How one mall shop in Glendale became 747 stores
The first Disney Store opened on March 28, 1987 at the Glendale Galleria in Glendale, California. It was the first Disney shop built outside a theme park or a resort, and the interior was themed to Hollywood on the theory that every store would eventually reflect the town around it.
The format was built to be loud. Video screens ran cartoon clips above the sales floor, staff were called cast members, and almost everything on the shelves was made for the chain rather than bought in from other suppliers.
It expanded with the American mall. By 1997 there were more than 600 Disney Store locations in the United States and ten other countries. The chain peaked in 1999 at 747 stores across 11 countries, the largest it has ever been.
That peak came the same year mall anchor traffic began to slide, and the chain rode the slide down with every other tenant on the concourse, from Toys R Us to the record shops at the far end of the food court.
Why Disney handed its own chain to a kids' clothing company
By the early 2000s the stores were a problem for Disney's consumer products division rather than a showcase for it. In November 2004 Disney sold the North American Disney Store business to The Children's Place, the mall-based children's clothing retailer, and licensed the brand to it instead of running the shops directly.
The Children's Place operated the stores through a subsidiary named Hoop Holdings. The arrangement lasted less than four years. Hoop Holdings went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2008, and on May 1, 2008 the transaction returning 231 North American Disney Stores to affiliates of The Walt Disney Company was completed.
So Disney spent four years demonstrating that it did not want to be a mall landlord's tenant, then bought its way back in at the bottom of a recession. The stores it recovered were remodeled and reopened under Disney control, and for a decade the chain looked stable again.
The 2021 decision that emptied the concourses
On March 3, 2021 Disney said it would close at least 60 North American Disney Store locations before the end of that year, about 20 percent of a chain that then ran roughly 300 stores worldwide. The plan was expected to leave fewer than 250 open by the close of 2021.
Stephanie Young, then president of Disney's consumer products, games and publishing unit, gave CNBC the reasoning in 2021. "While consumer behavior has shifted toward online shopping, the global pandemic has changed what consumers expect from a retailer," she said.
The selling moved to shopDisney, the company's own e-commerce site, and to Disney Store shop-in-shops inside Target. Neither those Target shops nor Disney's 600-plus theme park stores were part of the 2021 closures, which is why the company could shut dozens of malls' worth of retail and still say its stores were growing.
For shoppers the effect was the same one Kmart customers had already learned. The chain did not announce an ending. It just stopped being anywhere near you.
The 2026 count, and what actually counts as a store
As of April 2026 there were about 21 company-owned Disney Store locations left in North America. Against the 747 the chain ran in 1999, that is a reduction of roughly 97 percent in 27 years.
The count is slippery because Disney now sells the same merchandise four different ways, and three of them get counted as Disney retail in company statements. There are the theme park shops, more than 600 of them. There are the Disney Store shop-in-shops inside Target. There is shopDisney online. And then there are the surviving standalone stores, which is what people mean when they type the question into a search box.
Most of the survivors sit in outlet centers rather than the enclosed malls the chain was designed for, because outlet rents are cheaper and the traffic is already there to buy discounted brands.
Disney has not published a store list, and fan trackers counting locations one by one in 2026 land in the same range, at about 20 to 21 in the United States.
What the 2026 mall pop-ups are testing
In April 2026 Disney announced Disney Store Limited Time, a run of temporary shops built with Go! Retail Group. The first opened on May 23, 2026 at Ross Park Mall in Pittsburgh, on the upper level. The second opened at Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey on September 3, 2026, and is scheduled to run through the 2026 holiday season.
They are deliberately styled after the Disney Store of the 1990s and early 2000s, down to a daily opening ceremony, which tells you exactly which decade Disney thinks the nostalgia sits in.
Patrick Sager, vice president of Disney Store, told NJBIZ in 2026 that the format lets Disney "bring the Disney Store experience into new communities, deepen our connections with fans and learn from how they engage with the brand."
Nothing in that is a commitment. The leases are short, the inventory is limited, and Disney has said the shops are temporary. What it is, plainly, is a test of whether the chain still has a floor under it in 2026, run the way Disney has tested products since it bought Club Penguin: quietly, in one market, with an exit already written.
Where to find Disney Store merchandise today
The chain's own products outlived most of its addresses. The 1990s bean bag plush lines, the exclusive VHS clamshells, the snow globes, the shopping bags and the cast member name badges all still circulate, mostly from people who worked in the stores or cleared one out when it closed.
Nearly all of it reaches buyers through Etsy's vintage Disney Store listings. Prices follow condition and character rather than scarcity, since none of it was manufactured to be rare, and anything still carrying its original hang tag sells for a premium over the same piece without one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Disney Store still open in 2026?
Yes. About 21 company-owned Disney Store locations were still trading in North America as of April 2026, most of them in outlet centers, alongside shopDisney online and Disney Store shop-in-shops inside Target. Disney also opened two temporary Disney Store Limited Time shops in 2026, in Pittsburgh in May and in Paramus, New Jersey in September.
Why did Disney close most of its Disney Stores?
Disney announced on March 3, 2021 that it would close at least 60 North American Disney Store locations, roughly 20 percent of about 300 stores worldwide, and shift spending to its shopDisney website. Stephanie Young, then president of Disney's consumer products, games and publishing unit, told CNBC in 2021 that the pandemic had changed what shoppers expected from a retailer.
How many Disney Stores were there at the peak?
The Disney Store chain peaked in 1999 at 747 stores in 11 countries, up from more than 600 locations across the United States and ten other countries in 1997. The first one had opened twelve years earlier, on March 28, 1987, at the Glendale Galleria in Glendale, California.