Will Texas Roadhouse ramp up expansion of Bubba's 33 and Jaggers?

One of the best moderately priced dining concepts you can add to a retail property is Texas Roadhouse, a fast growing 673-unit steakhouse chain that has been opening about 30 restaurants a year.

But did you know that the publicly-traded company also operates two other concepts Bubba's 33 (a sports bar concept) and Jaggers (a fast casual concept offering burgers, chicken sandwiches, salads and shakes)? Both of these concepts are doing phenomenally well. Just last year, Bubba’s systemwide sales leapt more than 20%, and Jaggers rose 58%, according to Technomic, Inc. data.

With numbers like that, the company is poised to ramp up expansion in what has been a very conservative approach in recent years. Bubba’s opened four locations in 2024 and will add seven in 2025. Jaggers, meanwhile, has opened just 15 restaurants over the past 10 years.

Jerry Morgan, Texas Roadhouse, Inc. CEO, noting that the pipeline for Texas Roadhouse is still strong as well, suggests that the company is clearly starting to tip in the direction of further expanding Bubba's 33 and Jaggers.

Read more: Texas Roadhouse to ramp up development of its smaller concepts (Restaurant Business)

Warby Parker plans to open 45 new stores in 2025

Warby Parker continues to do well in its 300 brick-and-mortar stores with plans to open 45 new stores in 2025, including five shop-in-shops within Target stores. The stores do an average of $3,000 per square foot, rivaling sales performance of Tiffany & Co. and Apple. Warby Parker stores fall within the 900–1,800 sq. ft. range, with an average near 1,600 sq. ft.

The company expects net revenue growth of 14% to 15% this year.

Read more: Warby Parker to end home try-on program as it focuses on stores, digital experience (Retail Dive)

Online furniture retailer Wayfair to have four big-box stores operating in the U.S. by 2027

Looking to replace a vacant department store? Wayfair might just be the answer.

Online furniture retailer Wayfair opened its first 150,000-sq.-ft. store last year and has already announced plans to have four big-box stores operating in the U.S. by 2027.

The first Wayfair physical store opened at Eden’s Plaza in Wilmette, Illinois near Chicago in 2024. Since then, Wayfair has announced plans to open a 150,000-sq.-ft. store at Howell Mill shopping center in Atlanta, a 114,000-sq.-ft. store at the Ridge Hill shopping center in Yonkers, N.Y., and a 140,000-sq.-ft. store at The Shops of Northfield in Denver. The Ridge Hill store will open in a vacant Lord & Taylor site in 2027. The Northfield store will be built out in a vacant Macy’s location, and has a late 2026 target opening date.

Northfield is a 1.1-million-square-foot open-air mall anchored by Bass Pro Shops, a Harkins movie theater and a Target store. The new Wayfair store will anchor the north side of the project with access from Northfield Blvd. SRS Real Estate Partners and Newmark arranged the transaction.

While the home furnishings category continues to be dragged down by sluggish home sales in the United States because of persistent elevated interest rates, Wayfair reported yesterday unexpected profit in the second quarter as top line sales rose in the U.S. by 5.3%.

Wayfair’s global revenue was up 6% when excluding sales related to its exit from the German market. This would make it the company’s best growth rate since early 2021 before interest rates spiked sending sales spiraling downwards.

Read more: Home decor giant opening store in Colorado (9News - Colorado)

Urban Outfitters will launch new Maeve store concept; first store in Raleigh, N.C.

Anthropologie has launched a new store concept based on its popular private label branded merchandise called Maeve.

The first Maeve store will open Oct. 1 in Raleigh, N.C., according to Anu Narayanan, president of Anthropologie women’s and home. The store will be located in the open-air lifestyle center The Village District.

Maeve's customer appeal is rooted in its accessible yet upscale pricing, with styles that blend casual Generation Z sensibilities and office-ready looks. Genzers (individuals born roughly between 1997 and 2012) are now the most important up-and-coming generation of consumers comprising one fifth of all U.S. consumers. Gen Z's global spending power is expected to grow to $12.6T by 2030.

