American Girl Store, New York City

Oh, yes we did!  As part of our family vacation we devoted a morning to the American Girl store on Fifth Avenue in New York. This post is intended to help you with your travel plans and get the most out of your visit too!

Mom’s Lifesavers Tip

TIP: Let me point out that the famous name building brick store is located within a short walk of the AG store – we sent the boys in that general direction so that we could take our time.

The American Girl store is made of 4 floors and opens at 9 AM – we arrived around 9:30 on a Saturday and headed straight to the concierge – yes, there is a concierge! Our first order of business – a bathroom break!

‘Liberty’ in her hanger while we get cleaned up.

Now how is that? There are hangers for your doll not only in bathroom stalls but also at the sinks so that you can take care of business without having to put the doll on the floor or vanity. The entire 2nd floor is bathrooms! Super clean, spacious bathrooms – in NY! Someone knew what they were doing when they did that!
We headed up to the 3rd floor (we skipped right over the first floor, which is the main storefront) where we walked right in and made a hair appointment for ‘Liberty’ – there were no lines but the salon area was already filled. We got the next available appointment for 10:30 – plenty of time to shop and explore. 

Mom’s Lifesavers Tip:

TIP: If you are planning a trip to the salon – get there early – by 10:30 when we came back for our appointment, there was a line about 20 dolls deep just to book an appointment. We were told by our stylist that it is much less busy in the hair salon during the week. The appointment takes about 30 minutes – depending on services/style.

There are cut outs to pose with, like this one of the 2013 doll of the year and full displays of all the dolls and their accessories on this level.

The third floor is also the home of the bake shop, hospital, t-shirt maker and salon – but there is more!

On the 4th floor you will find all the babies, their clothes, matching kid size clothes, the New York ‘souvenir shop’, photo studio and the restaurant!

If you are interested in visiting the restaurant I suggest you make reservations online well in advance of your visit. We didn’t plan on going but I did check out the reservations and they were booked for the weekend and booking dates in August – that’s right 4 months out! TIP – They offer not only lunch but brunch, tea and dinner – I will definitely be looking into it for next time.

Shopping – yes we did!

There are registers and helpful associates throughout the store. The same things you will find for sale on the first floor are available upstairs – and I noticed little to no lines upstairs – we never waited in line to check out – TIP – Make you purchases upstairs – shorter lines!

When it came time to leave we were thrilled with our experience and look forward to returning. We headed out the main door and took a right – headed to lunch at the Liberty Deli. They have everything we needed for a quick lunch on the go – no lines, no waiting and seating was available. The kids had pizza – no surprise there.

I have so much more to share! Can’t wait to let you know about the hair salon, and cafe; MY American girl’s photo shoot with her favorite doll. Stay tuned.