Dorian's, Department store chain in Tijuana, Mexico
Dorian's was a department store chain headquartered in Tijuana, Baja California, selling family clothing, perfumery and household goods. Founded downtown in 1959, it grew into a regional chain serving local shoppers and cross-border tourists, and in 1989 it launched the beauty and variety chain DAX. Grupo Carso bought it in 2004 and in 2009 its fourteen stores became Sears Mexico.
Dorian's was founded in 1959 by four partners—Salomón Cohen Achmi, Herman "Dori" Hirsh (later Pedro Dorian), Miguel Goldstein and Ángel García Vásquez—who combined La Bola with a vacated Chrysler dealership on Calle Segunda. The name joined "Dori" with the first letters of Ángel and Salomón. A fire on 9 November 1977 spread from a neighbouring fabric shop and damaged thirteen premises; Dorian's reopened 17 working days later with half its sales floor in tents in a nearby parking lot, and the rebuilt store opened in 1978.
The name Dorian's combined "Dori", the nickname of partner Herman Hirsh, with the first two letters of Ángel García and the "s" of Salomón Cohen. The founders set out to compete with the department stores across the border in San Diego, and the chain drew both local shoppers and cross-border tourists.
The original store stood at the corner of Calle Segunda and Avenida Niños Héroes in downtown Tijuana; that building now houses the Plaza de la Tecnología, an indoor market of small electronics and video-game vendors. The other thirteen branches were rebranded as Sears in 2009, so only this address survives as a trace of the chain.
The downtown Tijuana location was later transformed into Plaza de la Tecnología, a marketplace focused on technology shops. This change happened after the chain merged with Sears México in 2009 and completely altered how people used the space.
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