Read more: Anthropologie launches sub-brand Maeve as a new standalone brand (Glossy)

PopUp Bagels plans to open 300 stores throughout 10 states

Adam Goldberg, founder of PopUp Bagels has an ambitious 300-store plan to expand the chain throughout 10 states, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, California and Maine — with the goal to reach 100 open locations by the end of 2027.

PopUp Bagels plans to reach this milestone with fewer than 15 franchise partners. Tory Bartlett, MBA, CEO of PopUp Bagels is partnering with some of the most accomplished franchise operators in the industry to expand the chain.

PopUp Bagels is unique in that it sells no sandwiches; all bagels are served hot from the oven, unsliced.

Read more: PopUp Bagels to Open 300 Stores Nationwide (Retail & Restaurant Facility Business)

Trader Joe's to open 30 new locations in 2025

Trader Joe's has announced 30 new locations opening in 2025 across 18 states:

Arizona
- Goodyear — N. Bullard Ave & McDowell Rd
California
- La Verne — 2330 Foothill Boulevard
- Northridge — 9224 Reseda Boulevard
- Yucaipa – 31545 Yucaipa Boulevard
Colorado
- Westminster — 9350 Sheridan Boulevard
Connecticut
- Shelton — 801 Bridgeport Avenue
Washington, D.C.
- Friendship Heights — 5335 Wisconsin Avenue NW
Florida
- Daytona Beach — 1511 Cornerstone Boulevard
Georgia
- Peachtree City – 258 City Circle
Louisiana
- New Orleans — 2428 Napoleon Avenue
- New Orleans — 2501 Tulane Avenue
Massachusetts
- Boston — 1999 Centre Street
- Newton — 1165 Needham Street
Missouri
- Columbia — 201 N. Stadium Boulevard
New Jersey
- Iselin — 675 US-1
New York
- Glenmont — 388 Feura Bush Road
- Miller Place — 302 NY-25A Miller Place
- Staten Island — 6400 Amboy Road
Oklahoma
- Broken Arrow — 1451 E. Hillside Drive
- Oklahoma City — 6920 Northwest Expressway
Oregon
- Gresham — 2083 NE Burnside Road
Pennsylvania
- Berwyn — 550 Lancaster Avenue
- Exton — 125 West Lincoln Highway
South Carolina
- Myrtle Beach — 115 SayeBrook Parkway
Texas
- Bee Cave — 12812 Shops Parkway
- McKinney — 8101 El Dorado Parkway
- San Antonio — 11745 I-10 West
Utah
- Holladay — 1895 East Rodeo Walk Drive
- Riverdale — 4060 Riverdale Road, Suite B
Virginia
- Virginia Beach — 220 Constitution Drive

Read more: Trader Joe’s opening 30 new locations across 18 states: Here’s where (MSN)

Landlord asset managers look for ways to increase revenue as retail occupancy exceeds 96%

With retail occupancy roving around 96%, asset managers face a major challenge that defies their mandate: continually growing rental income on what is essentially a fully occupied and stabilized property. Increasingly, they are turning to alternative uses and non-traditional on-site methods to grow ancillary income that differ from a property's primary purpose (rent growth from long-term leases of leasable space). Some examples:

- RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust launched the Spacewise Next Generation Property Marketing Portal, which categorizes and catalogues just about every possible way a landlord can promote opportunities for brands and other businesses, according to RioCan's John McKinnon and Meredith Vlitas, MES.

- DLC Management Corp. is leasing the roof space to Radial Power LLC for solar installations at open-air centers for lucrative rents aided by federal, state and local incentives, according to DLC's Chris Ressa.

- Electrify America seeks 10-year leases with options for parking lot EV chargers that not only bring income to landlords but also generate retail sales for the center's stores and restaurants, according to Electrify America's Brandy Mathie.

