Toys R Us announced 120 new standalone stores will open across the United States this holiday season, marking the once-bankrupt retailer's most aggressive brick-and-mortar push in years.
The toy giant's parent company, WHP Global, said the expansion, carried out through a partnership with Go! Retail Group, will bring the total number of standalone Toys R Us locations in the country to 160. Jamie Uitdenhowen, executive vice president of Toys R Us at WHP Global, called it "a major moment" for the brand, Fox Business reported.
The announcement caps a yearslong effort to rebuild a retail name that collapsed under $5 billion in debt, shuttered every U.S. store, and spent the better part of a decade clawing back shelf space through airports, department stores, and military exchanges. Whether 120 new storefronts can stick where earlier attempts failed is the open question, but the numbers behind the bet suggest the toy market itself has shifted in ways that favor the gamble.
Toys R Us filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2017 after years of declining sales. By 2018, every remaining U.S. store had closed. The brand resurfaced in 2019 under a new parent company, Tru Kids Brands, which opened smaller-format locations in Paramus, New Jersey, and Houston, Texas.
Both stores shut down in January 2021 as the COVID-19 pandemic gutted foot traffic. Months later, WHP Global acquired a controlling stake in the brand and reopened with a different playbook: a 20,000-square-foot flagship at the American Dream complex in New Jersey.
In 2022, Toys R Us shops appeared inside hundreds of Macy's stores nationwide. Macy's reported that its first-quarter toy sales jumped to 15 times the level seen before the partnership, a figure that likely gave WHP Global the confidence to push further into standalone retail.
By 2023, WHP Global had partnered with Go! Retail Group to roll out more U.S. flagship stores. The company opened its first airport location at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and later added a shop-in-shop at Orlando International Airport through a deal with WHSmith North America. Another Orlando airport location is scheduled for summer 2027.
The expansion is not just nostalgia. U.S. toy sales grew 17 percent in the first half of the year, the strongest first-half performance in six years, the New York Post reported. Adults now account for 55 percent of all toy purchases, driven largely by trading cards and collectibles.
Uitdenhowen acknowledged the shift directly.
"Kidults have become an important part of the category."
That adult spending is a meaningful tailwind. A retailer that went bankrupt selling to families with children is now reopening in a market where more than half the dollars come from grown-ups buying for themselves. Trading cards, collectible figures, and branded merchandise aimed at adults have reshaped the economics of toy retail, and Toys R Us appears to be chasing that demand with physical storefronts rather than relying solely on e-commerce.
Parents shopping for holiday gifts this season will want to keep product safety in mind, too. Federal regulators have recently flagged hazards in several popular children's products, including squishy toys pulled from shelves over water bead risks.
The company has described its multi-format approach as "air, land and sea", standalone stores, Macy's shop-in-shops, airport retail locations, and Navy Exchange outlets serving military families. Uitdenhowen framed the 120-store push as the next step in that strategy.
Go! Retail Group CEO Gideon Schlessinger said the companies expect the 160 standalone stores to bring the Toys R Us shopping experience to millions of customers during the holidays. Globally, Toys R Us says its business generates more than $2 billion in annual retail sales through more than 1,680 stores and e-commerce operations across 37 countries.
Still, significant questions remain unanswered. The company has not released a full list of cities where the 120 new stores will open, nor has it disclosed whether the locations are permanent or seasonal pop-ups. Store sizes have not been specified. The structure of the Go! Retail Group partnership, whether franchise, licensing deal, or joint venture, has not been made public.
Those details matter. A holiday pop-up and a permanent storefront carry very different implications for the brand's long-term viability. Consumers who remember the original chain's sprawling stores may find a seasonal kiosk underwhelming. And with recent recalls affecting nearly 180,000 children's finger light toys and other products, any retailer scaling fast needs robust quality controls on what it stocks.
The broader lesson of the Toys R Us revival, if it holds, is that physical retail is not dead. It just punishes companies that carry too much debt and reward those that match their footprint to actual demand. WHP Global appears to have learned from the chain's earlier collapse: test small, partner with established retailers like Macy's, and scale only when the sales data supports it.
The Macy's partnership alone produced a 15-fold increase in toy sales during one quarter. That is not a marginal improvement. It is the kind of result that justifies opening 120 doors at once, provided the standalone economics hold without Macy's foot traffic doing the heavy lifting.
Safety will remain a concern for parents navigating any toy aisle this season. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has been active in recent months, issuing warnings on products ranging from Elmo teether toys flagged for choking risks to millions of candy bottles recalled over similar hazards.
Uitdenhowen struck a confident tone about the industry itself.
"The toy industry is incredibly strong."
Strong enough to support 160 standalone stores from a brand that had zero four years ago? That is the bet. The holiday season will deliver the answer.
In a retail landscape littered with bankruptcies and empty storefronts, a company that went to zero and fought its way back to 160 locations deserves credit for persistence, and scrutiny to see if the math actually works this time.