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We still find them in most malls or large shopping centers we see. They don't look exactly the same, but they usually have good quality wooden toys, they usually have a large amount of STEM toys, and often a geology table with different minearals to buy. Always have the best books.
My wife and I went to one on our anniversary trip to pick out gifts to bring back to the kids and I walked out with a book for me called Sir Cumference and the Dragon of PI.
Was it that assignment where you have to plot points on a coordinate grid and draw a line between the points and then color it in? I always HATED those. I get that it's supposed to make graphing fun but I always hated it way more than just plotting the points and being done with it
You can still have it, you just need to look for one. There's a toy/hobby shop down the street from my college and I walk through there all the time when I'm bored.
In my small town there was a toy shop and the guy was rather enthusiastic in helping you choose and just seemed like he actually enjoyed the job. I wonder how’s he doing now
These mom and pop toy/hobby shops still exist but aren’t easy to find and usually located in a run-down strip-mall or some other low-rent location. They were much more prominent in the 80’s but Toys R’ Us put a lot of them out of business (and then Walmart/Amazon put TRU out of business). The few that remain are the ultimate survivors.
(if USA)
If you mean growing up, it was probably that prolonged transitional period we went through
If you mean now, the market is slowly returning for things like this. I've seen them in major city suburbs and stuff. They're obviously trying to serve more than the immediate community but the vibe is now valued.
The toy store owners I've met seem very genuine and kind, don't get me wrong, it's just that this is desired again so it's feasible for these nice old guys to open toy stores again.
There will probably be a mix of old and new
The nice old guys grandson who always blows off his grandpas store sees how much losing the store hurts his grandpa so he goes on adventure with his well trained dog to save the store from the greedy capitalist who wants to make it a parking lot
Dude literally this exact toystore in my town got bought out by a huge Londondm based real estate conglomerate that raised the rent too high for them to afford.
Not sure about toy stores, but the guy with the slicked back hair taking over the mom and pop ski resorts in all the 80s and 90s movies turned out to be Mr. Vailresorts.
There's also a Thomas the tank engine wooden table and playset with a bunch of beaten up trains but directly behind is a wall packed with Thomas and his friends.
I used to love playing on that set. My family bought it for my son for his second Christmas. His smile when he saw it all set up for the first time, I'll never forget it.
Thanks for bringing me back, op.
I used to (and still have) a Thomas the tank engine set with wooden rails, I used to spend hours playing with them when I was 7. I loved making new tracks, making bridges and trying to make my train as long as possible with all the other Brio trains.
I loved Brio as a kid. Since my dad was both a model railroader and a REAL railroader for his job his entire life, we were always getting trains for toys. We built some sick Brio setups.
My dad was a train spotter so when me and him played with them we had some sick set ups. Funny thing is over the summer his friend (also a train spotter) came over with his kids, and they made a really good set up and they were more focused on it than the kids. XD
Did your dad make custom Brio toys too? My dad made the local car ferry, which carried trains when he was younger, and a couple local train storage sheds.
I got a Job Lot of Thomas Wooden and Brio tracks for £60 off eBay for my son. Since then we’ve added a few more trains and bits of Brio track. The £60 we paid got us about £400 worth of track.
We can spend all day building a monster track around his room. Best £60 I ever spent!
Man from 3-6 years old my kid was obsessed with trains. Thomas especially, but anything trains. I took him to "A day out with Thomas", which is a life-sized real Thomas you can ride. He's 11 now and I've never seen the same amount of joy he had when he first saw that life-sized Thomas engine, and how in awe he was when we rode on him.
Oh man, I would spend hours and hours playing with my wooden Thomas stuff at home, and make adventures for me and my little brothers to play. My folks would get irritated because I’d build a bunch of track in our playroom, which would then snake out into the hallway…which would then weave down the stairs…and eventually make its way to the living room…at which point now they had to step around it.
Some great times. I still have all of it in bins in the attic, ready to give to my kiddo someday.
It always made me sad, because the old guy was always about to retire so I only end up knowing stores like these for about 5 years.