Read more: Beyond Rent: Retail asset managers turn to ancillary income to grow revenue streams (Shopping Center Business)

British luxury mattress maker to open 17 new U.S. Vispring-branded stores in 2025

Vispring Ltd, a British maker of luxury mattresses is expanding throughout the U.S. with 17 new Vispring-branded stores opening in 2025. The first store opened in Corona Del Mar (Newport Beach, California) in January, with additional store-showrooms in SoHo (New York City) and at the Dallas Design Center, which opened this month making six store showrooms now open in the U.S., considering the brand is already 124 years old. More openings this fall will be in Denver, Washington, D.C. and San Diego. Vispring mattresses are also sold at other stores.

According to Martin Gill, managing director of Vispring, the American market's reception to (Vispring's products supports the expansion) in key metropolitan areas (in the U.S.).

In addition to the U.S. market, Vispring sells its handcrafted mattresses throughout 58 countries. Now owned by The Flex Group in Spain, Vispring is a sister company to E.S. Kluft & Co., maker of Kluft mattresses.

Read more: U.K. bed maker with $100K-plus mattress picks D-FW for new store (The Dallas Morning News)

Multifamily continues to drive mall expansions

Valuations of enclosed malls have generally declined over the past 10 years when lenders provided mortgage loans and packaged them through securitized debt investor offerings, some of which cannot be refinanced at those levels today, given the lower valuations and higher lending costs.

But, the darling of commercial real estate today is MULTIFAMILY, not retail. When malls add multifamily, the combined retail-residential valuations in those properties increase tremendously because there is considerable demand for rental residential properties in the U.S. driven by organic population growth and immigration.

Certainly, Rick J. Caruso understood that when he was building The Americana at Brand 20 years ago in Glendale, Calif. Simon Property Group and Brookfield Properties have also been adding residential to malls in recent years. Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield has been very focused on this trend with a strategy to add multifamily at Westfield Montgomery in Bethesda, Md., Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, N.J. and Westfield Old Orchard in Chicagoland.

The first residential property to be developed on a Westfield retail property in the U.S. is the massive Palisade at Westfield’s University Towne Center (UTC) in San Diego, a 23-story luxury residential high rise that was built as part of a full-scale revitalization of the mall completed post-Covid.

URW will likely offload a few more U.S. malls in the foreseeable future just like it did with Westfield San Francisco Centre. Earlier this year, it defaulted on a $234.6 million loan on Westfield Shoppingtown Wheaton Plaza in Wheaton, Maryland.

While URW continues to whittle down the number of American malls it owns, the company is likely to keep the most valuable A++ properties with redevelopment potential. When it comes to owning malls, URW, the French owner of many of the world’s best malls has a strategy that can be characterized as "moins, mais mieux,” or “less, but better.”

Read more: Less, but better: Inside URW’s US mall strategy (CoStar News)

Alphabet Inc. continues to open Google branded stores

Alphabet Inc. continues to open Google Stores, although at a slow and measured pace.

In 2025, new Google Stores opened at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica and at the Domain NORTHSIDE in Austin with a third under construction at Aventura Mall north of Miami and a fourth in Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood.

In 2024, a Google Store opened on Newbury Street in Boston and one in Oakbrook Center near Chicago. The new stores to open later this year makes nine for Google, not counting pop-ups that previously opened and closed. Google's first permanent retail store opened in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City in June 2021.

All except the Aventura interior mall location have exterior entrances. Sizes range from 2,257 sq. ft. for the Domain store to as high as 7,000 sq. ft. for the Georgetown store where the company signed a 10-year lease with EastBanc. JLL was the tenant rep for Google in the lease transaction with EastBanc.

The Google Store typically sells Google devices, accessories and merchandise, including Google phones and Chromebooks. The Georgetown store will also have on-site device repair, trade-ins and support for device installation, setup and troubleshooting, similar to the Apple Stores.

