Toys “R” Us is opening new physical stores again, with a fresh location at the Chicago Premium Outlets in Aurora, Illinois joining roughly 30 flagship and standalone locations the brand now operates nationwide, plus another opening on the way at the Northridge Fashion Center in California’s San Fernando Valley, according to RetailBrew and Fox Business. It’s a modest footprint compared to what the chain once was, but it’s real, physical retail square footage from a brand that stopped existing as a standalone store chain in 2018.

From 1,450 Stores to Zero

Toys “R” Us traces back to 1948, when founder Charles Lazarus opened a baby-goods shop called Children’s Bargain Town in Washington, D.C. He pivoted to toys in 1957, building what became the first big-box toy megastore and, at its peak, a chain of 1,450 locations worldwide that controlled roughly a quarter of the entire global toy market, according to History.com’s retrospective on the chain. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September 2017 after carrying roughly $5 billion in debt, undone by a failed 2005 leveraged buyout, aggressive price competition from Walmart and Amazon, and stores that had grown outdated and understocked. It permanently closed every remaining U.S. location by June 2018.

A Brand Rebuilt Through Other People’s Stores First

The comeback didn’t start with standalone stores. WHP Global, a brand management firm that took a controlling stake in the Toys “R” Us name in 2021, first rebuilt the retail presence by partnering with Macy’s, placing hundreds of Toys “R” Us shop-in-shops inside Macy’s department stores starting in 2022. That partnership reportedly drove toy sales up fifteen times over what Macy’s saw in those departments before the branded shops arrived, per Fox Business’s reporting on the expansion. Only after that proof of concept did WHP Global, now working with Go! Retail Group, start opening freestanding flagship and outlet locations again, including an early flagship at the American Dream mega-mall in New Jersey.

Why the Industry Is Watching This Comeback Closely

Toy Association leadership has framed the expansion as good news for the entire category, not just for WHP Global’s balance sheet. The industry group’s president has pointed to Toys “R” Us as a brand that still lives vividly in the memory of parents and grandparents alike, and one that proves shoppers still want an in-person toy store experience rather than another algorithm-sorted online cart, per commentary reported by RetailBrew.

Nobody involved in this expansion is pretending the chain is heading back toward 1,450 locations anytime soon. What’s notable is that it’s rebuilding at all, and rebuilding through a sequence, department-store partnership first, flagship stores second, that most retail comeback stories skip in favor of a splashier, riskier full relaunch. A chain that vanished entirely from American retail in 2018 now has a real answer to the question of where a kid actually walks in to see the toy wall in person again.