Tamara Szames has spent nearly 20 years translating consumer behaviour into commercial strategy for Canada’s tier-one retailers and brands. As founder of Arc + Axis and former Executive Director at Circana (formerly NPD Group), she advised leadership teams at moments of inflection—when growth stalls, categories shift, or clarity is needed to move forward.
Lately, she’s grown frustrated with how the public interprets what they’re seeing in Toronto’s retail landscape.
“Even though we start to see highlights of these structural shifts, it really doesn’t explain the full picture,” Szames says. “Sometimes we have to go a little bit deeper to understand what’s actually happening so that we can uncover the real narrative and opportunity.”
The headlines keep coming. Cineplex Beaches is closing after 25 years. The Patrician Grill is shuttering after seven decades on King Street East. Steve’s Music is liquidating four of its five locations. Eddie Bauer is closing stores. Toys “R” Us faces an uncertain future. To casual observers scrolling through social media, it all reads the same: retail is dying, storefronts are going dark, retail is in trouble.
These aren’t variations of the same story, Szames explains. They’re fundamentally distinct situations being flattened into a single doom-and-gloom narrative.
The Post-Pandemic Reckoning
The timing of these closures isn’t coincidental. Many of the leases signed during or immediately after COVID are now coming up for renewal.
“Things have changed dramatically,” Szames says. “Consumer expectations have evolved from 2021 to 2026, and retail is going to shift along with those expectations.”
The pandemic didn’t just accelerate e-commerce adoption. It fundamentally rewired consumer expectations. Shoppers now demand more from brick-and-mortar experiences. Convenience alone won’t justify a trip to a physical location. Brands that haven’t evolved their in-store offerings, their messaging, or their relevance are feeling the pressure now.
Steve’s Music opened on Queen West in 1977, back when musicians needed to visit a physical store to research gear, ask experts questions, and understand what equipment suited their needs. Today, that research happens before anyone walks through a door.
“Before, going in store and asking the expert about their opinion, what’s the best materials, doing the research in store was the best way to understand what is actually needed,” Szames says. “Today, there are so many resources online where you can do that research. An at-home or studio trial is what is needed.”
The purchase still happens. The path to it has fundamentally changed. Steve’s is consolidating to its Montreal flagship not because the category is dead, but because the role of physical retail in that category has shifted—strategic optimization, not market failure.
Natural Lease Expirations vs. Business Failure
The Cineplex on Queen East closes on February 17th. The theatre isn’t failing. The landlord simply chose not to renew the lease, opting instead to bring in a health and wellness business, according to City of Toronto building permits.
“It’s not necessarily a bad thing when we see stores moving or storefronts being vacant,” Szames says. “Retailers have to look at their best performing stores, optimize those locations, reallocate funds to support growth in their operations. That entails looking at each store and how well it performs.”
This is what the industry calls a natural lease expiration. A retailer signs a 10-year deal with an out-clause at five years, or a two-year agreement that gets renewed if performance warrants it. These aren’t desperate exits. They’re built-in evaluation points where both landlord and tenant reassess whether the relationship still makes sense.
Cineplex has been there since 1999. The business model works. Nearby locations will absorb the audience. The landlord made a strategic decision about tenant mix—not a referendum on movie theatres or entertainment retail, but real estate strategy.
The Patrician Grill closing on May 9th follows a similar pattern, though for different reasons. Terry Papas and his family are retiring after nearly 60 years of running the restaurant. His parents bought it in 1967. He’s been working there since 1987. The neighbourhood loves it. The Papas family has earned the right to retire. That’s not retail failure. That’s a natural lifecycle.
When Brands Lose Their Identity
Eddie Bauer and Toys “R” Us tell a different story entirely. These are brands struggling with something more fundamental than lease negotiations or category shifts.
“Being sold multiple times, there’s no founder vision,” Szames says. “That’s often what gets lost. It’s hard to be relevant when you don’t really have an authentic point-of-view, the reason why you started. So we start to see a lack of connection between the consumer and the brand.”
Eddie Bauer has had three owners since 2008. Each ownership change diluted whatever made the brand distinctive in the first place. Toys “R” Us has cycled through similar ownership and strategy shifts. The struggles there don’t signal that toy retail is dying. Smaller, local toy retailers are thriving by establishing clear points of view and creating experiences that feel personal and joyful.
“When we talk about being relevant, there are two pillars,” Szames says. “The first is remaining authentic to your original POV. And the second is being relevant with todays culture and your consumer. It’s not about your consumer coming to you. It’s about you, the brand, the retailer meeting the consumer and being where they are.”
The Strategy Inversion
The old retail model assumed consumers would come to you. Build the store, stock the shelves, advertise the sale, and shoppers would show up. That’s over.
“We’re no longer in a market where we can expect consumers to come to us as retailers or brands,” Szames says. “It’s now up to the brand and retailer to go to the consumer. And that’s what changed. There has been a big shift in perspective and narrative, and without understanding that challenges will happen.”
Physical retail’s role has shifted from transaction hub to brand messaging. The store isn’t just where you buy things anymore. It’s where you understand what the brand stands for, what it believes, why it exists. Retailers that treat their locations as afterthoughts or purely transactional spaces are missing the point entirely.
The brands succeeding right now are the ones that understand this. Heritage brands that have reconnected with their founding vision. New entrants that identified underserved needs and built experiences around them. They’re not waiting for consumers to find them. They’re going where the conversation already exists.
Finding Opportunity in the Noise
Every closure announcement triggers the same reflexive takes about dying industries and doomed markets on social media.
“We can get sucked into the negative and the doom and gloom, but with everything, there is opportunity,” Szames says. “Yes, the economy is challenging. Yes, the landscape has changed. It doesn’t mean consumers are not buying. It’s just what is influencing them and how they’re buying has changed. And the retail landscape has to adjust to that.”
The opportunity hasn’t disappeared. It’s relocated. Consumers are still spending. They’re still visiting stores. They’re still building relationships with brands. What’s changed is what earns their attention, what justifies their time, what makes a physical experience worth having instead of clicking “add to cart” from their couch.
Landlords making strategic tenant mix decisions. Families retiring after decades of service. Brands consolidating to stronger markets. Companies struggling with lost identity and relevance. These are four completely different dynamics, each requiring different analysis and different responses.
Lumping them together under a single narrative of retail apocalypse misses what’s actually happening. It obscures where the real problems exist and where genuine opportunities are emerging.
The Patrician Grill closes because the Papas family chose retirement. Cineplex Beaches is closing because a landlord wanted a different tenant. Steve’s Music consolidates because the category’s path to purchase has evolved. Eddie Bauer and Toys “R” Us struggle because they’ve lost connection to what made them matter in the first place.
Different stories. Different implications. One oversimplified narrative that gets it wrong.
Dustin Fuhs is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of 6ix Retail, Toronto’s premier source for retail and hospitality industry news. As the former Editor-in-Chief of Retail Insider, Canada’s most-read retail trade publication, Dustin brings over two decades of expertise spanning retail, marketing, entertainment and hospitality sectors. His experience includes roles with industry giants such as The Walt Disney Company, The Hockey Hall of Fame, The Canadian Opera Company, Starbucks Canada and Blockbuster.
Recognized as a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert in 2024, 2025 and 2026, Dustin delivers insider perspectives on Toronto’s evolving retail landscape, from emerging brands to established players reshaping the city’s commercial districts.