Toys “R” Us Is Coming Back, And Oklahoma Is Already In

I saw something on social media about Toys “R” Us coming back to Oklahoma City, supposedly at the OKC Outlets, so I started looking around to see if it was true... And while I couldn't confirm that particular location, I did find a pair of limited Toys “R” Us specialty stores listed on the official website. One at Macy's inside Penn Square Mall and the other at Woodland Hills Mall in Tulsa.

It's like the golden age of the 90s is slowly building back, and Oklahoma is in on this trend.

This is huge for Millennial parents and the Gen-X grandparents out there. It's right in our nostalgic wheelhouse.

The Toys “R” Us Catalog Was Christmas Wish-List Gold

Way back before online shopping ruined the in-store shopping experience, every kid in the 80s and 90s can remember thumbing through those Toys “R” Us catalogs that showed up right around Thanksgiving. My sisters and I knew our parents didn't have a lot, but we sure loved rolling through the pages and circling the stuff we wanted. It was prime Christmas wish-list material.

That's the magic of a catalog. Not quite the instant gratification you get today, but the joy of wishing for what you wanted, and writing Santa so he wouldn't forget. It was exactly like the BB gun in A Christmas Story. You had a physical picture of it, so you reminded yourself every day between Thanksgiving and Christmas morning of those toy dreams.

A Toy Store That Felt Like An Event

And then there was the store itself. My family only went to Toys “R” Us once, and it was a big enough experience I can still remember it thirty years later. Toys upon toys upon toys, and just about everything had at least one floor model you could play with before buying. It was epic, and now we get to share that experience with our own kids... Provided they're not asking for the latest fancy Galaxy flagship phone or gas cards because they refuse to get a job.

I wonder if they'll roll the announcements with online ads, or if they'll actually whip out the old Toys "R" Us jingle. If you're under the age of 25, you probably don't remember, but it was just as much a Christmas banger as the B.C. Clark's Anniversary Sale jingle.

Now I'm wondering if this will be a holiday type of thing, or if the Toys “R” Us mini-stores will be permanent. I mean, as a kid, it seemed like a business too big to fail, yet after years of Amazon, Walmart, and those 50/50 shopping scams on Facebook, they filed for bankruptcy in 2017 and closed all of its remaining.

For a lot of us, that was the end of an era, even if we hadn't shopped there for years... But as I said, we're in that Goldilocks era now. Millennial parents, Gen-X grandparents, and maybe even a little recognition from the Elder Zoomers out there.

The two announced Oklahoma stores are part of a new nationwide push to capture that nostalgia again. Toys “R” Us announced in September that it plans to open 120 new standalone stores across the country in time for the 2026 holiday season, bringing its current total to 160.

That doesn't confirm the social media claim about OKC Outlets, but the two Oklahoma Macy's locations are real. Also, aggravatingly, the company hasn't published a complete list of all the new standalone stores either, so we'll have to wait to see whether Oklahoma gets a third location.

I wonder how many kids will get excited about this. I can only assume that if anything, parents might want to give their kids a taste of a real toy store. I've got some Google alerts set up for myself. If the Sooner State scores another, or a standalone store, I'll let you know.