Toys ‘R’ Us was the magical place where all of your hopes and dreams came true. And then they all died when the store went into liquidation earlier this year.
For many, the giant toy store represented a huge chunk of their childhood – with Geoffrey the Giraffe taking centre stage.
But now, it looks like Geoffrey is making a comeback as Toys ‘R’ Us appears to have relaunched as ‘Geoffrey’s Toy Box’.
The new rebrand has appeared in a pop-up manner within various retail stores, such as Kroger, across the US, creating excitement about the return of the toy store.
One such pop-up stand was spotted in a retail store in America and was posted to Instagram yesterday (November 1) by @exclusivebeji. The Instagram user told Business Insider he saw the displays in a Fred Meyer store in Lacey, Washington – Fred Meyer being a subsidiary of Kroger.
The Geoffrey logo matches the Toys ‘R’ Us logo – it has the same font and makes use of the same colours.
Announcing that ‘Geoffrey’s back!!!’, the picture quickly gained hundreds of likes with many people commenting demanding to know where the pop-up store was.
The overall response was that this was ‘awesome’ news, with one person writing, ‘Finally welcome back Geoffrey!!’.
And it doesn’t appear that this is a one-off incident, as others have been posting to social media with their own sightings:
Toys ‘R’ Us shut its doors back in June and was supposed to auction off its assets later on in the year. However, the company announced in October they’d cancelled this auction.
The cancellation meant items which hadn’t been liquidated already, such as the Geoffrey mascot, were not sold on.
According to the company’s press release on October 2, Geoffrey, LLC still owns the rights to the giraffe mascot and a portfolio of over 20 well-known toy and baby brands, including Imaginarium, Koala Baby, Fastlane, and Journey Girls.
They went on to say:
The new owners are actively working with potential partners to develop ideas for new Toys “R” Us and Babies “R” Us stores in the United States and abroad that could bring back these iconic brands in a new and re-imagined way.
And it looks as though these brands are being brought back perhaps sooner than anyone expected. Kroger made an official announcement this morning (November 2) saying Geoffrey’s Toy Box is headed to nearly 600 Kroger stores across the US just in time for the holiday season.
According to aNb Media, the branded displays will appear in participating stores with a selection of 35 children’s toys. The prices will range from $19.99 to $49.99.
Robert Clark, Kroger’s senior vice president of merchandising, said in the statement:
Geoffrey’s Toy Box delivers a unique shopping destination within Kroger stores.
We’re excited to offer Geoffrey’s Toy Box this holiday season to provide our customers with the opportunity to purchase a selection of toys once exclusive to Toys R Us.
Executive vice-president at Geoffrey’s Toy Box, Richard Barry, added:
We are thrilled to partner with Kroger to bring a curated collection of product from our beloved portfolio of brands to American consumers this holiday.
Unfortunately, these pop-up stores are currently only in the US and so not everyone has access to them.
Fingers crossed this changes soon though!
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).