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Turn Style was a chain of discount department stores and was a division of Chicago-based Jewel, the parent company of the Jewel Food Stores supermarket chain. Some Midwestern Turn Styles had an Osco Drug, at the time very uncommon for a discount store in the 1960s and 1970s. At its peak, the chain comprised more than fifty stores throughout Chicago, as well as in downstate Illinois, Decatur, Illinois, Moline, Illinois; Davenport, Iowa; Omaha, Nebraska; Boston, Massachusetts; Merrillville, Indiana; Michigan, and Racine, Wisconsin.
At its peak, the chain operated throughout the Midwest, as well as in the Boston, Massachusetts, area. Within three years of having opened a store in Racine, Wisconsin, profits as measured on a ROI basis were the highest within Jewel Companies. Rapid expansion, the corporate decision to incorporate a catalog type store within its four walls, and an unrealistic divisive venture into the "hypermarket" business, all caused profits to suffer.
The economy also caused Jewel to rethink its growth strategy and the decision was made to sell Turn Style in order to concentrate its growth within its core businesses, which were food stores and drugstores. In 1978, 19 out of 22 of the existing stores were sold to May Department Stores and converted to the Venture Stores format. Other stores were converted to large Osco Drug Stores, and some were closed entirely.
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