Toys R Us returns to the Houston area and more at Deerbrook Mall September 2022

 Macy's stores opened up several of their Houston area Toys R Us stores about a week or so ago. This area was their toy department last Christmas season, so it was no surprise that the TRU was placed here. The Memorial City Macy's will have a larger "Flagship" location sometime in the near future. It is great to see the Toys R Us name back, but I certainly miss the selection of the original version of Toys R Us. Since the department just opened, there are some opportunities to add more inventory in the future. The department was super clean and certainly keeps the feel of Toys R Us in a smaller space. Hopefully the third time is a charm, and Toys R Us will live on for good.

Here is the Deerbrook Mall Macy's Toys R Us department as seen on September 1, 2022.

The store has a pretty large footprint up on the third floor.

Geoffrey's Toy Box is front and center behind the centerpiece of the department.

A look at how wide the toy department is.

No video games yet, but they have a lot of Super Mario stuff on display.

More views of the store.

Sharper Image and Discovery Channel items.

You can see the old slogan on the wall here. 

The signage is reminiscent of the original Toys R Us stores.

Some of the displays were a little light on merchandise like the Hot Wheels and Nerf sections below.

Younger children also have a lot of options.

Photo-Op with Geoffrey.

The Barbie displays were light as well.

2021 Christmas season toy department. There were some advertisements for the upcoming Toys R Us department and some toys, but now we have the real deal.

One of the Toys R Us advertisements for the 2022 store addition.

After the Christmas season. The area was filled with Kids clothing after this photo was taken.

In addition to the Toys R Us. Super Nova Furniture has opened in the former second floor of the Forever 21 anchor. Forever 21 consolidated their store to one floor. First the store was consolidated to the second level with a clearance section downstairs. The first-floor mall entrance was closed off at this time. Then the store moved downstairs to make room for the furniture store. The outside of the building was renovated but the inside of the store looks like Forever 21 for the most part. I am glad that the mall added some new life to this half-dead anchor. Now they need to get the Sears filled up with more than Spirit Halloween, which should open up again pretty soon. 

This is what the outside of the store looked like once construction started.

The removal of the Forever 21 logo revealed a Circuit City labelscar from the short 2007-2009 Circuit City location that was here after Mervyn's closed.

This side of the store remained the same. It is the last corner of the building to retain the Mervyn's look. I will update this post once the storefront is finished.

These fixtures in the parking garage are some of the last neon era fixtures left. The food court was renovated recently and all of the cool movie themes were removed. The mall entrances were also renovated so this is the last 90's era mall logo left as well.

The Dillard's/JCPenney court elevator is the last interior old school neon left from the 1990's expansion era at Deerbrook Mall.  

Deerbrook Mall 1st day open after Covid lockdowns May 4th 2020

What did my local mall look like the day when covid restrictions statewide were lifted on May 4th, 2020? Mall retailers were allowed to begin to-go service to customers on April 24, 2020 as a soft reopening.

Well the first change is the Sears which closed back in April. Somehow the store closing sale continued even though Sears was not an essential business. 

5:30 in the afternoon and the mall is a ghost town. Only a handful of businesses reopened. 

Seats closed off.

JCPenney still closed.

Bath and Body Works still closed.

Dillard's still closed.

The last bit of 90's left in the mall, the neon elevator.

Normally these corridors would have been pretty busy. 

The few stores that were open had customer capacity restrictions and facemask signs. 

The first anchor that was open for business so far. Dick's Sporting Goods. This second level mall entrance now closed off. It is still closed off most of the time even with business mostly back to normal as of this post.

Macy's was also open, almost like an oasis in the mostly dark corridors.

H&M had just barely opened before the holidays and it was closed for the mall reopening.

Customer traffic in Dick's Sporting Goods was just as bad as in the mall. Maybe 5 people besides the employees.

The movie theater is the one part of the mall that is still not back to normal.

A handful of restaurants were open but for to-go orders only. All seating was closed off.

Seeing the mall like this was a huge shock. I had a lot of questions at that point. 

Did we go to far with the lockdowns?

When will things return to normal?

Will things return to normal?

Will these stores that didn't reopen come back at some point?

As of the posting of this article, things have mostly returned to normal at the mall. As of 2021, the mall has lost some inline tenants from bankruptcies and smaller retailers that couldn't recover. One of the most popular food court restaurants has been locked out of their business since October. The AMC is open but with greatly reduced offerings. Sears was reopened by Spirit Halloween for three months so we were able to see the inside of the store one last time. The Sears building currently is sitting vacant awaiting redevelopment or demolition. 

Now for some more shots of the freshly closed Sears.

2nd floor mall entrance.

1st floor mall entrance.