On October 17, 2008, the company announced that it would liquidate its assets through a Chapter 7 filing

Mervyn's was an American middle scale department store chain based in Hayward, California, and founded by Mervin G. Morris in 1949. It carried national brands of clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, electronics, and housewares. Many of the company's stores were in shopping malls.

Mervyns had delivered the right balance of style, quality, and value for families. They did this by focusing their fashion merchandise so that it's just what you want in your closet and home, allowing you more time to get to what really matters to you: your family.  Their goal has been and continues to be to satisfy their customers' expectations better than the competition by offering style, quality, excellent service, all at a good price.

In mid-1975, Mervyn's operated stores in the following locations, all in California: Alameda, Antioch, Campbell, Citrus Heights, Cupertino, Daly City, Dublin, Fremont, Merced, Millbrae, Modesto, Mountain View, Napa, Oakland, Petaluma, Sacramento-Point West and Florin, Salinas, East San Jose and South San Jose, San Lorenzo, San Pablo, Vallejo and Visalia. In October 1975, the chain expanded to southern California, opening stores in Fullerton and Huntington Beach. By 1978 the company had grown to a chain of more than 50 stores in three states, and Mervyn's was acquired by the Dayton Hudson Corporation (now Target Corporation). Mervyn's kept its separate identity as a Dayton Hudson subsidiary.

From 1995 to 2001, the stores were rebranded as Mervyn's California, in an effort to identify with its West Coast roots. In March 2004, Target Corporation announced that they planned to put the Mervyn's and Marshall Field's divisions up for sale to focus on Target stores. In July 2004, Target Corporation announced that Mervyn's had been sold to a group of investors that included private investment firm and turnaround specialist Sun Capital Partners, Cerberus Capital Management, and real estate investment company Lubert-Adler Management Inc.

Based on 2005 revenue, Mervyn's was the eighty-third largest retailer in the United States.   In 2006, Mervyn's had 189 stores in 10 states.   One year later, Mervyn's had reduced its store count to 177 stores in 7 states. On October 17, 2008, the company announced that it would liquidate its assets through a Chapter 7 filing.  All remaining locations were closed by December 31 of that year.

The Morris family, having bought back intellectual property rights to the company in 2009, announced plans to re-launch as an internet-based enterprise.

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