Here’s what’s inside Google’s first-ever retail store

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  The inside of the store is wood-on-wood, with these crazy bendy poles everywhere.

After years of flirting with the idea of opening a physical store, Google announced its first-ever permanent retail location last month. Today, June 17, is the official grand opening, and Google celebrated with a blog post detailing what the store is like.

Officially, this is "The Google Store Chelsea," and it lives in New York City on 15th and 9th, aka the Chelsea Market building, aka the headquarters of Google's New York City campus. Unlike the stark white Apple Stores that Google is chasing after, the Google Store has a natural look, with warm wood walls and furniture. Whimsical bendy rods shoot out of the floor and decorate the store, looking like a giant version of a bead maze from a pediatrician's office. The store was designed by Ivy Ross, Google’s VP of hardware design.

What can you buy in a Google Store? It's essentially an offline version of store.google.com. That means it will sell Pixel phones, earbuds, Pixelbook laptops, Chromecasts, Google TVs, Stadia controllers, and Nest-branded speakers, smart displays, thermostats, smoke detectors, cameras, Wi-Fi routers, and doorbells. Google also notes that it will "have experts on hand to help visitors get the most out of their device, such as troubleshooting an issue, fixing a cracked Pixel screen, or helping with installations."

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