An Asian lifestyle department store chain known for stacking K-beauty, Japanese snacks and arcade-style claw machines under one roof is headed to East Memphis. TESO Life plans to open its first Tennessee store at Eastgate shopping center on Park Avenue, bringing a retail concept that has been rapidly multiplying across the country to the Bluff City.
The news was reported by the Memphis Business Journal on October 26, 2026, a day before WREG, which confirmed the Memphis location would mark TESO Life's debut in the state. According to bizjournals.com, the Eastgate store will carry beauty and skincare products from Japan and Korea, exotic snacks, collectible items and home decor, with entertainment draws such as claw machines and photo booths built into the shopping experience.
TESO Life bills itself more broadly as an Asian lifestyle department store carrying makeup, skincare, snacks and household items, according to the seed reporting from WREG. The company's own description, posted alongside its Aurora, Colorado store announcement, says its curated selection spans J-beauty and K-beauty, modern home essentials, lifestyle accessories, trending snacks and rare collectibles, per the company's site, teso-group.com. Elsewhere, the retailer has described itself as a Japanese fashion casual life product department store, according to segallgroup.com, and traces its roots to a company founded in May 2017 and headquartered in Queens, New York.
No Opening Date Yet for the East Memphis Store
What's still missing from the picture is a firm timeline. WREG reported it was awaiting a response from TESO Life about when the Eastgate location will actually open its doors. That mirrors a pattern seen elsewhere in the chain's expansion: in Shenandoah, Texas, where TESO Life is planning a new location at Sam Moon Center, officials told communityimpact.com in October that an opening date had not been set.
Memphis shoppers hoping for a preview of what's coming can look at how the chain has handled other launches. When TESO Life opened its Aurora, Colorado store, the company said on its own site that the store would officially open its doors on Friday, October 2, 2026, at 1150 S Ironton St., operating daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and it paired the opening with a three-day grand-opening event featuring exclusive giveaways while supplies lasted, according to teso-group.com.
Part of a Fast-Growing National Footprint
The Memphis announcement lands amid an aggressive national rollout. TESO Life has 33 locations listed as open and hopes to have 51 stores across 18 states by the end of 2026, according to ffxnow.com. The chain recently opened its second Illinois location in Naperville, per teso-group.com, and is also planning a second Virginia store in Seven Corners, inside a former CVS building at 6164 Arlington Blvd. within Willston 1 Centre, where Fairfax County planning documents show TESO Life applied to renovate the 12,535-square-foot space, though those plans had not been approved as of ffxnow.com's reporting.
Memphis isn't an entirely new market for this kind of Asian lifestyle retail. Daiso, a similar chain selling Japanese-inspired home products, beauty items, snacks, stationery and cookware, had been planned for Tennessee's first location in Germantown, in the former Tuesday Morning space at Germantown Plaza, according to dailymemphian.com. With TESO Life now eyeing Eastgate, East Memphis shoppers could soon have two distinct takes on the genre within the same metro area.
