Zellers is back. Can the nostalgic brand survive today’s retail landscape?

Zellers, the discount retail brand, is back in pop-up form in Canada. But will nostalgia be enough to bring shoppers back to the mall?

The day nostalgic Canadian shoppers have been waiting for has arrived: the Zellers department store is back — kind of.

Hudson’s Bay Co. locations in Ontario and Alberta officially launched their Zellers pop-up experiences on Thursday, some complete with visits from a food truck decked out with classic recipes from the family-favourite Zellers restaurant.

The brand also launched its e-commerce platform Thursday.

Zellers-branded hoodies were on sale alongside other clothing items and household goods inside the stores themselves.

On the first day of online sales, however, some items, including the red hoodie, appeared to be out of stock. There were long lineups for the Zellers Diner food truck at Edmonton’s Kingsway Mall, with a few menu items selling out, prompting the brand to announce the rolling restaurant would be back for a second day on Friday.

Retail experts say the return of the discount brand is well-suited for today’s inflationary era, but the Zellers comeback story might prove to be less a resurgence of department stores and more their last gasp.

Zellers, which has been owned by HBC since 1978, largely left shopping malls and independent outlets a decade ago when U.S.-based Target took up its storefronts amid a brief stab at the Canadian market.

The relaunch comes with an online store and 10,000 square feet of retail space inside existing HBCs, with the first 12 of 25 stores rolling out the in-store experiences March 23.