American Girl Place
Various Locations • Ongoing
Brimming with childhood wonder, American Girl Places paved the way in experiential retail by giving visitors not just somewhere to shop but also somewhere to make memories.
American Girl, a toy brand owned by Mattel, is best known for their line of realistic, 18-inch-tall dolls representing girls from various places and times in American history. The company opened its first experiential store, American Girl Place, in Chicago in 1998, which proved so popular that it expanded to six additional locations across the country. American Girl Places offer a variety of activities for their customer base (which consists primarily of young girls) to do alongside their American Girl dolls. These experiences include a café where dolls get their own booster seats and place settings; a salon that offers makeovers and manicures for dolls and girls alike; and even a “doll care center,” where dolls can not only get actual repairs, like reattaching limbs or replacing missing pieces, but also pretend eye exams and flu shots from staff members dressed as doctors. These experiences cost anywhere between $17 for a doll hairstyle to $60 for afternoon tea, and guests can easily spend several hours in the store trying different ones.
Of course, there are also ample opportunities for visitors to bring home new dolls, accessories, books, and other products—but shopping almost isn’t the point. These stores aren’t necessarily trying to make toys fly off of the shelves. (Indeed, the experiences are largely aimed at kids who already have dolls that they cherish.) Instead, American Girl Places are committed to creating an experience that’s uniquely appealing to their customers, inextricably linked to the brand, and highly memorable.
These stores understand that for their young customers, their favorite dolls aren’t merely toys but special companions. American Girl Places expand this spirit of make-believe into an all-encompassing world within the store. In it, the dolls are treated like real people, allowing kids to inhabit the fantasy that their beloved toy is alive. Additionally, many activities emphasize sharing experiences with the dolls: You can eat a meal with your doll, have your hair done in the same style as your doll, or even get your ears pierced with your doll. Therefore, the memories of these events feature the dolls as an important participant, strengthening the bond between the child and their toy—and therefore, the bond between the family and the brand. In other words, people don’t go to the American Girl Places to buy physical products—they go there to have a magical experience.
There’s a reason that Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore cited American Girl Place as a prime example of the theory espoused in their book The Experience Economy: The stores represent an economic offering not strictly focused on products or services but rather on memory-making. These fond memories have become the foundation of a tradition: The children who visited American Girl Places in the 1990s and early 2000s are now old enough to begin bringing their own kids to the stores, refreshing that brand love and starting the cycle anew. The fact that American Girl Places have managed to outlive many of the “retailtainment” concepts that came after it—concepts that it helped inspire—shows that their contribution to the history of experiential retail is not to be overlooked.
Details
Status
Now Showing
Locations
New York : 75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10019
Chicago: 835 Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL
Los Angeles: 10250 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90067
Dallas: 8052 Park Ln N, Dallas, TX 75231
Nashville: 1800 Galleria Blvd #5030, Franklin, TN 37067
Published : November 4, 2025
Sources : American Girl