After 80 years outfitting southwest Oklahoma City's blue-collar workforce, Sam's Best Buys is closing its doors for good. Owner Harvey Goldstein, who runs the store his parents founded, plans to retire and sell off the remaining inventory by December, ending an era for a shop that has clothed generations of ranch hands, oilfield workers, and industrial laborers along South Agnew Avenue.
Goldstein's parents, Sam and Pauline Goldstein, established the business in 1945 as KOCO first reported. The store sits at 2409 S. Agnew Ave. in southwest Oklahoma City, just north of the historic Stockyards City neighborhood, according to the Better Business Bureau Serving Central Oklahoma. Business records show the shop was first registered in October 1978 and long listed officially as Sam's Army Surplus Store before it expanded into general workwear and department goods, per the same BBB filing.
Pauline Goldstein, known to customers as Mrs. Sam, graduated from the Blackwood School of Business in 1937 before co-opening the surplus store with her husband in 1945, according to her 2007 obituary published by The Oklahoman. She worked at the store for the rest of her life and was married to Sam Goldstein for 55 years until his death in May 1992, the obituary states.
A Blue-Collar Destination Near the Stockyards
Sam's Best Buys made news back in 1989 as shoppers prepared for colder weather, and the store built its reputation over the decades as a fixture treating customers like neighbors. It became known for men's big-and-tall apparel up to size 10XL, flame-resistant clothing, and heavy workwear from brands like Dickies, Walls, Key, and Round House, according to a December 2016 report in Oklahoma Farm & Ranch. That niche made it a go-to for the industrial and agricultural workers who have long worked the South Agnew corridor near the Oklahoma National Stockyards, a district established in 1910 around what the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber describes as the world's largest stocker and feeder cattle market.
As recently as late 2025, local shoppers on Reddit pointed to Sam's Best Buys as one of the few remaining physical retailers in the Oklahoma City metro carrying specialized Dickies work trousers and hard-to-find utility clothing sizes, since big-box department stores often stock limited workwear styles and sizing. The store offered tailor-like fitting and competitive prices, and Goldstein kept costs down further by offering discounts to customers who paid with cash and by lowering prices as the closure approached.
A Family Legacy Ends
Goldstein, who has been married to his wife for 53 years, thanked Oklahomans for 80 years of shopping with the store as he announced his retirement plans. Better Business Bureau records updated in 2026 show the business has been listed with the Central Oklahoma BBB for nearly 48 years and holds an A+ rating, a long formal track record that closes out alongside the family's retail run.
Part of a Wider Retail Shift
The closure fits into a national pattern. A February 2025 report in the Journal of Antiques and Collectibles found that independent Army/Navy surplus stores across the country have faced widespread closures in recent decades, driven by shrinking post-Cold War military supply pipelines, stricter federal disposal rules, and competition from online retailers. Sam's Best Buys had already shed most of its original surplus identity for general workwear long before this final chapter, but its roots trace directly back to that postwar surplus boom.
The shutdown also lands amid a broader wave of independent brick-and-mortar closures across the Oklahoma City metro. Hoodline previously reported on The Loaded Bowl's exit after 13 years in business this past June, part of a pattern of long-running local operators facing rising overhead costs and shifting consumer habits.
Getting There During the Final Months
Customers hoping to shop the sell-off before Sam's Best Buys closes should note that the City of Oklahoma City announced in August a major road closure on nearby SW 15th Street for BNSF Railway repairs, expected to last through late September. The closure, which Hoodline covered in its report on the BNSF track repairs, is creating temporary traffic detours across southwest Oklahoma City, since SW 15th Street serves as a key east-west connector near the Agnew Avenue corridor.
Goldstein hopes to complete the inventory sell-off by December, closing out a store that has outfitted southwest Oklahoma City's working population since the year World War II ended. For a neighborhood built around the cattle trade and the industries that grew up beside it, the loss of Sam's Best Buys marks the end of a rare specialty retailer that few other shops in the metro have managed to replace.
