As Toys ‘R’ Us is set to enter bankruptcy court to finalize liquidation plans, the chief executive of Strategic Marks, Ellia Kassoff, announced on LinkedIn over the weekend that KB Toys is reopening this year and boldly plans to “save the toy industry!” The company is accelerating its relaunch and hopes to have pop-up stores in malls across America by Christmas. In its heyday, KB Toys specialized in “discounted and discontinued toys” and boasted over 1,200 stores nationwide. The company was started as a candy store by the Kaufman Brothers (hence the “KB”) in 1922 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It closed its last store in 2009 following a second bankruptcy.
