Korean street food, swanky ‘Sac' seats, pop culture toy store headed to Tacoma Mall
While Tacoma Mall is busy expanding with its new exterior Village concept, one furniture retailer has staked a claim in the new development heavy on food concepts.
Meantime, the original, main mall building is welcoming a designer toy store well known among collectors and a new food-court vendor.
Connecticut-based Lovesac is planning a furniture showroom in The Village across from Shake Shack and between Supreme Dumplings and Happy Lamb Hot Pot. The company sells modular, 'Sactional' (sectional) furniture and 'Sacs' — bag seats, among other items.
Its website's product page says its furniture is 'built to last a lifetime.'
'We seek to use sustainable inputs, but even consumable parts are built for replacement, recycling, or easy repair so they won't end up in a landfill,' it added.
The retailer has a store in Westfield Southcenter in Tukwila and sites in Olympia, Kirkland and Lynnwood.
The Village is set to open in October, according to a mall media representative, along with Lovesac. The Village also includes Dave's Hot Chicken, Simply Thai and Gong cha bubble tea.
The mall's food court is gaining Seoul Bowl in May, between Charleys Cheesesteaks and Sip + Spoon, according to the mall directory map. Its store page says, 'Our wish was always to have our hometown of Seattle to have similar street food as South Korea.
'We developed the recipe in our way and transported the flavors of South Korea to Seattle. And that's what we're doing with Seoul Bowl.'
Chinese toy company Pop Mart has a store planned across from Helzberg Diamonds in the original main mall building. The store's description calls the brand 'a rising global force in pop culture and entertainment. Our purpose is to celebrate daily moments and inspire through designer toys and fun experiences.'
Pop Mart is known for its 'blind box' or 'mystery box' toys, sold in a sealed package that can contain a random, unknown toy or collectible figure. Its top seller is its Labubu doll.
In addition to its vending machines, as of March, it had 22 U.S. stores across 11 states, including Westfield Southcenter in Tukwila and Bellevue Square in Bellevue.
The mall media representative said Pop Mart is set to open in July.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Axios
26 minutes ago
- Axios
Amid backlash, Tesla remained resilient in Texas
Even as Tesla deliveries plunged nationally this year amid Elon Musk's very visible (if short-lived) alliance with President Trump, there was at least one state where Tesla registrations were up: Texas. Why it matters: The registration data, obtained by Axios through public information requests, indicates loyalty to the brand in its home base, including Texas' large urban and suburban counties. The depth of conservatives' enthusiasm for Musk's automobiles now faces a major test amid the absolute meltdown last week between the Tesla CEO and the president. By the numbers: Texans registered 12,918 new Teslas in the first three months of 2025, a period when Musk, who contributed more than $250 million to a pro-Trump super PAC during the 2024 election campaign, was enmeshed in the Trump administration as the overseer of DOGE, the president's cost-cutting initiative. Over the same period in 2024, Texans registered 10,679 Teslas. That's a 21% increase year over year. The intrigue: The spike in Texas registrations came as Tesla was flailing elsewhere. Tesla's vehicle deliveries plunged 13% globally in the first quarter of 2025 (336,681 electric vehicles) compared with Q1 2024 (386,810). Tesla vehicles were torched at showrooms and the brand's reputation cratered. Zoom in: Tesla saw year-over-year improvements in its sales in some of the most populous Texas counties. In Travis County, new Tesla registrations grew from 1,369 in the first quarter of 2024 to 1,424 during the first quarter of 2025. In Harris County, they grew from 1,526 to 1,837 during the same period. Tesla registration grew from 1,316 to 1,546 in Collin County and from 990 to 1,146 in Dallas County. In Bexar County, registrations grew from 631 to 664. What they're saying:"It's homegrown pride," is how Matt Holm, president and founder of the Tesla Owners Club of Austin, explains the car company's resilience to Axios. "And regardless of all the drama going on these days, people can differentiate between the product and everything else going on, and it's just a great product." "Elon has absolutely and irreversibly blown up bridges to some potential customers," says Alexander Edwards, president of California-based research firm Strategic Vision, which has long surveyed the motivations of car buyers. "People who bought Teslas for environmental friendliness, that's pretty much gone," Edwards tells Axios. Yes, but: The company had been enjoying an increasingly positive reputation among more conservative consumers. Musk was viewed favorably by 80% of Texas Republicans polled by the Texas Politics Project in April — and unfavorably by 83% of Democrats. In what now feels like a political lifetime ago, Trump himself even promoted Teslas by promising to buy one in support of Musk earlier this year. "In some pockets, like Austin, you have that tech group that loves what Tesla has to offer, can do some mental gymnastics about Musk, and looks at Rivian and says that's not what I want or might be priced out," Edwards says. Between the lines:"Being in the state of Texas, you're naturally conditioned to think you're better than everyone else in the U.S. And when you buy a Tesla" — a status symbol — "that's what you're saying. It doesn't surprise me that there's an increase in sales" in Texas, Edwards says. Plus: Tesla's resilience in Texas could have practical reasons as well, Edwards says. Texas homes — as opposed to, say, apartments in cities on the East Coast — are more likely to have a garage to charge a car in, he adds. What's next: Musk said late last month that Tesla was experiencing a "major rebound in demand" — without providing specifics. But that was before things went absolutely haywire with Trump and Tesla stock took a bath last week.
