Toys R Us is preparing to open a 6,500-square-foot store at a San Fernando Valley mall, part of a broader national expansion that includes what the company calls its largest U.S. location ever.
The retailer, which shuttered every American storefront in 2018 after a bruising bankruptcy, has listed a new location at Northridge Fashion Center in the San Fernando Valley as "Coming Soon" on the mall's website. A sign outside the space carries the same message. No official opening date has been announced, but the New York Post reported the pop-up is set to open next month and run for one year. The store will sit on the mall's second level, near Foot Locker and Sephora, separate from the existing Macy's-hosted Toys R Us outpost already inside the same shopping center.
The Northridge location is one piece of a much larger play. Toys R Us now lists more than 30 standalone and flagship locations nationwide, and the chain has launched hundreds of shop-in-shop sections inside Macy's department stores since its relaunch. The California pop-up signals that the company is still pushing to plant its flag in new markets, even as questions linger about whether a nostalgia-driven brand can hold its own against Amazon and big-box competitors.
The backstory is well known to anyone who grew up wandering those aisles. Toys R Us filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2017 after years of declining sales and roughly $5 billion in debt. By 2018, every U.S. store had gone dark. The freestanding location in North Olmsted, Ohio, was among the casualties.
A year later, the brand reemerged under Tru Kids Brands. It was later sold to WHP Global, which struck a deal with Macy's to place Toys R Us outposts in all U.S. Macy's locations. That partnership gave the brand a low-risk footprint, shelf space inside someone else's store, but it also meant the full-size, standalone Toys R Us experience remained largely extinct.
The Northridge pop-up and the broader standalone expansion suggest the company believes there is still a market for a dedicated toy store, not just a branded corner inside a department store.
The California opening is not the only headline. The Washington Examiner reported that Toys R Us plans to open its largest-format U.S. store at the American Dream mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey, reportedly the second-largest mall in the country. That flagship will span two levels and include experiential features like an ice cream shop, moving well beyond traditional toy retail.
Yehuda Shmidman, chairman and CEO of WHP Global and Toys R Us, framed the New Jersey store in blunt terms:
"Toys R Us is back and it's back in a mega way. This is going to be our largest format store in America."
Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, told the Examiner the location made strategic sense:
"Opening in American Dream is sensible as the mall will attract a lot of family shoppers who are potential customers."
The New Jersey store is expected to open in December, timed to catch the holiday shopping season. If the company can deliver on the promise, it would mark a sharp contrast to the bare-bones Macy's partnerships that have defined the brand's post-bankruptcy existence.
Online reaction to the Northridge announcement has split along predictable lines. Some shoppers see the return as a lifeline for the mall itself. One Instagram commenter, as The Sun reported, wrote:
"Cool!! The last thing I wanna see is this mall gone, so I hope it gets the awesome store it needs to stay open a very very long time."
Another commenter hoped the new store would carry retro merchandise: "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."
But not everyone is sold. One fan acknowledged the Macy's sections and a Toys R Us outlet in Camarillo, California, but said they fell short: "Lets hope its close to the real thing. Its great they have a section in Macy's or even that outlet in Camarillo but it was still missing the essence. Here's hoping they have that in this store."
A blunter take captured the doubt: "That's cute that they're doing that but it'll never be a real Toys R Us that old heads remember."
Several details about the Northridge store remain unclear. The company has not announced a firm opening date, and it is not publicly known whether the 6,500-square-foot figure is specific to this location or a standard template for the expansion wave. The total number of Macy's stores currently hosting Toys R Us sections has not been specified, and the ownership structure of Tru Kids Brands, the entity that first revived the brand, has not been detailed publicly.
The one-year pop-up format for the Northridge location also raises a practical question: is this a test run, or a placeholder until the company can commit to a permanent lease? A yearlong trial limits the retailer's risk, but it also limits the kind of investment, in layout, inventory depth, and staffing, that made the original stores memorable.
Ohio still lists several Toys R Us locations on the company's website, though many of those appear to be Macy's-hosted sections rather than standalone stores. The gap between a branded department-store aisle and a full-size toy store is exactly what skeptics keep pointing to.
In a retail landscape dominated by online giants and big-box discounters, a comeback built on nostalgia and pop-up leases will have to prove it can deliver more than warm feelings. Markets reward execution, not sentiment, and the families who once filled those aisles deserve a store worth the drive.