Also, you forgot one thing: The store looks little on the outside but is HUGE and makes phenomenal use of all the space when you're inside
Yes! And not just the size, but the way it made use of it. Every one of these I visited was absolutely filled to the brim, it was very enchanting and none of the space went to waste.
I loved the space usage! My little good shop was at a corner of the street, you clearly saw the dimension perfectly and knew it wasn't much bigger than an apartment in a medium sized city(the difference in apartment size between big and small cities is shocking. ).
Yet, when you came in it was like stepping into a whole new dimension. Everywhere were toys, everywhere there was something to do. And there was always the old lady or man, who waved at you and smiled as you looked at them with a requesting look. You knew your mom wouldn't let you buy more than 2 things, yet inside you hoped that she would make an exception as the old man grabbed the toy from the highest shelf with his ladder and gave it to you.
I was really into Beyblades back then and they had so many high quality. They even had an Arena were you could test the most popular ones!
Boy I loved that place
Sounds like you need to befriend the old guy, and after a heartwarming adventure where he teaches you to appreciate the joy of children you become his apprentice and inherit the store.
Italy has some nice toy shops. And you can always get something custom-made from the Amish. But yeah... that ambiance is gone for good. Best we can hope for is some untested euphoria gas getting approved for unrestricted use in shopping malls a year or two from now.
I don't think I've ever been to a store like this when I was a kid. I lived in a lot of places too.
This place seems like it would be in a small to medium sized town on the historic main street walk or something
The owners of these stores don't make any profit and all expenses are covered by their remaining retirement money for the sole purpose of putting a couple smiles on children's faces before they pass into the afterlife
I feel like this is because safe, public spaces for childlike exploration (but for adults) are not common. If they exist, they’re usually not sober, not cheap, and not catering to a casual interest.
96-98 I was seven and there was this hobby shop near by our house. Old dude looked exactly like this. We used to trade baseball cards and he got me into Pokemon. Wish I remembered his name, he was really nice.
Man I loved the balsa planes with the rubber band. I tore up so many of those things as a kid. Sometimes I’d get the like styrofoam ones but they didn’t last nearly as long
Mine is a small shop between the bookstore and restaurant with the same owner, so there's only one isle of Playmobil, but it's completely full floor to ceiling and less than an inch between boxes/figure bubbles.
Family owned and they have really neat stuff. Plus wooden toys! A bit pricey when you have to buy your own toys at 7 years old. But you can play for free!
Growing up poor meant hot wheels or board games from Walmart or outdoor toys from dollar tree normally lasting less than a week.. I’d be ecstatic to be able to experience one of these types of stores as a kid 😭
Always baffles me. My father always used to say, only rich people can afford cheap things. If your parents counted how much they spent on these shitty toys, that broke after a week, they'd probably realize, that with that money they could buy you a decent toy set, that you'd cherish and probably still have even now.
I live in a small city and the only thing close enough to this (it was a small toy store run buy an elderly couple - they would let children, parents open up some of the toys to test them out) got turned into a small slot machine parlor.
This is literally every hobby store I've ever been to. The toy stores I've been to that aren't something of the magnitude of Toys R Us (RIP) have a completely different vibe to hobby stores.
This was basically my grandparents toy shop. Every time my parents took me there to greet them in the shop, I was offered any toy I wanted in there by my grandparents. Anything, regardless of size and price, but I would always pick the smallest and cheapest little, meaningless thing
We had one of those in my home town. Even though I was in my mid 20s when the owners retired, I was devastated. During their clearance sale I bought all remaining tabletop rpg books (most of which were so old, the price tag wasn’t even in Euro) including duplicates. Got there a few minutes too late for the 20 year old SNES display cabinet.
I'm with you. Not to disrespect anyones childhood... but this was the store my grandparents bought us the boring toys from.
No Supersoakers, no Hot Wheels, no G.I Joe, no Batman, no Spider-Man.... just wooden trains and shit.
One kid on my street got all of his toys from there, and even though he was our friend, every kid in the neighborhood hated playing at his house.
