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Meta announced its LA-based pop-up store is returning as a flagship retail location, which is slated to arrive alongside more Meta branded pop-ups in New York and Las Vegas.

The News

The company opened its first retail store in Burlingame, California in 2022, located right next to its Reality Labs HQ.

Back then, it featured Meta Quest 2, Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses (now called Ray-Ban Meta), and its now-defunct Facebook Portal smart home device. The store still exists, although it’s stocked with new devices: Quest 3S, Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2), and the soon-to-launch Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses.

Partnered with EssilorLuxottica, Meta already has a pretty wide mix of online and brick-and-mortal retail locations, including Ray-Ban Stores, LensCrafters, Sunglass Hut, Best Buy and Meta’s online storefront. And it’s about to get a few more.

Now, Meta says its bringing back its LA pop-up from last year on October 24th, which is said to expand to over 20,000 square feet of permanent retail space. In perspective, that’s about as big as one of the larger Trader Joe’s or a newer Aldi.

Located on Melrose Avenue, the multi-level retail concept is launching with a theme too, which Meta says will be ‘Skating in Southern California, From Dogtown to Present’, slated to celebrate the Santa Monica skate scene and its evolution through the years.

The expansion is for good reason too. The new flagship store isn’t just devoted to Ray-Bay Meta glasses, but the the full line-up of smart glasses and XR headsets. That includes Meta Ray-Ban Display & the Meta Neural Band, Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2), Oakley Meta HSTN, Oakley Meta Vanguard, and Quest 3/3S headsets.

Meta says both its Burlingame and LA flagship store will host a “premium demo experience” for Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, although you can count on a similar experience at both Las Vegas and New York City pop-ups soon to follow.

The Las Vegas pop-up is slated to open on October 16th at the Wynn Las Vegas, including a 560-square-foot space. The New York pop-up opens November 13th, located on 5th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan.

My Take

While Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses were the biggest news to come out of Connect last week, the soon-to-launch glasses likely aren’t shooting for broad availability. Not only are they over double the price of its audio-only smart glasses at $800, but you actually need an in-person consultation to find the right size for both the glasses and included Neural Band, which means booking a demo at those stores mentioned above.

And despite committing to its second permanent retail location, it also doesn’t appear Meta’s own brick-and-mortar ambitions are going to be very broad either—at least not in the near term. That may change eventually though, as true all-day AR glasses supplant smart glasses as the next big thing. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Smart glasses with built-in displays (i.e. not AR glasses) are very much in the same “what the heck are those” stage that VR went through a number of years ago—compounded by the fact that users need to make sure they even fit (and look good) in the first place.

But as the current ‘experimental’ first gen of Meta Ray-Ban Display gives way to more mature hardware, the company will probably need those retail chops if they hope to further seed the best version of the Meta brand image—a familiar model pioneered by none other than its biggest future rival, Apple.

While you can just as easily buy at Best Buy or online, there’s a reason every major city has an Apple Store or two (or three). Repairs, trade-ins and access to the full gamut of devices are all important aspects to physical retail, but arguably more important is the tangible brand image that comes with it—something Meta doesn’t really have right now. Can Meta Stores be cool? If its LA location is any indication, they’re definitely trying.

In the near term though, it seems the company’s 2024 LA pop-up has served the company well enough to trust the Melrose Avenue location to pump their more mature smart glasses platform alongside the new Display model—probably (and sadly) less than they care about showing off Quest right now. After all, Ray-Ban Meta has been pretty dang profitable, handily selling over two million Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 1) following its release in 2023. And the thing doesn’t even have an app store.

The real prize all along though has been those all-day AR glasses still yet to come, and Meta knows it. And they may just be preparing for it right now. Okay, let’s get way ahead of ourselves.

The big caveat in the following prediction is whether Meta truly wants to go toe-to-toe with Apple. Anyway, here’s my imaginary retail playbook for Meta, which I’m happy to disavow at any point. I don’t have any special information, only a speculative hunch from watching the company’s moves over the last decade.

• 2026 – 2027: a deliberate creep of permanent retail based on performance of pop-ups during its smart glasses phase, possibly covering two generations of Display glasses.
• Before 2030: Meta releases first AR device (before 2030, Meta says), and more flagship retail locations are added. The company still relies on EssilorLuxottica partnership to demo and move product.
• Closer to 2030: A second gen of AR glasses arrives, marking more mature hardware and app ecosystem. Wider rollout of permanent retails locations across key cities.

If Meta wants to be more like Apple, that is.