Shop Talk

TRENDING STORES: Hello Kitty‘s pop-up café, at Irvine Spectrum Center in Irvine, Calif., has been drawing crowds since it opened in July. It’s housed in a shipping container that’s been painted pink and refurbished with a counter and dining patio area, complete with bistro tables and pink-and-white striped awnings. Character graphics adorn the exterior and interior container panels. The café will remain open for a year. Hello Kitty owner Sanrio and the Irvine Company are reportedly in talks to bring the first U.S.-based brick-and-mortar Hello Kitty Café to Irvine. It’s pretty darn cute — and popular. ... Rejuvenation, a retailer specializing in reproductions of classic lighting products and bathroom/kitchen hardware, is quietly expanding under the ownership of Williams-Sonoma. The company is opening a 6,000-sq.-ft. store in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood — its seventh location to date — that will sell in-home design services along with the brand’s expanding line of merchandise. ... Under Armour will open a 53,000-sq.-ft. flagship in the General Motors building on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue in the space formerly occupied by FAO Schwarz. FAO, owned by Toys “R” Us, closed in June, citing rising rent. ... Arc’teryx, the Canadian high-performance outdoor apparel brand, is on the move. The company recently opened a flagship in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood, and has two more units in the works in Chicago and Toronto. The in-house designed SoHo space has an urban industrial feel, with black brick walls and a tin ceiling. The fitting rooms feature edge-to-edge graphics of outdoor imagery.



UPCOMING PROJECTS: The Hershey Company is going bigger in Times Square. The candy company is moving its Hershey’s Chocolate World flagship to a nearby location that’s three times larger than the existing Hershey’s store, which has been a major tourist attraction since it opened in 2002. The new space will also feature even more bells and whistles, including a state-of-the-art digital billboard. Hershey is working with FRCH Worldwide on the design of the flagship.