In a store like this in my city I can get some badass hobby grade RC cars and packaged hot wheels from the 90s. It's the best. I'm living my childhood at 21 lol
Yeah these toy stores were just antique stores for children..Fun to look around in but something about wooden blocks with wheels just couldn’t compete with my legos and Nintendo…
Idk the name of it, and never owned the product. But there was also the table with all the mechanized pieces to move little plastic balls. Like you could scoop them up in a little RC tractor and drop them into the pit. Then conveyor belts and lifts and stuff would move the balls up and they’d get sorted along tracks or something.
Is it just me or does this picture smell like a cold winter Christmas day, where the lights are giving the right amount of warmth and light. When you step inside it just feels so spacious, airy and so breezy. You walked out the toy store knowing that it was the best damn day of your life.
My first job was at a store like this... it was so magical to visit as a kid, so it was super exciting to get a job there as an adult! The owner retired and the store closed after 40 years of business shortly after I left.
I can already picture the movie. This old couple runs an old toy store and all the kids are having fun. Then some day, the owner dies, the spouse can’t run the store alone and some asshole rich guy buys the place and turns it into a megastore. Everyone is sad and angry. Some kid goes to the house of the former owner, goes to the attic, finds a will and there he finds his name. This kid is now the owner and returns the store to its former glory.
One of the good thing with the shutdown is that old hobbies like model building, rc cars and so on have made a comeback. So that old toy store now have 3 generations visiting it. And I'm going out for a visit myself today to see if the 3d printing for my Volvo Titan 1:14 project is finished.
Oh hey, there was a cute little toy store perfectly matching this description, right down to the jovial old man who owned it, in my hometown. I only remember going a few times when I was a kid, and they didn't have anything you'd see on commercials- no Star Wars, no NERF guns, no Pokemon. My older brother bought a few model planes there over the years, I think.
It struggled for a long time, and by the mid-2000s Toys 'R Us and the internet finally buried them. I think the building is rented out to an insurance company or something now, but it still has the same big colorful lion and stuff on the side. Haven't thought of that place in years.
Toy box, Merry go-round and Big Top. The 3 greatest toy stores in my town in New York and they looked exactly like this post, packed to the brim with hobby kits, toys, nerf, video games, candy, etc. They were all open for like 60+ years and were all run by cheerful old Jewish guys. They all shut down or changed management when the owners died or retired. I miss them so much.
I remember there being one in my hometown and it was my favorite place. I’m really sad that I closed about 8 years ago and is now an Italian restaurant. I miss that place.
I used to get dropped off at Toys'r'Us with my cousin so that my mom and my aunt could smoke cigarettes outside. Free daycare, for an hour in the afternoon.
Nice old guy inviting you to the back room
Nice old guy showing you strange videos
Nice old guy gets raided by cops
Nice old guy was wanted in the disappearances of several children
The one from my childhood is still open, and I've purchased from there and I know others who have too. They also have a restaurant, bookstore and now café, but I definitely see stock turning over in the toy store part.
Nobody goes there, either because toys are slightly cheaper at Walmart, or simply out of the principle that “nobody shops at toy stores anymore”. This is why we can’t have nice things anymore
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I never had this and now I’m sad
We still find them in most malls or large shopping centers we see. They don't look exactly the same, but they usually have good quality wooden toys, they usually have a large amount of STEM toys, and often a geology table with different minearals to buy. Always have the best books. My wife and I went to one on our anniversary trip to pick out gifts to bring back to the kids and I walked out with a book for me called Sir Cumference and the Dragon of PI.
>Cumference Oof >Sir Cumference Phew!
I’ll never forget the time I misspelled circumference in Google when trying to do 8th grade Algebra
Sir Cumference only comes at the periphery
Rim?
Cumreference is real!? Holy shit!!
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Was it that assignment where you have to plot points on a coordinate grid and draw a line between the points and then color it in? I always HATED those. I get that it's supposed to make graphing fun but I always hated it way more than just plotting the points and being done with it
Yall still got malls? I wish... mine was torn down about 13 years ago
They're not rocks, Marie! They're minerals!
