Two years after shuttering all its branches and fading into retail memory, Bed Bath & Beyond is trying to rise again. The once-ubiquitous home-goods chain has begun reopening stores across the U.S.—but the great state of California won’t be part of the comeback.
The company’s new leadership points the finger squarely at the state’s business climate. Chairman Marcus Lemonis told U.S. media: “California has created one of the most expensive and dangerous environments for businesses in America. It makes hiring harder, operations harder and delivering value harder.”
He described a state weighed down by “higher taxes, higher fees, unaffordable wages and endless regulations,” adding that even when Sacramento claims a surplus, it comes “on the backs of citizens paying too much and businesses squeezed until they break.” Bed Bath & Beyond, he declared, “will not participate in a system that harms customers and shareholders.”
Instead, the company will serve California only online. “We’re taking a stand for common sense,” Lemonis said. “Businesses deserve a chance to succeed. Workers deserve stable jobs. Customers deserve fair prices. California’s system delivers the opposite.”
Sacramento fired back. Governor Gavin Newsom’s office responded sharply on X: “After their bankruptcy and closure of every store, like most Americans, we thought Bed, Bath & Beyond no longer existed. We wish them well in their efforts to become relevant again as they try to open a 2nd store.”
For now, the comeback is modest, as the company has reopened a single shop in Nashville and aims to add 300 locations nationwide over the next two years.
Bed Bath & Beyond was once a juggernaut. Founded in the 1970s, it became America’s go-to retailer for home goods, hitting $1 billion in sales by 1999 and expanding to over 1,500 stores at its peak. But the pandemic, changing shopping habits and management turmoil proved too heavy a burden. In 2022, its CFO committed suicide. By 2023, the chain had collapsed completely. Its brand was later sold to an online retailer, which is now trying to revive its brick-and-mortar legacy.