After a long pause, we are back for the first post of 2026. We added a new city in Louisiana to our adventures. We finally made it to Monroe in Northeast Louisiana to cover the last major mall in the State. We found this gem on the way to our destination of the Pecanland Mall. We will feature the neighboring Pecanland Mall in the next blog post. First we will feature this abandoned Toys R Us store.
This Toys R Us store is a rare relic of the original big box chain that no longer exists. The store at 1350 Pecanland Drive closed around June 30, 2018 along with the rest of the chain.
The signs are gone, the labelscars are very deep, and the building is missing a few tiles, but this is a very well preserved former Toys R Us.
Not much is left inside of the building, but it has not been stripped out as we have seen at several remaining empty Toys R Us locations.
The road leading to the front of the store is stunning. All of these bushes are manicured, creating a really cool entryway to the old stores.
When I noticed this sign off of I-20, a piece of me got excited like when I was young. As we were about to take the Pecanland Mall exit, this sign greets you just to the West of the mall.
One last look at the sign before we head to the neighboring Pecanland Mall.
Here is some teaser phots from the Pecanland Mall. It is a very unique mall and we are glad to finally feature it on the blog.
Stay tuned Pecanland Mall is next up.
It is interesting to see that the sign is still up after all these years. It is interesting to see how spartan these buildings look inside when they are empty, but we've seen that in other closing TRU photos as well. I'm not sure if there is one in the area already, but if not, it wouldn't surprise me if this becomes an Ollie's or something of that sort.
ReplyDeleteThat Pecanland Mall teaser photos are really interesting. That certainly looks like a tribute to the 1980s with that architecture and especially the mirrored finishes, and not just on the JCPenney either. The combination of the mirrored finishes and skylights makes one wonder if there is some real glare at that mall at certain times of the day. Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing the post about that mall!
It is good to see the blog back and active here in 2026! There isn't a whole lot of interesting things going on in the retail world these days, maybe aside from closing Randall's stores and especially closing Kroger stores locally. Still, there are always interesting things to chronicle!
The strange part of seeing a zombie Toys R Us is the fact that we had a small Toys R Us store at the Woodlands Mall around Christmas time. The new pop-up stores are more focused on product sales unlike the short-lived Galleria store. I went to 3 Toys R Us locations in 2025. Two of those were the pop-up stores for Christmas time. The pop-up stores didn't have any interactive displays and reminded me of the old pop-up stores that the original Toys R Us did in the 90's and 2000's. The pricing was also a little bit higher than you would find at Walmart, Target, or Amazon. I am not sure if they price match, but it would probably be a good idea to help them grow again.
DeleteThe mall was really surprising to see in person. The photos I have found online of the mall don't do the place justice. The size of the mall is a lot more than I was expecting as well. The layout of the mall also reminds me a bit of Mall of the Mainland. Pecanland is nearly a million square feet and 7 anchor spots. The only vacant anchor there is the former Sears. In comparison to the malls in Shreveport and Alexandria Louisiana, this one is doing much better than those smaller properties.
The old school grocery store closures will probably accelerate as other grocers continue to expand in the area. I have noticed even more restaurant closures around town over the past year too. I haven't ventured out into the documentation of food places, but as a former restaurant employee, I still have fond memories of some of the chains that are long-gone.