in Toronto In the mid-1990s,
Maxine Clark resigned as president of
Payless ShoeSource and started a string of retail stores with interactive experiences similar to her childhood of various events held at department stores. She went to toy factories and children's retail stores looking for ideas. She drew up three plans, then presented them to a panel of children. The build-a-bear concept was selected from the three, as the children were excited about it, and the stuffed animals offered a high-profit margin. Clark founded Build-A-Bear in 1997. In 1997, Clark also offered to purchase Basic Brown Bears, which has been operating since 1985 in the do-it-yourself stuffed animals space. Adrienne Weiss Co. of
Los Angeles was hired to develop the concept. Clark wanted to expand the store into a chain from the beginning, expecting to open three to five stores in 1998, and six to ten stores in 1999, to have 100 stores within five years.
Build-A-Bearville In late October 2007, Build-A-Bear Workshop opened a
massively multiplayer online game called Build-A-Bearville (also known as Bearville), developed in association with
Frima Studio. It allowed users to play games, explore an expanding world, partake in special events, and chat in a safe community. In addition, Build-A-Bear was featured on an episode of Undercover Boss. Redeemable codes were sold with some products from Build-A-Bear Workshops that could be used to unlock features and content within the game. However, these were not required in order to play. Anyone could create an account and play with access to most of the game’s features, even if they had not purchased a product from a Build-A-Bear Workshop. In January 2015, users received an email from the company stating that the virtual world would close on March 31st, 2015 and would no longer be playable after that time. It was replaced by the kids’ site “Bearville Alive!”, containing a web series featuring Build-a-Bear characters.
Friends 2B Made Friends 2B Made was an interactive store that allowed customers to make dolls and purchase related accessories launched by Build-A-Bear in 2005. The store was open briefly in nine standalone locations and inside 94 other stores before closing in 2009.
Build-A-Dino Build-A-Dino allows customers to create a stuffed dinosaur and purchase related accessories. The first location was located inside the
T-Rex Café in
Kansas City, in partnership with
Landry’s Restaurants. The first stand-alone store was a temporary holiday location at
Chesterfield Mall in
Chesterfield, Missouri, which closed after the 2006 holidays to relocate to the
St. Louis Science Center. There is also a Build-A-Dino inside a second T-Rex Café at Disney Springs in
Walt Disney World, and numerous other locations inside Build-A-Bear stores. There was a Build-A-Dino at the Myrtle Beach Build-A-Bear Workshop flagship store but it has been since closed as of 2015.
Make Your Own Mascot in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, now closed. “Make Your Own Mascot” stores trade at
Progressive Field (Cleveland),
Great American Ball Park (Cincinnati),
AT&T Park (San Francisco),
Nationals Park (Washington D.C.), and
Busch Stadium (St. Louis) featuring the home team’s respective mascots, as well ones for
Boston Red Sox mascot
Wally the Green Monster in the
Faneuil Hall Marketplace store and
Mr. Met, the mascot of the
New York Mets, at their
Fifth Avenue store in
Manhattan, New York City.
Build-A-Bear Workshop At Sea Build-A-Bear Workshop At Sea is located on Carnival Cruise Ships within their Camp Ocean Children’s Program. They are pop-up shops where guests can make their own furry friends while on a cruise.
Public company Clark took Build-A-Bear Workshop public in 2004. The company opened its first international franchise in Sheffield, England and licensed
Hasbro a home bear-stuffing kit.
The Game Factory developed and released a Build-A-Bear Workshop video game for the
Nintendo DS platform for Christmas 2007. A Build-A-Bear game for the
Nintendo Wii, subtitled
A Friend Fur All Seasons, was released in fall 2008. Build-A-Bear released a feature film, available on the
iPad through MoPix, in December 2011. From 2011 to 2013, Millennial women began increasingly visiting the stores to purchase accessories intended for their pets, rather than prior bear purchases. In 2008, a virtual game of Build-A-Bear was released in which people could explore Bearville and play games online. Players had an inventory with items that they could trade amongst each other. The player could also listen to songs in the game. This game closed in 2015. Cepia, LLC settled a patent and copyright infringement lawsuit over a color-changing bear against Build-A-Bear in 2013. Also in 2013, founder Maxine Clark retired as CEO, The company licensed
My Little Pony and the musical group One Direction. With 400 stores, the company plans to trim 60 underperforming stores over two years. On July 12, 2018, Build-A-Bear held an event in the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada where patrons could pay their child's age for a bear. The relatively low price of the
stuffed bears for younger children attracted massive numbers of people, overwhelming the franchise's stores as well as many
shopping malls in which Build-A-Bear franchises were located. The event prompted a surge in public awareness of the Build-A-Bear brand, according to a subsequent
YouGov poll, nearly all of which was negative. Sharon Price John, president and CEO, apologized; the company stated that those who had waited in line would receive vouchers. In November 2017, the company expanded on its pop up shop locations with the opening of Build-A-Bear Bakeshop temporarily for the holidays in the West County Center near a Workshop location. In August 2018, the company launched Kabu pre-teen lifestyle brand based on Japanese
kawaii-style art starting with three characters: Kabu Pawlette (bunny), Kabu Bearnice (bear), and Kabu Catlynn (kitten). A companion game app, Kabu Pop Party Quest, was also created. During the 2018 holiday season, Build-A-Bear opened six
pop-up pilot shops in
Walmart stores. The success of the pilot led to the expansion of Build-A-Bear into a further 25 Walmart locations in 2019. The company launched a streaming radio station in October 2018. Build-A-Bear Workshop teamed up with
Warner Music Group's Arts Music and Warner Chappell Music in July 2019 to partner on a Build-A-Bear music label. Patrick Hughes (founder of
Foundation Media Partners) and Harvey Russell (CEO) went on board to guide the label. With an announcement of having secured a deal with
Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions in an August 2019 Q2 earnings report, Build-A-Bear was starting up an in-house production entity, Build-A-Bear Entertainment. The first movie is
The Honey Girls movie, which comes with songs and music videos on its YouTube channel. Two Christmas movies were produced, the first being
Christmas CEO, which was first broadcast on
Hallmark Channel on November 26, 2021, and the second being
Glisten and the Merry Mission, which came out in
Cinemark theaters on November 3, 2023. PRWS Entertainment Group, a custom entertainment, live events, and branded experiences production company, formed a partnership with the company. In March 2026 it was announced that CEO and president Sharon Price John was retiring in June. Chris Hurt was named as the new CEO. Hurt has been with the company for over 10 years, most recently as chief operations and experience officer in which he oversaw more than 4,000 employees. ==In-Store Experience==