Is Toys "R" Us Discontinued? What Happened?

Toys R Us was a chain of large toy stores that millions of kids grew up visiting. It was founded in 1948 by Charles Lazarus in Washington D.C., where it started as a store selling children's furniture. In 1957 he opened a store that sold only toys, and the chain was born.

The stores were enormous compared to what most shops looked like at the time. Walking into a Toys R Us felt like stepping into a place where every shelf was stacked from floor to ceiling with games, action figures, bikes, and board games. A cartoon giraffe named Geoffrey became the face of the brand and was one of the most recognized mascots in American retail.

In 1978 the company went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Geoffrey the Giraffe started showing up in TV commercials and became a fixture in American pop culture. In 1996 the company launched Babies R Us, a separate store focused on products for babies and young children. The two stores often shared a building and became a familiar sight in shopping centers across the country.

That first toys-only store opened in Rockville, Maryland. Decades later, on November 17, 2001, Toys R Us opened an international flagship store in New York's Times Square at a cost of about $35 million. The 110,000-square-foot store featured themed zones, including a Barbie section with a life-size Dreamhouse, a Jurassic Park area with an animatronic T-Rex, a Lego zone, and a signature indoor Ferris wheel. It also became a gaming destination, partnering with Microsoft to be the first store in the world to launch the original Xbox console on November 15, 2001. In 2006 the store added a Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova arcade machine, and it later grew into a full arcade known as "R"Cade.

In 2005 a group of investment firms bought Toys R Us. To do it they borrowed a huge amount of money, roughly five billion dollars, and the company became responsible for paying it back. That kind of deal is called a leveraged buyout. The debt made it very hard to invest in things like better stores, more staff, or a good website.

While Toys R Us was weighed down by that debt, Amazon and Walmart started selling toys online and in their own stores at lower prices. Toys R Us kept losing customers year after year. The company filed for bankruptcy in September 2017.

Toys R Us tried to find a buyer who would keep the stores open, but no deal came together. In March 2018, the company announced it would close all US locations. Most stores were shut by June 2018. It was the end of a chain that had been the go-to toy store in America for decades.

The Toys R Us name was sold to a company called Tru Kids Brands. They opened small stores and later partnered with Macy's to put Toys R Us sections inside Macy's department stores. The original chain is gone, but the name found a smaller second life.