Bed Bath Reopens With Towel Wall

GLENDALE, Ariz.—Neighborhood Intelligence opens a stand-alone Bed Bath & Beyond here Saturday that is meant to feel like the old ones: towel wall, bedding displays and the famous coupons, Retail Dive reported Nov. 6. The store is about 19,000 square feet and takes over a former Container Store that had been four-wall negative.

"We're bringing back the things customers have always loved," Neighborhood Intelligence President Amy Sullivan said in a statement quoted by Retail Dive, citing the iconic shopping experience, brands and value, plus new ways to help with every room.

Parent-company third-quarter revenue grew 98% to $509 million, almost entirely from recent acquisitions that contributed $229 million; organic revenue was up about 9%, with gross margin near 34%. E-commerce rose 9%, the strongest growth in 19 quarters, led by 75% growth at Overstock.com. Operating losses widened.

We're bringing back the things customers have always loved…

Marjorie Pell walked a fictional preview of the towel wall and counted the stacks the way she counts endcaps. "A towel wall is a public square for linen," she wrote in the margin of Ledger page 40, which is full and still not a new page. "The coupon is the handshake." She did not take a coupon. She photographed the wall for the ledger and left the flash off.

A fictional opening-hour guest, Carol Vines, 67, said she came for the coupon first and the towels second. "I kept one in the glove box for three years after the stores closed," Vines said. "It expired in spirit but not in the glove box." She left with two bath sheets and a feeling she described as retail deja vu without the French.

The company is also closing underperforming doors from acquisitions: 11 Container Store locations by year-end and 39 Kirkland's sites in process, CEO Marcus Lemonis told analysts. The Home Edit said its products are leaving The Container Store; Sullivan said a one-year agreement expires in December 2026 and sales rates do not support a reorder, while remaining stock will sell through.

Pell's last line for the desk: when a coupon returns to a store that returned to a building that used to hold bins, the neighborhood has finished a sentence. Whether it is a good sentence is tomorrow's problem.

Marjorie Pell has worked or covered American stores for 40 years and still knows where the paper towels are. More from Marjorie Pell ›

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