Welcome to The Tenant Encyclopedia
A website dedicated to my ongoing project of tracking down every store and restaurant that has ever existed at the Mall of America since 1992.
Embedded Files
Welcome to the Fanmade Encyclopedia of Tenants at America's Largest Mall!
TOTAL TENANTS TRACKED:
1,521
99%
have a floor & wing ID'd.**
95%
have an exact address ID'd.*
68%
have a photo found.
60%
have a description found.
DISCLAIMERS & NOTES:
This website is NOT affiliated with the Mall of America and should NOT be used as an accurate representation of what is currently at the mall. Information here is only updated occasionally. If you are planning a trip to the mall or are looking for an up-to-date list of tenants, please visit Mall of America's official website.
Additionally, this website is NOT affiliated with any of the stores, restaurants, or other brands mentioned within it.
This website should NOT be used as a definitive educational source. It is simply a fan-made resource to help those looking to be nostalgic about the mall. While I strive to ensure information is as accurate as possible, there are some limitations and gaps in my research (see Research Strategy).
This site only tracks tenants that have been given an official standard address (ex: "E402"). It does NOT track the many kiosks that have existed in the mall, often identified as "carts" or with 4 digit addresses starting with 6 (ex: "6335"). Exceptions to this rule are tenants located in the theme park, anchor stores, and hotels that have a walk-in or "permanent" style location, often operating as separate businesses. These exceptions I personally determine on a case-by-case basis.
VIEW ENCYCLOPEDIA:
Choose how you'd like the list of tenants to be sorted.
WHAT ALL INFO DO THESE PAGES TRACK?
TENANT NAME
The name of the store as of present day or last documentation (if the store has since gone under a name change. The name change will only apply if it has occurred while the store was still present at the mall).
TENANT TYPE
The type of product or service the tenant specializes in, spanning across 22 categories (inspired by those listed in past official mall directories): Apparel, Art, Books & Stationary, Convenience, Department, Electronics, Entertainment, Food & Drink, Gifts & Cards, Health & Beauty, Housewares, Jewelry, Luggage, Music & Video, Optical, Photography, Services, Shoes, Specialty, Sporting Goods, Toys & Hobbies, and Travel.
PHOTO EVIDENCE
Any visual proof of the store's existence.
For stores that are/were around for a while, I try to use the newest look available of the store.
Images can be official photos posted by the Mall of America, or they can be sourced from a variety of other media, both professional and visitor taken. Majority of photos have sources cited.
Quality can range from high quality full images of the storefront to very low quality images of the store's sign.
TENANT STATUS
The current status of the tenant among five categories:
OPEN – Tenants that are currently open.
OPEN (Seasonal) – Tenants that currently open annually during specific timeframes, such as holiday-based stores or regular conventions.
CLOSED – Tenants that have permanently closed.
PENDING – Tenants that have been announced, but have not yet opened. (They must have a listing page on the official Mall of America website to be included).
NEVER OPENED – Tenants that were announced and under construction for a significant period of time, but never officially opened for various reasons. (They need to have had in-mall construction walls up around their planned space to be included.)
OPENING YEAR
The determined year the tenant officially opened. For gaps where one specific year has been unable to be identified, an estimated date range will be provided (ex: "1995~1997").
For stores closed for longer than a year but later returned to the mall, a second opening year will be presented alongside the first (ex: "2009~2010 | 2024").
For stores with a status of PENDING or NEVER OPENED, the opening year will be marked with a " — " dash.
CLOSING YEAR
The determined year the tenant officially closed. Similar to the opening year, if one specific year has been unable to be identified, an estimated date range will be provided (ex: 1995~1997).
For stores that are currently open or have a status of PENDING, the closing year will be marked with a " — " dash.
For stores that closed for longer than a year, later returned to the mall, and closed again OR remained open the latter time, a second closing year or " — " dash will be displayed alongside the first closing year (ex: "2020 | 2025" or "2010 | — ").
For stores with a status of NEVER OPENED, the closing year will be the year news broke of the store's opening officially being cancelled.
ADDRESS
(FLOOR & WING)
Which floor and wing of the mall are the stores located on.