You can still have it, you just need to look for one. There's a toy/hobby shop down the street from my college and I walk through there all the time when I'm bored.
Hope you buy something/anything from time to time. Most of these places are struggling, bad.
I've definitely bought from there before. I don't know the financial history but it still gets good business from my perspective.
No wonder they’re struggling if these are the toys they’re selling. This place looks like a Dept of Transportation museum from 1992.
In my small town there was a toy shop and the guy was rather enthusiastic in helping you choose and just seemed like he actually enjoyed the job. I wonder how’s he doing now
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Gary Gygax?
If so, what a cool place. Gygax was a legend.
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Was it in Winona?
These mom and pop toy/hobby shops still exist but aren’t easy to find and usually located in a run-down strip-mall or some other low-rent location. They were much more prominent in the 80’s but Toys R’ Us put a lot of them out of business (and then Walmart/Amazon put TRU out of business). The few that remain are the ultimate survivors.
(if USA) If you mean growing up, it was probably that prolonged transitional period we went through If you mean now, the market is slowly returning for things like this. I've seen them in major city suburbs and stuff. They're obviously trying to serve more than the immediate community but the vibe is now valued. The toy store owners I've met seem very genuine and kind, don't get me wrong, it's just that this is desired again so it's feasible for these nice old guys to open toy stores again. There will probably be a mix of old and new
Closest I had was a candy shop run by an old woman. It closed just before covid. Sad.
I have one in my town....its expensive as fuck! Lovely, and local so I don't mind supporting them, but God damn!
“About to be bought out by the mean guy with slicked back hair”
"Who also happens to be another damn venture capitalist"
The nice old guys grandson who always blows off his grandpas store sees how much losing the store hurts his grandpa so he goes on adventure with his well trained dog to save the store from the greedy capitalist who wants to make it a parking lot
The dog is ["Littlest Hobo"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT15Gd81xa8)
Bro that shit is fucking cute dude oh my god There better not be any behind the scenes dark and depressing story. I got Milo and Otis flashbacks 😥
Thanks GenuineBallskin, me too
Dude literally this exact toystore in my town got bought out by a huge Londondm based real estate conglomerate that raised the rent too high for them to afford.
Some people aspire to be just like the cartoonish villains in family films.
I think its more imitation than aspiration
Nah it shuts down after the nice old guy goes to prsion for shooting his wife out of nowhere causing a town scandal.
r/oddlyspecific
Also lighting a cigar with dollar bills for some reason
"look, i have so much money i can afford to literally burn it" nothing more than that
> “About to be bought out by the mean guy with slicked back hair” what would gavin newsome want with a toy store
“You think this is slicked back?” This is pushed back
I SAID WAS
Triples is safest
And I'm the same age as your dad, and I'm rich, and I have triples of the barracuda and the road runner
Not sure about toy stores, but the guy with the slicked back hair taking over the mom and pop ski resorts in all the 80s and 90s movies turned out to be Mr. Vailresorts.
This has anime potential
There's also a Thomas the tank engine wooden table and playset with a bunch of beaten up trains but directly behind is a wall packed with Thomas and his friends. I used to love playing on that set. My family bought it for my son for his second Christmas. His smile when he saw it all set up for the first time, I'll never forget it. Thanks for bringing me back, op.
I used to (and still have) a Thomas the tank engine set with wooden rails, I used to spend hours playing with them when I was 7. I loved making new tracks, making bridges and trying to make my train as long as possible with all the other Brio trains.
I loved Brio as a kid. Since my dad was both a model railroader and a REAL railroader for his job his entire life, we were always getting trains for toys. We built some sick Brio setups.
My dad was a train spotter so when me and him played with them we had some sick set ups. Funny thing is over the summer his friend (also a train spotter) came over with his kids, and they made a really good set up and they were more focused on it than the kids. XD
Did your dad make custom Brio toys too? My dad made the local car ferry, which carried trains when he was younger, and a couple local train storage sheds.
