Sorry for the long gap without posting! 2021 ended on a busy note, continuing into 2022.
Here is another Toys R Us closing sale. This was a newer location that had an open floor design. The middle of the store had the open floor with low shelves and product displays. The sides of the store had the tall shelving aisles that Toys R Us was known for. This store opened up along with this retail big box center in the early 2000's. This former Toys R Us is now a Hobby Lobby.
This store had the design that was also found at the Willowbrook and Memorial City locations.
The newer 2000's era Geoffrey just doesn't look the same.
With all of the large boxed items on the floor, it was difficult to get a wide view of the store.
The Babies R Us section of the store.
The toy collector section of the store.
This store had the newer electronics department that was a mix of the old and new designs. For example, this wide open area had the display counters and checkouts. There were also aisles with the video game consoles and game cases like the early days of video games at Toys R Us, but without the ticket system.
From this view, the store looks fairly normal.
Pretty wiped out just around the corner though. This area of the electronics department had accessories for video games such as Amiibo. The games were on a nearby aisle.
Empty displays.
More views from across the store.
Star Wars merchandise was still well stocked at this point in the sale.
One of the few product displays in the store. There used to be a lot more.
Gotta check out the Lego aisles.
The checkout areas of the store.
One last look as we head out from the store.
To end this blog post on a positive note, Toys R Us has reopened a physical store in New Jersey. There are several Youtube videos online and this article is a good place to start. Toys ‘R’ Us Tries to Come Back, Four Years After Bankruptcy - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
We will keep our eyes out locally as well. Some of our local Macy's stores are slated to get the Toys R Us mini stores later in 2022.
Let me first say that it's great to see the blog back for 2022. I know that you have some stuff planned to post this year so it'll be exciting to see all of that. I know the blog is still getting a lot of comments and such so people seem to be enjoying the new posts and also the older ones as well.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot in these photos which looks like any other Toys R Us which opened in the 1980s or so. I guess the middle section does look different from the TRUs I'm used to, which was probably true of the newer Willowbrook Mall location as well, but the other parts of the store have the classic TRU look to it.
I agree with you that the 'new' Geoffrey is quite different from the classic Geoffrey. Then again, perhaps the newer one looks a bit more modern and is more relatable with younger kids. The 'old' Geoffrey probably does look quite dated to modern kids.
On that note, one of those TRU Kids posters in the entryway would have been an interesting collectors item. Did you try asking the store if you could have or buy them? I'd imagine quite a few people would have wanted those.
We'll have to see how the TRU Macy's mini-stores go here in 2022. Hopefully it'll be at least a bit longer lasting than The Galleria TRU reboot. Macy's in general is not exactly the center of the retail universe these days so it's hard to predict how this will go, but at least it should give Macy's a bit more of much needed variety.
I already did some mall documentation in 2022, lol. So much for not doing any documentation for posts after 2021. Even though the documentation was of the heavily covered San Jacinto Mall.
DeleteThat TRU location has a lot of interesting features. I really liked the late 1990's look of the Baybrook and Sugarland locations. Baybrook was the only one of those two stores I was able to document.
I haven't been to any malls besides San Jacinto so far in 2022. If I do see any progress with the TRU stores inside of Macy's, I will probably make a special post.
It will be difficult not to cover the history of some of these retailers and retail locations which have been in operation for several decades. I'm glad you're documenting what you can even if it's reduced from what was covered in the past. The number of interesting things which still exist is certainly much less now than it was even a decade ago , IMO, so I can understand the lack of interest in covering a lot of the modern retail scene.
DeleteWhile I don't visit many malls these days, I did visit Willowbrook Mall here recently to visit the new Sears Hometown store. As expected, the inventory is very thin. The staff said that they will be getting more inventory as time goes on and that the formal grand opening of the store won't be until February sometime. As for how the store looks, well, it basically looks as it does in Mike's photos on the HHR Facebook page.
Right now, the Humble Sears Hometown has quite a bit more merchandise than the Willowbrook location, but hopefully that will change in the near future. Having a small store in such a large mall anchor space does feel a bit strange and I can't help but to think that the shopping center location in Humble might be preferable in many ways to the old Sears mall spot, but it's neat that the old mall anchor is alive again. I just could not believe that I was shopping at Sears again at Willowbrook Mall!
Speaking of history, I just finished one of my surprise posts. It took several hours of research to put this one together. I have a few more surprises left, but this one needed to get bumped up in priority. There are some malls in the Dallas area that I am now debating on visiting that were on my list to cover for the blog.
DeleteI am glad that Sears is coming back in a way. I saw a video from about a month ago at one of the few remaining full-sized stores. It was very pathetic and their clothing selection was nearly stripped down to scraps. I am not sure if this store will be downsized even more in the future, but it was already down to one-level. Another store I saw, had better inventory levels but the mattress and boxed appliances had been spread out across the store. These new stores need merchandise badly, especially the Pasadena and Willowbrook locations. I guess they can split some of the space at Willowbrook with Spirit Halloween in October, but I wonder what the long-term plan is with the rest of the space.