The mall currently has 4 floors and 5 streets: North Garden, East Broadway, South Avenue, West Market, and Central Parkway (an extended wing added in 2016, replacing the former North Entrance).Outside of the 5 main wings, additional locales around and connected to the mall will be tracked, including: "Theme Park" (any tenant located in the central amusement park), Nordstrom, Macy's, Sears, Bloomingdale's, and "Hotel" (any tenant located in the either of the attached hotels).
If the specific locale of a tenant has been unable to be identified, the address will be marked with a "?" question mark.
If a tenant has moved, only their most recent location will be tracked.
Tenants with multiple locations will only have one tracked.
Addresses for currently open or pending tenants will be omitted and replaced with a redirect link to Mall of America's official website, where this information can be found.
OFFICIAL ADDRESS
The specific numbered address provided to each tenant by the mall (akin to a business street address). These address are stylized with a letter associated to the named wings of the mall (N, E, S, W, & C), followed by 1 number identifying which floor of the mall (1, 2, 3, & 4), then followed by 2 more numbers from 00-99 (ex: "E284", "N100", "C322"). If a tenant shares a space, their address is often followed by an "A" or "B" (ex: "W112B"). In extremely rare scenarios, a tenant's address has a 4th number, which possibly is given if the tenant is in a uniquely placed space different from the standard hallway locations (ex: S1802).
For tenants located within the theme park, the most recent name of the park that the tenant existed in will be displayed. The park currently has had 3 iterations: Camp Snoopy, The Park at MOA, and Nickelodeon Universe.
For tenants located within the mall's 4 anchor stores, the cardinal direction of said store will be marked: NW (Nordstrom), NE (Sears), SW (Macy's), and SE (Bloomingdale's).
For tenants located in the mall's 2 hotels, the name of the hotel will be marked (Radisson Blu or JW Marriott).
If a tenant does not have an exact address identified, than only the floor & wing location will be shown. If that data is also not known, then the address section will be marked with a "?" question mark.
If a tenant has moved, only their most recent location will be tracked.
Tenants with multiple locations will only have one tracked.
Addresses for currently open or pending tenants will be omitted and replaced with a redirect link to Mall of America's official website, where this information can be found.
OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION
Any descriptive written material made to promote the tenant to visitors. Ideally, coming from official sources, usually the Mall of America's website or released printed material.
Descriptions for currently open or pending tenants will be omitted and replaced with a redirect link to Mall of America's official website, where this information can be found.
RESEARCH STRATEGY:
How did you find info on all +1,500 tenants currently identified on this website?
Over my years of research on the mall, I have had many ways of discovering and confirming the existence of and information about all the tenants. The first and most obvious, is stores that I remember from my many visits to the mall since childhood. However, I like more concrete proof of said stores' existence, and the first place for solid lists is the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Within there are many years worth of archived directory pages and maps. A bulk of my data and information is pulled from these lists. From there I just need to fill in the gaps, of which there tends to actually be a lot.
For one, the website only dates back to 1997, leaving an extensive gap in data for much of the mall's earliest years. Additionally, due to some bugs in how Wayback saves the various editions of the site, some archives result in error pages or pages that do not load. To fill in more of these gaps, I next turn to various printed maps that span these missing years, either through pictures and scans online or by buying them myself to review in person.
Finding images of all these stores has proven to be the biggest hurdle, as these have only been displayed on online directories relatively recently. However, these tend to be the most fun to hunt for! A wide variety of pages have proven very valuable for finding photos. First and most obvious is Mall of America's various social medias, primarily Facebook, which regularly post great photos of stores when they officially open. The next great resource is review sites, such as Google Maps and Yelp, where users have helped document images of stores since the early 2010's. And for those often older or obscure stores that go unreviewed, I scour through the many photos on Flickr and videos on YouTube of visitors' personal trips to the mall.
* While most directories present stores alongside their mall address (ex: "E402"), very early directories, such as the oldest Wayback Machine archives or the Grand Opening Fun Book, often only identify which floor and wing/street of the mall the store is located in (ex: "E4" or "4 East Broadway").
** In some rare cases, a store's official existence has only been documented in media that does not present an address, such as the Grand Opening Magazine or visually in the background of photos or videos taken in an indiscernible part of the mall.
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