Bucking the trend of shrinking brick-and-mortar bookstores, Barnes & Noble is staging a robust expansion, with plans to open 60 new stores across the U.S. in 2026. This comes on the heels of their performance in 2025, which saw a similar number of stores launched, including seven in the Lone Star state of Texas. According to a recent filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, reported by KSAT, San Antonio is set to welcome its seventh Barnes & Noble on the Northwest Side come summer 2026.
The bookstore chain, once beleaguered by the seemingly unstoppable rise of Amazon, is now aiming to reassert its physical presence, choosing to boldly open more stores even in a marketplace that has often been unkind to traditional retailers. The new San Antonio location will occupy space previously held by Bed Bath & Beyond at the Huebner Oaks Shopping Center, next to the third Trader Joe’s of the city which opened to significant fanfare. Renovation work on the new store is slated to start in March 2026, as per the filing, and to briskly complete by the end of June with an estimated budget of $350,000.
The company, which was purchased by a private hedge fund in 2019, has adopted a local-centric approach. This strategy gave each bookstore more autonomy, allowing them to more fully cater to the tastes and demands of their specific communities. "Barnes & Noble is enjoying a period of tremendous growth as the strategy to hand control of each bookstore to its local booksellers has proven so successful," the company claimed in a statement provided to KVUE. In a span that saw years of closures, 2024 marked a record-breaking year for Barnes & Noble, with more openings than the entire decade prior.
As readers appear to slowly return to turning physical pages, Barnes & Noble's new chapter features an ambitious list of states slated for store unveilings. Apart from Texas, book lovers can expect new locations to leisurely browse through in Ohio, Florida, Illinois, Colorado, Washington, California, Virginia, Georgia, and Washington, D.C. While they could take their time to finalize specific locations and dates, the company has shared that several openings are resolutely scheduled between now and June 2026. This move underlines a strategic growth plan that defies the past two decades of decline, indicating a renewed customer interest in the sensory experience of in-store book shopping.
