Bed Bath & Beyond reenters California with hybrid store reset

Bed Bath & Beyond is reversing course in California, adding 12 combined Bed Bath & Beyond and The Container Store locations in a state it once said it would avoid entirely. The move lands alongside a 98-store chainwide reset that is already forcing a major overhaul of assortments, floor sets and service positioning across the business.

The California return matters because Marcus Lemonis told investors in August 2025 that the company would not open or operate retail stores in the state, calling California an overregulated, expensive and risky environment. At the time, he said customers there would be served through 24- to 48-hour delivery and, in many cases, same-day service. California Governor Gavin Newsom’s press office mocked that stance on X. Now the company is taking the opposite path, signaling that store economics in the state are worth another test.

The reset is tied to Bed Bath & Beyond’s April 2 agreement to acquire The Container Store for about $150 million in stock and convertible notes, a deal expected to close in July 2026. The transaction includes The Container Store’s Elfa and Closet Works businesses, which Lemonis said would fill critical gaps in Bed Bath & Beyond’s retail and home-services strategy. The company says its model now rests on three pillars: omnichannel retail, products and services, and home services.

The Container Store said its Store Changing event began April 24 across 98 locations and online, with stores opening one hour early on April 25 and April 26 and offering an extra 5% discount for early shoppers during that window. About 30% of select categories and SKUs are being liquidated to make room for the new mix, with new products arriving in phases later in 2026. The company is pitching the shift as part of an Everything Home strategy that bundles organization, furnishings, essentials, services and solutions into one destination.

For Target, the signal is less about Bed Bath & Beyond’s comeback than about how hard the home category has become to own. Target said in March 2026 that it will refresh the home experience, relaunch Threshold this summer, add shop-in-shops in 200 stores and make more in-store changes than in any year of the last decade, backed by an incremental $2 billion in 2026. As Bed Bath & Beyond reopens in California, both chains are betting that winning home shoppers now depends on resets, service layers and tighter assortments, not just a familiar logo over the door.