'' soldiers enjoying their first restaurant meal at Sanborns' lunch counte
Thus the Sanborns slogan ''Meet me at Sanborns''.
In 1919, Walter Sanborn, tired of Mexico's political turmoil, returned to the US and left the management of the company to his brother Frank.
The trademark of the franchise, the three owls, represent Mr. Frank Sanborn and his sons, Francis and Jonathan. For some time, the official name of the company was "Sanborn´s Hermanos" (Sanborn's Brothers), when Mr. Frank died.
Also in 1919, Sanborns acquired its most famous branch location, the 16th century House of Tiles, the Casa de los Azulejos, Mexico City, Casa de los Azulejos, a major Mexico City tourist attraction and national monument. This is probably the world's only pharmacy decorated with a mural
A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage.
Word mural in art
The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...
by José Clemente Orozco.
In 1946, Frank Sanborn sold his interest in Sanborns to fellow pharmacist Charles Walgreen Jr. of Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
.
Like Walgreens
Walgreen Company, d/b/a Walgreens, is an American company that operates the second-largest pharmacy store chain in the United States behind CVS Health. It specializes in filling prescriptions, health and wellness products, health information, a ...
, Sanborns does not use an apostrophe in its name. In Sanborns' case, it is due to the Spanish language
Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in th ...
not using apostrophes to indicate possession.
Walgreens sold its interest in 1985.
The Sanborns chain operates a full e-commerce website selling a wide range of merchandise from the categories found in its physical stores (gifts, cosmetics, electronics, etc.)
Due to a drop in sales caused by an economic downturn, Sanborns' three Central American stores closed in 2020. It’s only Panamanian branch closed in January of that year, having opened in 2007 at Multiplaza Panama at a cost of US$6 million. Its two stores in El Salvador at Metrocentro and Multiplaza, both in San Salvador, closed later that year. [
]
Grupo Sanborns
Currently, Sanborns is a unit of Grupo Sanborns, the retailing arm of conglomerate Grupo Carso
Grupo Carso is a Mexican global conglomerate company owned by Carlos Slim. It was formed in 1990 after the merger of Corporación Industrial Carso and Grupo Inbursa. The name Carso stands for Carlos Slim and Soumaya Domit de Slim, his late wife.
...
which itself is controlled by Carlos Slim
Carlos Slim Helú (; born 28 January 1940) is a Mexican business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. From 2010 to 2013, Slim was ranked as the richest person in the world by the '' Forbes'' business magazine. He derived his fortune from h ...
, the fourth wealthiest billionaire in the world as of 2016.Carlos Slim Helu & family
net worth estimated at $50 billion in 2016 by Forbes magazine As of 2021 the group sales were 53 billion Mexican pesos
The Mexican peso ( symbol: $; code: MXN) is the currency of Mexico. Modern peso and dollar currencies have a common origin in the 16th–19th century Spanish dollar, most continuing to use its sign, "$".
The current ISO 4217 code for the ...
, equivalent to around 2.6 billion USD. It operated in 62 metropolitan areas and towns across the country with 197 Sanborns restaurant-and-retail stores and Sanborns Cafés (stand-alone restaurants); 141 Mixup (music/video) and iShop (Apple reseller) stores, 97 Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
stores, and one Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue (originally Saks & Company; colloquially Saks) is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in New York City and founded by Andrew Saks. The original store opened in the F Street shopping district of Washington ...
store.page 4, Grupo Sanborns 2021 annual report
/ref>
References
External links
Sanborns Official Site
Megamart
Official Site
{{Walgreens Boots Alliance
Retail companies of Mexico
Conglomerate companies of Mexico
Pharmacies of Mexico
Restaurant chains in Mexico
Retail companies established in 1903
1903 establishments in Mexico
1999 initial public offerings
Economic history of Mexico
Carlos Slim
Sanborns