Unlike Apple, which runs its own stores, the Google stores are operated by
Mosaic North America, which hires staff and handles inventory and transactions. Mosaic has been operating Google Stores since its first pop-up opened in 2016.

The Google Store is planning an international expansion with large ~15,000 sq. ft. locations planned for New Delhi and Mumbai possibly in 2026. It appears like the physical retail presence for Google Store rollout is working and more will be announced soon.

Read more: The eighth Google Store will be in Miami (9to5Google)

Levi Strauss & Co.'s Beyond Yoga opening more stores

Watch out lululemon and Athleta: Competition is coming your way.

Levi Strauss & Co.'s specialty activewear brand Beyond Yoga is moving forward with its brick-and-mortar expansion. The company opened its first East Coast store today (06-06-2025) in Greenwich, Conn.

The new store is about 2,700 square feet, which is double the average size of Beyond Yoga’s other seven other locations: Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, Larchmont Village in L.A., Irvine Company Spectrum Center, Westfield Century City, Broadway Plaza in Walnut Creek, Chicago's Fulton Market and Bellevue Square near Seattle.

Levi Strauss & Co. bought Beyond Yoga in 2021. Other Beyond Yoga locations planned include Westport, Conn. at the Elm & Main shopping center, formerly known as Brooks Corner and one will open later this year in Boston.

Leading the expansion is Nancy Green, Beyond Yoga's CEO who previously oversaw Athleta as it grew from 39 to 175 stores. Beyond Yoga is expanding from 8 to 14 by the end of the 2025.

Earlier this year Green said the brand could have "at least 200 stores" over time. The newly opened larger format store will allow Beyond Yoga to carry an expanded line of inventory as well as hold events. She said, "We have to iterate and tweak some things as we learn and then we nail it, and then we scale it. So test, iterate, nail it and scale it."

Read more: Exclusive: Beyond Yoga is planting roots on the East Coast with a new Connecticut store (Modern Retail)

Variety Wholesalers, Inc. has reopened 219 Big Lots stores

Variety Wholesalers, Inc. will reopen 78 Big Lots stores this week throughout Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

It’s part of a deal with Gordon Brothers Retail Partners that was inked earlier this year through which Variety Wholesale Partners bought 219 Big Lots store leases under bankruptcy. This week’s openings complete a phased reopening strategy that began in April.

Variety now operates 422 stores across 18 states under retail banners such as Roses Discount Stores, Roses Express, Maxway and now Big Lots.

Read more: Nearly 80 Big Lots stores reopen this week across multiple states (Fox Business)

Eataly is expanding with full-size and small-size concept stores

Eataly, which now operates 14 locations in North America and more than 50 worldwide is continuing its expansion with a new full-size location in South Florida, several small concepts at airports and retail locations in New York.

Near Miami, Eataly will open at the Aventura Mall on June 12, a 30,000-square-foot space with two sit-down restaurants, a cafè with several quick service counters, a retail section, a wine store and a cooking school.

Last week, Eataly opened its first-ever QSR, called Eataly Caffé at Rockefeller Center. A second location is set to open in June at The Shops & Restaurants at Hudson Yards New York.

Then, Eataly will open three small locations in Terminals 4, 5 and 8 at John F. Kennedy International Airport sometime this year. The outposts will be operated by HMSHost.

Read more: Eataly Is on an Aggressive Expansion Spree in NYC (MSN)

Kendra Scott told ICSC Las Vegas convention attendees that the retailer will go global

With an inspiring opening interview by ICSC COO Whitney Livingston, Kendra Scott, the founder of Kendra Scott kicks off the 2025 ICSC convention in Las Vegas on Sunday, May 18.

Kendra demonstrates that as an entrepreneur all you need is $500 and a dream.

In 2002, just three months after Kendra’s first son was born, she launched her jewelry line with only $500. Her internal and external beauty, vibrant personality and unique eye for design captivated Austin businesses and customers alike, paving the way for a billion-dollar lifestyle brand that’s celebrated for its design and material innovation, vibrant use of color,
and signature silhouettes.