Axios
26 minutes ago
- Axios
The U.S.-China leverage game
Negotiations usually boil down to leverage — specifically, who has more of it. In the U.S.- China talks underway Monday in London, the question of who has the upper hand boils down to macro- versus micro-economics. The big picture: A slew of data out of China shows the massive cost that U.S. tariffs impose on the Chinese economy, reflecting both underlying economic weakness and what the nation stands to lose if no trade peace is reached. The U.S., meanwhile, has had a run of perfectly solid macroeconomic data, but has much to lose if China continues throttling supplies of rare earth minerals and other specific goods that U.S. industries desperately need. State of play: All is not well for the fundamentals of China's economy, and plunging trade with the U.S. exacerbated those problems. Chinese exports to the U.S. fell 34.5% in May from a year ago, according to Chinese National Bureau of Statistics data out Monday. Its imports from the U.S. also fell, by 18%. Consumer prices fell for the fourth consecutive month, the bureau said, while producer prices fell the most in nearly two years. The mix of moribund export activity and falling prices compounds the nation's challenges grappling with a property bust and debt overhang. Yes, but: That might make Chinese negotiators eager to make a deal. After all, the nation's leadership views maintaining stable economic conditions and good living standards as crucial for their own hold on power, and collapsing exports to the U.S. undermine that goal. But they have plenty of leverage of their own, tied to U.S. reliance on very specific Chinese exports. Reality check: China's power in this standoff is tied to its ability to restrict exports of rare earth minerals, certain electronics, and pharmaceuticals. By throttling a handful of export categories, China can potentially exact damage on the U.S. economy that's far larger than the dollar value of the lost trade flows. Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, argued in an influential essay this spring that this means China has "escalation dominance," the power to escalate or de-escalate according to its goals. What they're saying: "The United States gets vital goods from China that cannot be replaced any time soon or made at home at anything less than prohibitive cost," Posen wrote in Foreign Affairs. In the event of aggressive escalation, he wrote, the U.S. "will face shortages of critical inputs ranging from basic ingredients of most pharmaceuticals to inexpensive semiconductors used in cars and home appliances to critical minerals for industrial processes including weapons production." The intrigue: The Wall Street Journal reported Monday morning that President Trump has authorized his negotiating team to loosen export restrictions on jet engines and other products as part of the talks, citing people familiar.
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
After vowing ‘90 deals in 90 days,' the White House's rhetoric runs into reality
Donald Trump clearly wants the public to believe he recently struck a trade deal with China. The president did not actually reach such an agreement, but he's leaned into his fictional narrative with great enthusiasm lately. Last Thursday, for example, the Republican published an item to his social media platform, noting that he'd spoken to Chinese President Xi Jinping about 'the intricacies of our recently made, and agreed to, Trade Deal.' Soon after, during an Oval Office event, he again touted the same 'trade deal.' A day later, Trump posted a follow-up item, announcing the members of a delegation who would travel to London to meet with Chinese officials about 'the Trade Deal.' The bad news is that the 'trade deal' in question does not exist, no matter how many times the American president pretends otherwise. The good news is that administration officials will actually have some discussions with their Chinese counterparts. NBC News reported: Senior U.S. and Chinese officials will meet in London on Monday in an effort to de-escalate the bitter trade dispute between the world's two biggest economies that has roiled the global economy, with China's restrictions on critical minerals high on the agenda. About a month ago, Trump announced what he characterized as a 'deal' with China, but the closer one looked at the details, the more the truth came into focus. Georgetown University professor Abraham Newman wrote a great piece for MSNBC that explained, "While the U.S. did avoid a major economic calamity, this is not a deal. The U.S. blinked. ... Far from some diplomatic coup, the U.S. climb down reflects the economic risks of maintaining such high tariffs.' The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal came to the same conclusion, noting, '[T]he China deal is more surrender than Trump victory.' Complicating matters, while the White House and Beijing reached a tentative agreement that paused the two countries' tit-for-tat tariffs, both countries have since accused each other of violating the agreement. All of which brings to mind Peter Navarro, the White House's top trade adviser, who boasted in April, 'We're going to run 90 deals in 90 days.' Navarro added that such a plan 'is possible' in part because 'the boss is going to be the chief negotiator.' Roughly two months later, the grand total currently stands at zero. Generous observers might be inclined to give Trump credit for striking a deal with the U.K., but as The Washington Post's Dana Milbank summarized in his latest column, that deal is really more of a 'vaguely phrased framework with Britain that still hasn't been made public.' What's more, a new Politico report added that a month after the agreement was announced, the U.S.-U.K. duties 'remain in place' and 'there is still no clear timeline for when they'll lift.' Or to put it another way, two-thirds of the way into the '90 deals in 90 days' vow, the White House appears to be 90 deals short. Undeterred, Navarro returned to Fox Business late last week, where he was asked when the public should expect to see some breakthroughs. 'We will have deals,' Navarro said. 'It takes time. Usually, it takes months and years. In this administration, it's gonna take more like days.' On average, the typical timeframe for a U.S. trade deal is roughly 30 months. That didn't deter Navarro from pushing the '90 deals in 90 days' talking point in April, and it apparently didn't stop him from claiming again last week that Team Trump will produce amazing results in a matter of days. The White House's top trade adviser should be going out of his way right now to lower expectations after already having set an impossibly high bar. For reasons unknown, Navarro is doing the opposite, setting up the Trump administration for additional failure. This article was originally published on