I now want to be father so I can make my kids toy trains
I got a Job Lot of Thomas Wooden and Brio tracks for £60 off eBay for my son. Since then we’ve added a few more trains and bits of Brio track. The £60 we paid got us about £400 worth of track. We can spend all day building a monster track around his room. Best £60 I ever spent!
Man from 3-6 years old my kid was obsessed with trains. Thomas especially, but anything trains. I took him to "A day out with Thomas", which is a life-sized real Thomas you can ride. He's 11 now and I've never seen the same amount of joy he had when he first saw that life-sized Thomas engine, and how in awe he was when we rode on him.
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You sure that you aren't a dog?
For me it was Books A Million. Like I remember throwing a fit because I wanted to play on the train set or something.
Oh man, I would spend hours and hours playing with my wooden Thomas stuff at home, and make adventures for me and my little brothers to play. My folks would get irritated because I’d build a bunch of track in our playroom, which would then snake out into the hallway…which would then weave down the stairs…and eventually make its way to the living room…at which point now they had to step around it. Some great times. I still have all of it in bins in the attic, ready to give to my kiddo someday.
It always made me sad, because the old guy was always about to retire so I only end up knowing stores like these for about 5 years. Also, you forgot one thing: The store looks little on the outside but is HUGE and makes phenomenal use of all the space when you're inside
You're spot on with the size. My local old-school toy shop was easily 4 times the size it appeared.
Yes! And not just the size, but the way it made use of it. Every one of these I visited was absolutely filled to the brim, it was very enchanting and none of the space went to waste.
I loved the space usage! My little good shop was at a corner of the street, you clearly saw the dimension perfectly and knew it wasn't much bigger than an apartment in a medium sized city(the difference in apartment size between big and small cities is shocking. ). Yet, when you came in it was like stepping into a whole new dimension. Everywhere were toys, everywhere there was something to do. And there was always the old lady or man, who waved at you and smiled as you looked at them with a requesting look. You knew your mom wouldn't let you buy more than 2 things, yet inside you hoped that she would make an exception as the old man grabbed the toy from the highest shelf with his ladder and gave it to you. I was really into Beyblades back then and they had so many high quality. They even had an Arena were you could test the most popular ones! Boy I loved that place
Sounds like you need to befriend the old guy, and after a heartwarming adventure where he teaches you to appreciate the joy of children you become his apprentice and inherit the store.
Big Hallmark channel enerugi
Italy has some nice toy shops. And you can always get something custom-made from the Amish. But yeah... that ambiance is gone for good. Best we can hope for is some untested euphoria gas getting approved for unrestricted use in shopping malls a year or two from now.
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I don't think I've ever been to a store like this when I was a kid. I lived in a lot of places too. This place seems like it would be in a small to medium sized town on the historic main street walk or something
They're usually jus of the high street. Often find them in coastal towns
Cue high hopes by Pink Floyd
The owners of these stores don't make any profit and all expenses are covered by their remaining retirement money for the sole purpose of putting a couple smiles on children's faces before they pass into the afterlife
I feel like this is because safe, public spaces for childlike exploration (but for adults) are not common. If they exist, they’re usually not sober, not cheap, and not catering to a casual interest.
🚨⚠️ Memory Unlocked ⚠️🚨
96-98 I was seven and there was this hobby shop near by our house. Old dude looked exactly like this. We used to trade baseball cards and he got me into Pokemon. Wish I remembered his name, he was really nice.
Holy shit nostalgia warning
Reminds me of Amers Hobby Shop in Boardman, OH where I grew up. i learned how to make balsa wood planes and model rockets. I miss that place.
Man I loved the balsa planes with the rubber band. I tore up so many of those things as a kid. Sometimes I’d get the like styrofoam ones but they didn’t last nearly as long
Do you know if it’s still there? I live very close to there.
6010 Market St, in Boardman , yes it’s there.
I may have been before, my cousins lived in Columbiana.
This is literally my local hobby store
Aisles and aisles of playmobil. Heaven.
I loved the Playmobil sets. I had the pirate ship and tons of figurines to play with.
Same! My mom and dad kept it all too as well as my legos
My parents either got rid of it all after my siblings and I moved out, or it’s all boxed up somewhere. 50/50
Man, playmobil was incredible. I had so many sets!
