Why a mall toy store could not beat the discounters
KB Toys was built for a floor plan that stopped mattering. The stores were small, bright and stacked to the ceiling, wedged between a shoe shop and the food court, and they worked because the enclosed mall was where American families spent Saturday afternoon.
The chain peaked in 1999 at 1,324 stores, second only to Toys R Us among American toy retailers. It had grown out of a Pittsfield, Massachusetts candy wholesaler founded by brothers Harry and Joseph Kaufman in 1922, which moved into toys after World War II and started selling at retail as Kay-Bee Toy and Hobby.
The trouble was that the same box of toys sold for less somewhere else. Walmart and Target used toys to pull families through the door and priced them to do it, and a small mall shop paying mall rent could not answer that on a boxed action figure.
So KB Toys multiplied formats instead: KB Toy Works in strip centers, KB Toy Outlet in outlet malls, and short-term KB Toys Holiday stores that opened for Christmas and vanished in January. Those four formats were still the whole company in its last week.
What pushed KB Toys into Chapter 11 twice?
Consolidated Stores, the parent of Big Lots, sold KB Toys in December 2000 to an investment group led by Bain Capital and the chain's own management for $305 million. Bain put up roughly $18 million of its own money, and the rest of the price was borrowed against the toy company.
In 2002 KB Toys took on more debt to pay its owners an $85 million dividend. Creditors later sued, arguing that the payout helped tip an already weak retailer into insolvency, and the case eventually settled.
The first bankruptcy came in January 2004, weeks after the parent of FAO Schwarz filed its own. KB Toys closed hundreds of stores, came out of Chapter 11 in August 2005 under Prentice Capital Management, and went into the 2008 holiday season smaller and still carrying debt.
It filed again on December 11, 2008, two weeks before Christmas, with sales down 20 percent in the month that was supposed to carry the year. At that point the Pittsfield company ran 277 mall stores, 114 outlets, 40 KB Toy Works and 30 holiday stores, 461 in all, and it was the largest mall-based toy retailer in the country.
Who bought the KB Toys name after the liquidation?
The 2008 filing turned into a wind-down almost immediately. Going-out-of-business sales ran through the winter, and the last KB Toys stores closed on February 9, 2009, the same day the company's website went dark.
The trademark outlived the leases. Later in 2009 the KB Toys logos and web addresses were sold to CE Stores, a unit of Toys R Us, so the name ended up owned by the competitor that had outlasted it.
CNBC covered that sale in September 2009 as part of a pattern rather than a one-off, grouping KB Toys with Sharper Image and Linens 'n Things as brands that kept trading as intellectual property after the stores were gone.
Toys R Us never rebuilt KB Toys as a chain and eventually let the registration lapse. In 2016 Strategic Marks, a California company that buys and revives dead American brands, filed for the KB Toys trademark. Its founder, Ellia Kassoff, has been behind every KB Toys announcement since.
What happened to the 1,000 pop-up stores promised in 2018?
In March 2018, Toys R Us announced that it would liquidate its American stores, and within days Kassoff said KB Toys would move into the gap. The plan was as many as 1,000 temporary stores open for Black Friday, with the best performers converted into permanent leases.
"I think we could build the concept out pretty quick, with help from the toy industry and manufacturers. We don't have that much time," Kassoff told The Boston Globe in March 2018.
Not one of them opened. The relaunch slipped to 2019, was scaled back to a few hundred proposed stores, and then stopped, because the money never arrived.
Kassoff later explained the failure to the Licensing Industry Merchandisers Association, saying that "toy companies had lots of conflicts of interest that prevented them from investing in KB given that they sell to other retailers," and that mall operators do not usually fund tenants who do not exist yet. Those 2018 headlines are still indexed, which is why Americans keep searching to find out whether the stores ever opened.
Is there a KB Toys store you can walk into in 2026?
No. There is no KB Toys store in any American mall, strip center or outlet, and there has not been one since February 2009. Nothing in the current plan is a chain.
What exists instead is a licensing program. In November 2024, Firefly Brand Management announced a master toy deal for KB Toys with MH Enterprises, covering toys, apparel, paper goods, drinkware, comics and the right to use the KB Toys store design for live experiences.
MH Enterprises is run by Marc and Marianna Heon. "Having met at KB Toys over 25 years ago, this brand has always held a special place in our hearts," the couple said in the 2024 announcement carried by License Global.
In 2026 the brand is marking 80 years since the Kaufmans moved into toys, with collectible buckets, pins, trading cards and a first pop-up at San Diego Comic-Con rather than a lease anywhere. Strategic Marks still holds the brand and Firefly handles the licensing.
Where to find one today
Old KB Toys material is cheap and plentiful: store shopping bags, price stickers, shelf signage and employee shirts, mostly from the 1980s and 1990s. Vintage listings sit in the low tens of dollars, well under what the new licensed collectibles cost. Etsy's vintage KB Toys listings are the practical place to browse them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is KB Toys coming back?
Not as a store chain. KB Toys has been a licensed brand since 2016, and the 2018 plan for up to 1,000 pop-up stores never opened because the funding did not come together. As of 2026 KB Toys sells collectibles online and appears at conventions, with no announced retail locations.
When did KB Toys close?
KB Toys filed for Chapter 11 on December 11, 2008, and its last stores closed on February 9, 2009. The chain had 461 locations at the end: 277 in enclosed malls, 114 outlets, 40 KB Toy Works and 30 seasonal holiday stores.
Who owns KB Toys now?
The KB Toys brand belongs to Strategic Marks, a California brand-revival company run by Ellia Kassoff, which filed for the trademark in 2016 after Toys R Us let the earlier registration lapse. Since November 2024, Firefly Brand Management has run KB Toys licensing, including a master toy deal with MH Enterprises.