After years out of the retail spotlight, Zellers has reopened its doors — starting with a new location in Edmonton’s Londonderry Mall.
The store quietly launched this week, occupying one floor of a former Hudson’s Bay site. It’s the first Zellers to take over a Bay property since the retail giant shut down its Canadian operations earlier this summer. According to Henry Zavriyev, CEO of mall owner Leyad, the reopening was intentionally low-key. “It’s a very soft launch; they’re opening quite slowly,” he told CTV News Edmonton.
While the Hudson’s Bay name and trademarks have since been acquired by Canadian Tire, the Zellers brand and its revival remain separate from that deal.
A new Zellers for a new era
This latest reboot marks another attempt to revive the iconic Canadian chain. In 2023, Hudson’s Bay briefly experimented with Zellers pop-up shops inside Bay locations, but those fizzled out.
This time around, Zellers is narrowing its focus. Retail expert Bruce Winder says the store will concentrate on higher-margin categories like men’s, women’s, and children’s fashion, as well as home goods. “It’s kind of cherry-picked the higher-margin parts of the former Zellers,” he explained. “But we’ll have to see what the pricing’s like, what the product’s like.”
For the brand to succeed, Winder stressed, it will need to carve out a clear identity in today’s crowded retail landscape. “It has to have a clear target market … and the right combination of quality and price,” he said.
What about the restaurant?
For many nostalgic shoppers, one burning question remains: will the beloved in-store Zellers restaurants return? So far, there’s no confirmation.
For now, the new Zellers is starting small, banking on customer loyalty and curiosity to fuel its comeback. Whether it can build on that foundation — and expand beyond Edmonton — remains to be seen.