Kendra’s brand went nationwide when she made her first deal with Nordstrom. However, as a self starter, she struggled through 2008 during the Great Recession when she decided to go DTC. She opened her first signature store in 2010 in Austin. Now she has 152 U.S. stores and she said she will expand globally—1,000%.

Her company continues to operate out of Austin, where she resides with her family. In her speech this afternoon in Las Vegas, she underscored her love of Texas with its Southern hospitality. She said, she usually wears cowboy boots and rides horses in her traditional Texas ranch.

In April 2020, Governor Greg Abbott named Kendra to the Strike Force to Open Texas – a group "tasked with finding safe and effective ways to slowly reopen the state" amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

McDonald's plans to open 900 more restaurants by 2027

McDonald's, the largest fast food chain in the U.S. based on sales has announced an aggressive expansion.

The QSR known for its iconic golden double-arch "M" has more than 13,500 restaurants in the U.S., and still plans to open 900 more by 2027.

Read more: McDonald’s plans to hire 375,000 U.S. workers this summer (Associated Press)

Beyond Inc. buys Kirkland's brand enabling new store conversions

With the newly announced acquisition of Kirkland's by Beyond, Inc., capital is being made available to Kirkland's to accelerate store conversion plans in its rollout of Bed Bath & Beyond Home stores as well as Overstock stores and continue plans for opening buybuy BABY and Bed Bath & Beyond True Blue stores, according to Amy Sullivan, CEO of the 314-store Kirkland’s Home chain.

Beyond's acquisition mostly involves Kirkland’s trademarks that contain “Kirkland,” along with certain related assets, with the intent to license the trademarks back to Kirkland’s for use in connection with their existing retail stores and associated e-commerce websites. It's a marriage made in heaven at a time when Kirkland's needs operating capital and CapEx to convert selected stores into the beloved Bed Bath and related store concepts.

Read more: Kirkland’s bolsters retail conversion plans with Beyond-backed credit agreement (Furniture Today)

Chinese collectible brand Pop Mart continues U.S. brick-and-mortar expansion

POP MART is just one of many examples of why retail real estate professionals need to stay on top of trends to bring in concepts that are unique and have a strong appeal, which in turn makes for a successful multi tenant retail destination.

For me, this means talking to as many people as I can at next week’s ICSC Las Vegas, but it’s not a once-a-year thing. It’s something you have to do every day including read everything you can about retail, delve into social media posts including Youtube channels, conduct AI searches, pay attention to movies and miniseries, visit as many retail destinations in your market and as you travel, and be especially mindful of pop-up concepts and new international entries.

My first contact with POP MART was when Laura DeSwart brought in the first U.S. permanent store to Triple Five Group’s American Dream in September 2023.

What is Pop Mart? It is a globally recognized pop culture and designer toy brand from China. Founded in 2010, Pop Mart has become an Asian culture and entertainment company known for selling collectable “designer” toys, often sold in a “blind box” format, where people buy a surprise collectible.

I was in Chicago when Pop Mart opened its first Chicago location in October 2024 at Centennial’s Shops at North Bridge, the 15th U.S. Pop Mart physical store. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I arrived during opening day to witness a line of several hundred people queuing up on Michigan Avenue to get into the store as late as midday.

In 2024, the company opened 20 U.S. locations, and more are on the way this year in “key cultural hubs” across the country.

This growing U.S. presence, along with its more than 100 overseas stores, drove $1.83 billion in revenue for the company in 2024 (a 107% increase YoY).

This level of success has solidified Pop Mart’s position as a central player in the booming “kidult” industry, nomenclature for the adult toy phenomenon that accounts for as much as $9 billion in U.S. toy sales annually, with recurring favorites that include the LEGO Group, American Girl and Hello Kitty.