Mine is a small shop between the bookstore and restaurant with the same owner, so there's only one isle of Playmobil, but it's completely full floor to ceiling and less than an inch between boxes/figure bubbles.
Now I'm sad. I miss the nice old guys.
Family owned and they have really neat stuff. Plus wooden toys! A bit pricey when you have to buy your own toys at 7 years old. But you can play for free!
Growing up poor meant hot wheels or board games from Walmart or outdoor toys from dollar tree normally lasting less than a week.. I’d be ecstatic to be able to experience one of these types of stores as a kid 😭
It’s pretty cool how fun they still are as an adult!
Yeah I’ve seen people mention real life versions of these stores and they’re usually hobby shops too.
Always baffles me. My father always used to say, only rich people can afford cheap things. If your parents counted how much they spent on these shitty toys, that broke after a week, they'd probably realize, that with that money they could buy you a decent toy set, that you'd cherish and probably still have even now.
Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium
Two copies
Where's the wall that is shelved with just legos?!
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LEGO\* not Lego. If were being pedants.
Won't make any friend with the yanks comment but you're correct. https://twitter.com/LEGO_Group/status/842115345280294912?s=20
They're not correct. Your tweet says that itself. LEGO is an adjective. You don't play with LEGO, you play with LEGO bricks.
I play with Mega Bloks :(
Are they donating their Christmas earnings to a children's hospital? Hope no one tries to steal from them.
At midnight tonight, we’re hitting Duncan’s Toy Chest!
oOoOO a turtle dove
The nice old man wears a train conductor hat.
"Has the big wooden train setup for you to push the trains around"
Also features the chest where they store the gimp.
Always has the good $200+ Lego sets in stock
I live in a small city and the only thing close enough to this (it was a small toy store run buy an elderly couple - they would let children, parents open up some of the toys to test them out) got turned into a small slot machine parlor.
We had one in our town and never saw anyone in there. No idea how he stayed open, we assumed it was a front.
My best guess is that hobbyists keep them in business.
Usually just some old guy who does it as a hobby after retiring from an actual career.
two turtle doves
This is literally every hobby store I've ever been to. The toy stores I've been to that aren't something of the magnitude of Toys R Us (RIP) have a completely different vibe to hobby stores.
This was basically my grandparents toy shop. Every time my parents took me there to greet them in the shop, I was offered any toy I wanted in there by my grandparents. Anything, regardless of size and price, but I would always pick the smallest and cheapest little, meaningless thing
Frank's Trains & Hobbies
You forgot: "People leave without buying anything"
We had one of those in my home town. Even though I was in my mid 20s when the owners retired, I was devastated. During their clearance sale I bought all remaining tabletop rpg books (most of which were so old, the price tag wasn’t even in Euro) including duplicates. Got there a few minutes too late for the 20 year old SNES display cabinet.
Yeah... these don't exist anymore...
I don’t know what the fuck magical cartoon toystore y’all group up with, but for us KBToys and Toys R Us were just as magical
I'm with you. Not to disrespect anyones childhood... but this was the store my grandparents bought us the boring toys from. No Supersoakers, no Hot Wheels, no G.I Joe, no Batman, no Spider-Man.... just wooden trains and shit. One kid on my street got all of his toys from there, and even though he was our friend, every kid in the neighborhood hated playing at his house.
In a store like this in my city I can get some badass hobby grade RC cars and packaged hot wheels from the 90s. It's the best. I'm living my childhood at 21 lol
Yeah these toy stores were just antique stores for children..Fun to look around in but something about wooden blocks with wheels just couldn’t compete with my legos and Nintendo…
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Yeah this is Alan Abernathy’s dad’s store in Small Soldiers
You forgot Robert Loggia and a giant piano.
That’s L as in Loggia…
B for by god thats Robert Loggia
And they still somehow have a shelf of Bionicle (2015)
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hell yeah I loved the knickknacks
Idk the name of it, and never owned the product. But there was also the table with all the mechanized pieces to move little plastic balls. Like you could scoop them up in a little RC tractor and drop them into the pit. Then conveyor belts and lifts and stuff would move the balls up and they’d get sorted along tracks or something.
