When Nicola Wilkowski remembers the old Bank's in northeast Minneapolis, she recalls a place where sopping wet clothing had to be wrung out onto the concrete basement floor in the name of a bargain at 75 to 90 percent off. Experienced salvage shoppers knew to get there early, while the clothing was still wet, before the stains or smells had set.

Longtime Bank's shoppers were ecstatic over the opening of a new Bank's two weeks ago in Northtown Mall in Blaine. Brimming with fondness and nostalgia, they easily reeled off bargains scored 10 or 20 years ago at the old Bank's. Even the rank smell of the dank bargain basement had evolved into "smoky essence," as one sentimental shopper put it.

But no one has to contend with smells, stains or even dampness this time around.

"I love this," gushed Wilkowski of Robbinsdale as she took in the look of the new store on opening day two weeks ago. "I really missed Bank's, and this is much nicer."

Except for some wrinkled clothing and a few tattered boxes of small appliances, the layout and merchandise look almost as fresh as at Herberger's, except for the "everything must go" signs and the harsh lighting. All of the mid- to upper-end labels are there: Coach, Liz Claiborne, Sean John, Dooney & Bourke, Sigrid Olsen, Waterford, Krups, Kenneth Cole, DKNY and Hilfiger.

Patrick Morrison and Teresa Ponessa of Blaine found better deals. A set of Calphalon One cookware was priced at $400 less than retail. The newlyweds returned their unopened set to the department store where they purchased it at the higher price. The couple and three other generations of Bank's devotees gathered for coffee at a Starbucks near Northtown in what they called a "Bank's reunion" before the new store opened.

Morrison and Ponessa think that they probably first laid eyes on each other when they were kids on the sidewalk outside Bank's. "My grandmother and her mother used to haul us to Bank's an hour before the store opened," he said. "The adults stood in line drinking coffee, and we'd be sitting there freezing on the cement steps. I hated it."

The sale is conducted by Hudson Co. and Hilco, a Chicago liquidator. The company's lease is through December, then month to month. Another store with insurance liquidation merchandise is expected to open in the old Mervyn's in Eden Prairie Center in November, although it will not be called Bank's.

In the weird world of insurance salvage, Twin Cities bargain hunters can expect to benefit from the recent hurricane tragedies. Many retailers dictate where salvage can go. Often merchandise cannot be sold in cities where it can compete with the full-price stores. Retailers worry that bad customers will try to return the merchandise for credit at full-price stores. Much of the salvage from the South has been shipped to the north. Sometimes a retailer will not allow the merchandise to be sold in the same state as the full-priced retail stores, said Rod Elofson, former operations manager at the original Bank's. Dillard's closest store to the Twin Cities is in Waterloo, Iowa.

John Ewoldt may also be contacted at 612-673-7633 or by sending a fax to 612-673-4359.

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