My Daughters Waited Over an Hour to Get Inside the Ultra Rare Jellycat Store in Chicago – Was It Worth It?

We took our two teenage daughters to downtown Chicago over the weekend. Cayleigh turns 16 next week, and she wanted to hit up one of her favorite clothing stores, but the nearest physical store is in Chicago. We found that store and several others that the girls wanted to visit. But then saw several people holding a bag from a store we did NOT know was in Chicago, and the girls made it their mission to find it!

Jelly Cat Has a Store in Downtown Chicago

For those of you saying out loud, "What is Jelly Cat?", don't feel bad. I didn't know about these until last Christmas. Carly told me that the stuffed toys made in London had, you guessed it, blown up on TikTok, making them insanely popular. You can order them from the official Jelly Cat Store and also from Amazon. But retail stores in the U.S. are rare. In fact, there are only TWO! One in Los Angeles, and the other in Chicago! How lucky were we?

Jelly Cat Chicago Hidden From View

The store itself was difficult to find. It is actually a pop-up store inside the Nordstrom location in downtown Chicago. After a 15-minute walk in the snow, we finally arrived to find that the wait to get into the store...was around an hour and a half. Our girls were determined to get into that store! And the wait was worth it, at least to them!

Jelly Cat stuffed toys range in price from $15 all the way up to $100 for large sizes. The girls went home with four of them. My favorite is Carly's pigeon, which we saw plenty of in downtown Chicago!