Toys R Us is back — here’s where you can find it in Sacramento, Modesto, and Fresno

Toys R Us and its mascot, Geoffrey the giraffe, have been revived from the dead, and are now part of Macy’s, courtesy of a licensing deal aimed at helping the department store sell more toys.

The 2,500 square feet Toys R Us on the second floor of the Macy’s at the Arden Fair mall in Sacramento opened on July 29 along with other locations throughout Northern California and the nation. That includes Macy’s stores in Vintage Faire Mall in Modesto and Fashion Fair in Fresno.

By October, all of Macy’s more than 500 stores will have a Toys R Us pop-up.

For the most part, the toy sections will be small, running from 1,000 to 3,000 square feet, compared to the more than 30,000 square feet that was the norm for the toy chain’s 731 stores.

An exception will be Macy’s flagship stores in Union Square in San Francisco and the Valley Fair mall in San Jose, as well as in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, where Toys R Us sections will be as large as 10,000 square feet.

Toys R Us stores all closed in 2018 following a bankruptcy filing the previous year. The toy store’s private equity owners had taken the company private, saddling it with billions of dollars of debt, and a $400 million a year interest payment.

This time around, Macy’s will be in charge. The department store chain entered into an agreement last year with WHP Global, a brand acquisition and management firm, that had acquired the rights to the Toys R Us brand after the bankruptcy.

The agreement means that Macy’s will be running the Toys R Us locations in its stores and the department store’s buyers will be responsible for acquiring the toys, said James Zahn, deputy editor of The Toy Book, a trade news site covering the toy industry.

He said WHP Global has an in-house team that helps Macy’s design the toy areas.

While Macy’s will be competing against online retailers such as Amazon for toy sales, Zahan said the company is opening physical locations at the right time.

“What we have seen over the past few years is a real big movement back to brick and mortar,” he said. “The pandemic really accelerated that after folks were cooped up inside.”

Before last week’s Toys R Us openings at the Arden Fair and other stores, Macy’s sold toys in an unbranded area.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Toys R Us at the Arden Fair mall had no sales personnel assigned to the toy area.

A Macy’s spokesman said the Toys R Us will come to life with hands-on demonstration areas that will offer children an opportunity to sample merchandise.

The Toys R Us at the Arden Fair mall features a bench with the figure of Geoffrey the giraffe. There is room on the bench for a child to sit next to Geoffrey while parents take a picture.

Geoffrey will be featured at all the Toys R Us in the Macy’s department stores.

Zahn said it was smart to bring back the Toys R Us mascot

“Kids love the giraffe,” he said. “You would be hard-pressed to find any kids who’ve encountered Geoffrey over the past few decades who doesn’t like him.”

Cecilia Rivera and her son Isaac, 10, were happy to encounter Geoffrey and Toys R Us at the Macy’s at the Arden Fair mall on Wednesday.

“I definitely think it’s awesome that they are bringing it back,” she said. “All kids loved Toys R Us. It was really sad when they took it away.”

Issac, who was 6, when Toys R Us closed, said he cried.

“All kids cried,” he said.