NEW YORK — FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2026 — Toys"R"Us announced on September 17 that it will open 120 new standalone stores across the United States this holiday season through a partnership with Go! Retail Group, according to Retail TouchPoints — taking its US standalone count from 40 to 160. The brand liquidated in 2018, closing every store. Eight years later, it is expanding its physical footprint again.
01 The plan: 120 stores, everywhere, by Christmas
The details come straight from the September 17 press release, via Retail TouchPoints. Go! Retail Group — the Austin-based operator that built its business on pop-up retail — is handling the rollout. On top of the 120 new standalone stores, the expansion includes new airport shop-in-shops with WHSmith North America (the first opened at Orlando International back in August), continued Toys"R"Us shops inside Macy's stores nationwide, and locations with the Navy Exchange Service Command.
Jamie Uitdenhowen, EVP of Toys"R"Us at WHP Global, said in the announcement: "This is a major moment for Toys'R'Us as we significantly expand our presence across the United States... Toys'R'Us has always been a place for discovery." In the same announcement, Gideon Schlessinger, CEO of Go! Retail Group, said: "something special about walking into a Toys'R'Us store, especially during holidays," per Bucks County Today.
02 Creator studios, candy shops, and cafés
These are not the stores you remember, and that's deliberate. Select locations will get Creator Studios — content-creation spaces where influencers, creators and toy brands can shoot, unveil new products and host reveals and events — plus candy shops and cafés, per AY Magazine's coverage of the announcement. The toy industry has fully absorbed that a kid's wishlist is now written by an algorithm, and instead of fighting it, Toys"R"Us is putting creators on the payroll floor.
As for what they'll be selling: the curated assortment leans on the heavy hitters — LEGO, Barbie, Hot Wheels, Pokémon, and KPop Demon Hunters merch, per Bucks County Today. KPop Demon Hunters is the kind of property that didn't exist in the old toy aisle, and its presence on the shelf list is telling: this expansion is being built for kids who live on YouTube and parents who grew up with Geoffrey the Giraffe.
03 What happened in 2017–2018
It is worth remembering how completely this business collapsed, because the scale of the rebuild is the story. Toys"R"Us filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2017 carrying roughly $5 billion in debt — the legacy of the 2005 leveraged buyout, per TradingView and Seeking Alpha — and then liquidated in 2018, closing every store. The mascot was done. the old Toys"R"Us advertising jingle went silent. WHP Global acquired the brand in 2021, and has been slowly rebuilding the physical footprint ever since — 40 standalone stores plus the Macy's shop-in-shops — before this year's holiday expansion to 160.
04 The real reason it works: the kidults
Here's the part that makes this a bet and not a nostalgia play. US toy dollar sales were up 17% in the first half of 2026 — the strongest first half in six years, per business-news-today. And the engine behind it is not what you'd guess: per Circana data reported by Seeking Alpha via TradingView, 55% of first-half 2026 toy sales came from adult-only households, with purchases for adult recipients up 25%. More than half the toy money is being spent by households with no kids, buying for themselves.
Fifty-five percent. The toy industry is increasingly being carried by adults who want the LEGO set for their own shelf — kidults, the industry's term for adult toy buyers — and a Toys"R"Us with a content studio and a café is a store built for exactly that customer.
The timing also says something about who is bankrolling the comeback. WHP Global — the brand-management firm that has owned Toys"R"Us since acquiring it in 2021 — manages a portfolio of more than 16 consumer brands that together generate over $9.5 billion in retail sales, per Retail TouchPoints. And the American expansion is happening even as Toys"R"Us Canada, a separate company under different ownership, filed for bankruptcy protection and began shrinking its own store footprint less than a year ago, per the same report. The US giraffe, it turns out, is running a very different race than its northern cousin — one where the bet is that grown-ups with disposable income and a nostalgia budget are the most reliable customers in the toy aisle.
Our holiday gift guide for 2026 is where we'll be tracking the season's must-haves, and Jennifer Aniston's new holiday movie with Regina Hall is already building the season's watchlist. Also, check our culture roundup for today.