Bed Bath & Beyond is back: Why brands Canadians thought were gone keep returning

See more Toronto Sun on Google — save as a Preferred Source

Just when you thought some Canadian retailers had finally disappeared for good, here they come again.

The latest comeback kid is Bed Bath & Beyond, which shut all 54 of its Canadian stores in 2023 after suffering significant losses. The home retailer returned online Sept. 29 under new owner Sleep Country Canada, with plans to reopen physical stores in Canada in late 2027, according to blogTO.

That may sound like a strange move in an age when online shopping is supposedly killing the traditional store. But Canadians clearly haven’t given up on going shopping in person just yet.

An original INSAUGA Canada poll found 53.4% of 2,582 respondents — 1,380 people — still regularly shop at indoor malls. Another 46.6% said they now shop elsewhere or online. The poll isn’t scientific and doesn’t represent Canadians as a whole, but the results still offer an interesting snapshot of how divided shopping habits have become.

Retail numbers tell a similar story

Canadian retail sales hit $73.7 billion in July, despite falling 0.7% from June, according to Statistics Canada. Online sales were nearly $5.5 billion, up 6% from a year earlier, but e-commerce accounted for just 7.5% of total retail trade.

So more than 90% of retail spending was still happening somewhere other than online.

Maybe that’s part of the reason familiar brands keep trying to make a comeback.

Zellers is perhaps the biggest example. Once a fixture in Canadian malls, most of its stores disappeared after Hudson’s Bay sold the majority of its leases to Target in 2011. Zellers largely vanished by 2013, only to return years later through e-commerce and select Hudson’s Bay locations.

That revival didn’t last. HBC closed its remaining stores in 2025.

But Zellers wasn’t finished.

Quebec-based Les Ailes de la Mode bought the Zellers trademark from HBC in August 2025. A new store opened in Edmonton that October, followed by an Ontario location near Yorkdale Mall in June 2026 and another at Windsor’s Tecumseh Mall in July.

Other comeback brands

Then there’s Olive Garden. The Italian-American chain left Ontario after Darden shuttered its 11 Ontario locations by the end of the 1990s, according to the Ottawa Business Journal. Now it’s back, with new restaurants at Vaughan Mills and in Ottawa.

Dunkin’ is also returning. The coffee-and-doughnut chain closed its last Canadian locations in Quebec in 2018 after a long decline. Foodtastic has since signed a master franchising deal with Inspire Brands, with the first new Canadian location expected in late 2026 or early 2027.

And even Lick’s Homeburgers is back — although you’ll have to drive about three hours north of Toronto to find it. The Toronto burger chain, which closed its last location in 2026, has reopened at Shawanaga First Nation Gas & Variety on Hwy. 69.

Consumers feeling the squeeze

None of this means every comeback will work. Canadians have changed the way they shop, and July’s retail decline shows consumers are feeling the squeeze from higher costs. Andrew Hencic of TD Economics said higher energy, grocery, housing and transportation costs are eating into household purchasing power.

Still, there’s something telling about these brands coming back.

Maybe Canadians don’t necessarily want the old retail world back. Maybe they just want pieces of it.

The mall has changed, too. A September 2026 CBRE report found Canada’s retail market performed well in the first half of the year, particularly in suburban markets. Shopping centres are increasingly mixing stores with restaurants, entertainment, fitness and services.

1. 

   Sports
2. 

   Sunshine Girls
3. 

   Editorial Cartoons
4. 

   Columnists
5. 

   Sunshine Girls