At 2:30 on a Saturday morning, the mall at 435 Stone Road West is dark. One unit is still open. It's the old Pizza Pizza spot, and it has its own outside door. Since July 24, that door has belonged to Insomnia Cookies, which stays open until 3 a.m. Thursday through Saturday no matter when the rest of the mall closes.
For Kortright Hills, Stone Road Mall is the closest big shopping stop, just across the Hanlon. It changed a lot this year. Two businesses that people planned trips around left in January. The places that opened since then are built for short visits you don't have to plan. Some don't need an appointment, and one doesn't need the mall to be open at all.
January Took Out Two Planned Trips
The first closure came quickly. GuelphToday reported that Primaris, which owns the mall, ended the Toys 'R' Us lease as of Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. On the Monday after, the lights were on and the shelves were full, but the doors were locked. The store was 17,000 square feet. It opened in November 2020 and created 50 local jobs. Before that, the brand ran a smaller express store in the mall called Jefferey's Toy Box.
Eleven days later, a much older tenant closed. Cinema 1 sold DVDs and Blu-rays, both new releases and cult classics. Alan McCrae opened it at Stone Road Mall on the Civic long weekend in 1992, three months after he finished university. It moved to three different spots inside the mall over the years. The lease was ending, and the store closed on Jan. 28. That left a London location as his only remaining store. At one point he had 11. "That is a long time to be in that mall, and we're kind of part of the furniture," McCrae told GuelphToday.
Both stores were places you went on purpose. You drove to a 17,000-square-foot toy store with a birthday list. You went to a movie shop that had been open since 1992 when you wanted a specific film. One reader's comment on McCrae's closing post remembered a grandfather buying a Super Nintendo game there in 1993. Two of the mall's best-known destination stores were gone before February.
July Brought Two Openings on Back-to-Back Days
The next openings came in late July, one day apart. Neither works like the stores that left.
On July 23, Just Cuts opened its first Canadian salon at Stone Road Mall. It's an Australian chain with more than 230 salons in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The company's opening announcement said London, Hamilton and Toronto would follow. The salon only does style cuts and takes walk-ins. "No appointment. No rearranging your schedule weeks in advance," the release says. On its own site, the mall calls the salon locally owned.
On July 24, Insomnia Cookies opened its fifth Canadian location in the old Pizza Pizza unit. The company started with 18 staff, five of them delivery drivers. It runs its own delivery and also sells through third-party apps.
So the mall swapped a toy store you planned a trip around for a salon that doesn't take bookings. It swapped a movie shop you browsed for a bakery that will deliver to your door after midnight. The new places are built for trips you decide to make on the spot.
The Door That Keeps Its Own Hours
The cookie shop's hours come down to one detail. Insomnia's unit has its own outside door, so, as GuelphToday put it, it "doesn't abide by the mall's hours."
| Day | Insomnia Cookies opens | Insomnia Cookies closes |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday to Wednesday | 11 a.m. | 1 a.m. |
| Thursday to Saturday | 11 a.m. | 3 a.m. |
The menu covers standard flavours like chocolate chunk and sugar, vegan cookies, deluxe versions with s'mores, peanut butter cups or Skor pieces, plus ice cream sandwiches and three kinds of brownies. Some flavours rotate every couple of weeks.
The late-night part of the mall may get bigger. A photo caption in GuelphToday's opening story says THG's Hot Chicken was still under construction next door in July, and the two businesses will share the outside entrance. As of early October, THG's locations page still lists Guelph as "COMING SOON 2026," and the restaurant isn't in the mall's store directory. No opening date has been announced, and nothing confirms THG's late-night hours yet. What's confirmed is a second food tenant behind the same outside door.
This adds to food that was already there. Jersey Mike's opened at the mall in January 2025, according to GuelphToday.
Toys Came Back in a Smaller Format
The mall has a toy store again, in a different form. TKO Toy Co. says on its website that it has "officially moved into Stone Road Mall." It's now in Unit N8, after leaving 930 Woodlawn Road West, Unit 9. The mall directory describes it as a trading card, collectibles and hobby store.
Neither the store nor the mall has given an exact move date. Card game event listings narrow it down. TKO was still on Woodlawn for an Aug. 30 event and was at 435 Stone Road West, Unit N8, for one on Oct. 2. That makes it the newest arrival on this list. Nothing published says TKO took over the old Toys 'R' Us space. It's a specialty hobby shop, a different kind of store than a big-box toy anchor.
The Spaces Nobody Has Announced Yet
Some things are still unknown as of October 2026:
- The former Toys 'R' Us space. We found no news report, mall announcement or City of Guelph listing saying what will go in the 17,000-square-foot space.
- The former Cinema 1 unit. No incoming tenant has been named publicly.
- THG's Hot Chicken. It's listed as "coming soon 2026" with no date, and the construction GuelphToday reported in July hasn't led to an announced opening.
What has been confirmed this year points in one direction. The new tenants are a walk-in salon, a late-night bakery that delivers, a hobby shop and a hot chicken counter that hasn't opened yet. None of them is the kind of large store you plan a weekend around.
The Mall's Calendar Through December
The mall still has scheduled events that run on its regular hours, and three fall within the next three months:
- Just Cuts student pricing ends Oct. 26. The mall lists a $23 cut for University of Guelph students from Sept. 14 through Oct. 26.
- Spooktacular, Saturday, Oct. 31. The mall's Halloween event runs 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Centre Court. The mall's event index shows a wider "Oct 5 - Oct 31" range, but the event page gives Oct. 31 as the date of the event itself.
- Santa visits, Nov. 14 to Dec. 24. The mall is taking Santa photo bookings for that period.
Santa season is when a full-size toy store mattered most to this mall. This is the first holiday season since 2020 without one.
Our team keeps track of changes like these along Stone Road and around the Hanlon because they shape what a weekday looks like in Kortright Hills. If you'd like to talk about how changes near your street might affect what you're planning, the team at Andra Arnold is happy to help. Contact us.
