Shopping can be a grind – but "when the destination is C-Mart, an idiosyncratic discount store in nondescript Forest Hill, Md., it's an adrenaline-filled rush," reports Post contributor Margaret Engel.
"This place has everything – women's, kids' and men's clothes, shoes, sports equipment, towels, toiletries – whatever brand-name goods the owner can get cheap. Twice a year, I drop the kids off for school, head for Baltimore with a friend, spend the day at C-Mart, pausing only for a Greek salad at Manny's Family Restaurant in the adjoining strip mall. Then it's back through the Fort McHenry Tunnel and home for school pickup with enough bargains to avoid gift or clothes shopping indefinitely. Now, that's one day of pure escape with lasting, time-saving benefits."
Engel grew up in Cleveland, which she says gives her a natural affinity for Baltimore, the city of FormStone, marble steps and sheds selling flavored snowballs (one is across from C-Mart).
"So when I learned that savvy New Yorkers, not to mention Philadelphians, were hot-footing it to C-Mart, it smelled like an adventure in bargain-hunting."
To get in the C-Mart spirit, she says, you should read the owner's handwritten ads every Thursday in the Baltimore Sun. (True mavens like her sign up for the store's weekly fax hotline.) In the ads, owner Doug Carton, whose parents opened C-Mart almost 30 years ago, describes his stupendous luck in persuading insurance companies to part with prime goods.
"C-Mart bought over 7,000 pieces of all holiday '97 goodies after the shipment arrived from Europe too late for two big fancy dept. stores," reads one. Another tale of ladies sportswear notes: "They flew this huge load into JFK from the Orient. When they unloaded the plane it started to rain (that's good for you) and the outer cartons got wet (that's good for us) and we bought the whole thing."
A load of Nikes, TVs, VCRs, tea and fishing rods comes to C-Mart because "someone stole a truckload of freight. The insurance co. paid off, the police caught the bad guys (yea), then the insurance co. sold the whole load to C-Mart (double yea)."
Insurance companies are the key to Carton's ability to bring shoppers such buys as $60 Bruno Magli shoes, $71 Emanuel Ungaro lined wool pants and a $131 Linda Allard-for-Ellen Tracy ski jacket (tagged at $465). A size 12 Dolce & Gabbana black crepe, long-sleeved, ankle-length dress is $345 instead of $2,300. A black quilted Dana Buchman jacket is $105, instead of $348, a $1,050 Searle coat priced at $248.
The important thing about C-Mart, Engel says, is that the stock turns over daily and there's lots of sales help, making sure that clothes and shoes are hung and arranged neatly, by size.
"You don't have to excavate here, and you won't find items with broken zippers or other blemishes. If they're seconds, they're marked. But most of the shipments are top-drawer merchandise. The downside is that C-Mart might not have what you're interested in the day you visit. But when your interests and Carton's insurance gods are smiling, it's nirvana. How about an entire department store stock of Keds, in every size, shape and description, for $5 each? That was one memorable score that avoided the painful $45 sticker shock for kids' tennis shoes. Or the time the California earthquake emptied out Bullock's full hosiery inventory, so our savings went off the Richter scale with Donna Karan stockings, in every color and size (C-Mart buys entire lots), for $2 a pair."
GETTING THERE: From I-95 north of Baltimore, take Exit 77-B and follow Route 24 toward Bel Air. About eight miles out, bear right, following the signs for Philadelphia, and take the exit a mile later for Route 24 north. The store is a block down on the right at 1503 Rock Spring Rd.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:: Contact C-Mart at 410/879-7858 or www.cmartdiscount.com. It is open 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays. Manny's Family Restaurant (410/879-6976), in the middle of the strip mall behind C-Mart, offers inexpensive Greek and Italian fast food. The $4.50 Greek salad has sufficient feta and greens for two. Ditto on the drinks – go for a small. The gyros, pizza and broiled crab cake are fine.