Pop Mart mainly sells its own concept brands that feature famous Asian culture icons but also collaborates with some of the biggest names in pop culture, such as The Walt Disney Company, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Marvel Entertainment and Sanrio. However, Pop Mart is selective about what it brings into the Pop Mart fold, because collaborations must have cultural relevance, staying power and a visual appeal that can be adapted into its distinctive toy format.

If you want to learn more about Pop Mart’s real estate expansion in the U.S., contact the Pop Mart team of James Kennemur, and in Canada, contact Don Gregor of Aurora Realty Consultants.

Read more: How Pop Mart is Turning Toys into the Next Drop Culture Phenomenon (Retail TouchPoints)

ALDI USA plans to open 225 new stores in 2025, 800 by 2028 year end

If you were surprised to learn that ALDI USA has plans to open a whopping 225 new stores in 2025, in the U.S., the real surprise is the growth the discount grocery change has planned going forward. This year's openings are just part of a five-year plan to add 800 new stores by the end of 2028.

The 225 stores that Aldi is opening is the most stores ALDI has opened in one year in its nearly 50-year U.S. history. The 2025 store openings are a combination of organic growth and converting select Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarkets to the Aldi format.

The 2025 openings come on top of the roughly 120 stores the chain opened in 2024, giving it 2,400 total stores in 36 states and making Aldi the third-largest grocery chain in the U.S. by store count.

Real estate requirements are:
- ±22,000 square feet with a minimum of 95 dedicated parking spaces
- 2.5 acre pads for purchase and development
- End-cap or inline space with minimum of 103’ of frontage
- Signalized, full access intersection preferred
- Dense trade area population within 3 miles
- Sites located in community and regional shopping districts with convenient access to population
- Sites zoned to allow grocery use
- Daily traffic count in excess of 20,000 vehicles per day

Read more: Beloved Grocery Chain Announces Plans to Open 800 New Stores (Yahoo! Finance)

Vacating Rite Aid spaces will likely be absorbed quickly as supply remains at all-time low

Heading into its second bankruptcy, RITE AID’s real estate is highly adaptable with sizes and features attractive to a broad range of retailers, restaurants and service providers.

With vacancy levels at a multiyear low across the U.S. at single-tenant freestanding sites, convenience, neighborhood and community centers, nearly all the vacated Rite Aid spaces will be absorbed without doubt over the next two years — and at higher rent spreads.

Rite Aid stores are typically freestanding buildings averaging between 10,000 and 15,000 square feet, on sites at high-visibility, high-traffic intersections, which are in great demand.

Expect dollar stores, specialty/ethnic grocers, QSRs, fast casual restaurants, fitness, educational uses and health and wellness tenants to snatch up these leases.

Read more: Here’s where roughly 1,200 Rite Aid leases are on the market (CoStar News)

Necessity driven grocery anchored centers among most sought-after commercial real estate investments

Grocery-anchored open-air neighborhood and community centers continue to be a favorite of CRE investors with no end in sight.

Transaction activity for these properties reached $7 billion in 2024, with deal volume growing by 34% in the second half of the year vs. the first six months, according to JLL. The average price per square foot of these transactions hit a record high of $209.

That is because of many factors, central of which is the traffic that grocery stores continue to drive to these centers since the pandemic started, and although the food service industry has fully recovered, grocery stores continue to thrive.

REIT ownership of grocery-anchored shopping centers is growing faster than private ownership, but private investors were 68 percent of the investor base in 2024, JLL data show.

All the metrics favor grocery-anchored centers, including increased foot traffic, new leasing and renewal activity, rent growth, fast food and fast casual tenants seeking co-tenancy with supermarkets and an enormous interest by services, such as medical and educational tenants, to locate in these types of shopping centers. All will be chasing deals with landlords at ICSC LAS VEGAS this month as the inventory barely meets demand.

Cushman & Wakefield reported that only 8.3 million square feet of retail space was delivered in 2024. Currently, there are only approximately 10.6 million square feet under development nationwide.

Read more: Why Investors Are Hungry for Grocery-Anchored Retail (Commercial Property Executive)