Toys "R" Us will open a year-long "pop-up" location at a San Fernando Valley shopping center, its latest attempt at a brick-and-mortar comeback after years of bankruptcy, closures, and false starts.
A sign spotted at Northridge Fashion Center in the San Fernando Valley announces that the once-dominant toy retailer will move into a closed Sephora storefront on the mall's second level, near Foot Locker. A local Facebook account, What's New SFV, published a photo of the sign, and a mall representative confirmed the plan, describing the store as a year-long "pop-up" set to open soon.
The sign itself lists a fall 2026 opening. The mall representative told the New York Post the store would open "next month." Whether those two timeframes line up depends on when the statement was made, but either way, the Northridge location would mark a new standalone outpost for a brand that has spent nearly a decade trying to claw its way back from collapse.
Toys "R" Us filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2017. By 2018, every U.S. location had gone dark. The chain tried again in 2019, reopening stores in New Jersey and Texas, only to shut them down in 2021 when the COVID-19 pandemic crushed foot traffic.
That same year, WHP Global purchased the brand and struck a deal with Macy's to install small Toys "R" Us outposts inside the department store chain. Those outposts now operate in every Macy's location across the country. A Macy's already sits inside Northridge Fashion Center, meaning the mall will soon host both an in-store outpost and a freestanding Toys "R" Us, though whether the two share any operational relationship remains unclear.
Outside the Macy's arrangement, Toys "R" Us currently runs standalone flagship locations at just three sites: Camarillo Premium Outlets in Camarillo, California; Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota; and American Dream Mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The Northridge pop-up would add a fourth, temporarily, at least.
Online reaction captured the generational fault line the brand straddles. Some commenters welcomed the return with open arms.
One wrote:
"They should do retro toy section for us grown ups who were a kid so we can relive our childhood memories back in the day."
Others were less convinced that a pop-up in a vacated cosmetics store could deliver the experience they remember. As another commenter put it:
"That's cute that they're doing that but it'll never be a real Toys R Us that old heads remember."
A third kept it simple: "Now bring back Payless!"
The skepticism is not unreasonable. Toys "R" Us has now been through a bankruptcy filing, a total liquidation, a brief reopening, a second round of closures, a corporate sale, and a relaunch inside someone else's department stores. Calling the Northridge location a "pop-up", with a built-in one-year expiration, does not exactly signal long-term confidence in standalone retail.
For all the nostalgia the announcement created, basic questions remain unanswered. No one has disclosed the square footage of the new store, the terms of the lease or licensing arrangement, or why Northridge Fashion Center was chosen. The mall representative who confirmed the opening was not named, and the format of the statement, whether it came by email, phone, or press release, was not specified.
The timeline itself carries a wrinkle. WHP Global acquired Toys "R" Us in 2021, the same year the New Jersey and Texas locations closed. Whether the sale happened before or after those closures is not clear from available reporting, a detail that matters for understanding whether WHP inherited a functioning retail operation or simply bought a brand name and a wave of goodwill.
Free markets reward brands that deliver value, and punish the ones that coast on sentiment. Toys "R" Us earned its place in American childhood, but a one-year pop-up in a shuttered Sephora will need more than Geoffrey the Giraffe to prove the brand still has a future beyond the Macy's aisle.