Fresno’s Fashion Fair lands a new Starbucks and Barnes & Noble. Here’s when they open
Fashion Fair mall in central Fresno has landed two big new tenants: a Barnes & Noble bookstore and a new Starbucks coffee shop.
The Starbucks won’t be in a traditional location. It’s inside the Macy’s department store and opened last Friday.
The news comes on the heels of word that the mall is also getting the bookstore. That store will be in the outdoor portion of the mall at the main entrance, near Lush cosmetics. It was scheduled to open at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 13, according to the company.
Both will be permanent, year-round stores.
The Starbucks is a full-fledged store with an entrance on the south side of the Macy’s women’s store. It will open early in the morning before the store opens so commuters can pick up their morning coffee, said store manager Deena Cota.
“All the same functions that happen in a Starbucks happen here as well,” she said.
There’s no drive-thru, but mobile ordering is available and there is seating and food.
Starbucks had a location inside the mall near the main entrance for years. But that closed about four years ago and was replaced with the Melano Coffee & Cafe serving Peet’s Coffee.
At least 14 Macy’s in California have Starbucks locations.
The Starbucks grand opening starts at 9:45 a.m. Friday, with the coffee shop opening at 10 a.m. Free samples of coffee will be handed out all day.
Barnes & Noble
At the other end of the mall, Barnes & Noble is making its final preparations before opening.
The store started hiring, encouraging people to apply via an Instagram post two weeks ago on the Barnes & Noble Fashion Fair Instagram account. The post said it was hiring for both the new location and the existing one in north Fresno.
It was apparently overwhelmed with applications. A day later, it posted that “applications are temporarily offline due to the volume.”
As of this week, the site was still accepting applications for temporary, seasonal workers starting at $18 in Fresno.
Shopping, books, food and drinks
Both businesses are throwbacks to shopping styles of years past.
Almost every mall had a bookstore in the 1980s and 90s, usually a Waldenbooks or a B. Dalton.
And the Starbucks is a return of the retailer to the mall.
It’s also a nod to the style of retail where customers can take a break from shopping for a meal or a drink at an in-store cafe. The Macy’s at Union Square has a restaurant inside, for example, as do big stores such as Bloomingdale’s.
Shoppers are encouraged to take their Starbucks drinks with them while they browse the store, Cota said.
The new stores are in addition to several other changes at the mall, including repaving the parking area, new landscaping and new paint.
This story was originally published October 31, 2024 at 8:51 AM.
