The rise of Spirit Halloween: How the Spencer Gifts-owned chain took over American strip malls and turned itself into a meme of the Retail Apocalypse

Spirit Halloween was founded in 1983 by Joseph Marver as a pop-up store in the Castro Valley Mall in San Francisco, California.

Before Spirit became one of the most popular destinations for Halloween costumes and decor, the company got its start as a women's clothing store called Spirit Women's Discount Apparel.

Today the company has 1,400 locations in North America, primarily located in strip and traditional malls.

Marver set up the stores up to operate as seasonal retail pop-ups, which are typically open from early August through November 2.

Spirit describes itself as "the premier destination for all things Halloween, offering one-stop shopping for costumes, accessories, home and outdoor decor, party goods, and our exclusive animatronics."

The company has thousands of employees, and in 2021 hired 30,000 temporary staffers for its Halloween season.

By 1998, Spirit Halloween had started growing rapidly and expanded to 60 stores around the country.

According to Marver, part of what sets Spirit apart is its variety and wide assortment of merchandise.

By the late 1990s, Spirit's success attracted the interest of companies looking to capitalize on the Halloween superstore and so Spirit began courting acquisition proposals.

In 1999, Spencer Gifts - the mall-brand favorite known for its assortment of gag gifts and ephemera, which includes everything from lava lamps to sex toys - officially acquired Spirit Halloween.

With the help of Spencer, Spirit became known for its tongue-in-cheek pop culture costumes that tapped into the zeitgeist.

The retailer continued to grow in popularity in the early 2000s, with its array of costumes and masks, including those in the likeness of popular television and film favorites like Homer Simpson.

Spirit even managed to lure notable television personalities of the era, including Kristin Cavallari of MTV's "The Hills" and "Laguna Beach" fame.

In 2006, the company launched its philanthropic arm, Spirit of Children Halloween. The organization has raised $77 million to-date to support the child life departments of hospitals around the country.

Despite its success, Spirit Halloween has not been impervious to controversy. In 2016, Spirit came under fire for racial appropriation of Native Americans, and in 2021 it evoked Twitter outrage for a "Karen" costume.

Though execs start identifying pop-up locations in November, an estimated two-thirds of Spirit Halloween stores return to the same locations each year.

Source: Forbes

Due to the seasonal and temporary nature of the business, Spirit Halloween typically takes over empty big-box stores ...

... and even recently bankrupt luxury department stores, like the now-defunct Barneys New York.

As a result, Spirit Halloween has grown synonymous with the Retail Apocalypse, thanks to its penchant for popping up in abandoned retail spaces.

In 2020, there were a record 12,200 store closings in the US, leaving an estimated 159 million square feet in vacant retail space as the coronavirus ravaged national businesses.

Spirit's ubiquity in abandoned retail spaces inspired a popular meme on social media platforms like Twitter and Reddit.

According to Know Your Meme, the meme's origin began in December 2015 when Imgur user meatybeefy included Spirit Halloween in a viral "rundown shopping mall starter pack" image. 

Most recently, the meme has been used to satirize everything from the 2018 government shutdown...

... to the recent Facebook outage.

But regardless of the Twitter jokes, Americans still can't get enough Spirit Halloween.