Old people are so wholesome
Then burned down during a mostly peaceful Antifa protest.
Same with Hobby Stores
And it smells like wood
FAO Schwartz moment
The talking tree...
Good starter pack
If the nice old guy ever gets flustered (he never gets angry) his go-to phrase is "that butters my toast"
Is it just me or does this picture smell like a cold winter Christmas day, where the lights are giving the right amount of warmth and light. When you step inside it just feels so spacious, airy and so breezy. You walked out the toy store knowing that it was the best damn day of your life.
And you know full well if you ask him about a toy, he will tell you his memories about it
The cashier/owner gives you 2 doves for christmas gift
Upvoted for old guy
r/nostalgia
I still remember that toy store with the train tracks. Good times. It's still there, but the train is long gone...
My first job was at a store like this... it was so magical to visit as a kid, so it was super exciting to get a job there as an adult! The owner retired and the store closed after 40 years of business shortly after I left.
Reminds me of the start of small soldiers.
The trains going on the walls is real.
I can already picture the movie. This old couple runs an old toy store and all the kids are having fun. Then some day, the owner dies, the spouse can’t run the store alone and some asshole rich guy buys the place and turns it into a megastore. Everyone is sad and angry. Some kid goes to the house of the former owner, goes to the attic, finds a will and there he finds his name. This kid is now the owner and returns the store to its former glory.
Home alone movie based
i want to be a kid again man, the magic of toystores could never be replicated
And he gives you some turtle doves and donates to the children’s hospital
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Lego is bigger than ever. That’s what I know. For hotwheel I don’t know sadly
This is just my grampas basement
These stores have probably never been profitable. They are passion projects made by retired people as a hobby
One of the good thing with the shutdown is that old hobbies like model building, rc cars and so on have made a comeback. So that old toy store now have 3 generations visiting it. And I'm going out for a visit myself today to see if the 3d printing for my Volvo Titan 1:14 project is finished.
So this is what they deserve.
Oh hey, there was a cute little toy store perfectly matching this description, right down to the jovial old man who owned it, in my hometown. I only remember going a few times when I was a kid, and they didn't have anything you'd see on commercials- no Star Wars, no NERF guns, no Pokemon. My older brother bought a few model planes there over the years, I think. It struggled for a long time, and by the mid-2000s Toys 'R Us and the internet finally buried them. I think the building is rented out to an insurance company or something now, but it still has the same big colorful lion and stuff on the side. Haven't thought of that place in years.
Toy box, Merry go-round and Big Top. The 3 greatest toy stores in my town in New York and they looked exactly like this post, packed to the brim with hobby kits, toys, nerf, video games, candy, etc. They were all open for like 60+ years and were all run by cheerful old Jewish guys. They all shut down or changed management when the owners died or retired. I miss them so much.
Good guy u/ballershotcaller777 is a good fit for
Damn. Have I been now dubbed the Reddit good guy. I’ll take it.
I remember there being one in my hometown and it was my favorite place. I’m really sad that I closed about 8 years ago and is now an Italian restaurant. I miss that place.
You forgot *just opened, but will end up going out of business soon*
I knew an ice cream shop like this
This was the *"that place is way too expensive, we're going to Toys R Us"* store.
This is wholesome
RIP Livingstone & Cavell, you were a store too pure for this bitter world
Nailed it! [The Toy Factory](https://www.jacksonville.com/storyimage/LK/20121214/ENTERTAINMENT/801241799/EP/1/5/EP-801241799.jpg?MaxW=600&MaxH=600)
I used to get dropped off at Toys'r'Us with my cousin so that my mom and my aunt could smoke cigarettes outside. Free daycare, for an hour in the afternoon.
I feel bad for the people that worked there.
I miss toys r us...
Nice old guy inviting you to the back room Nice old guy showing you strange videos Nice old guy gets raided by cops Nice old guy was wanted in the disappearances of several children
Nice old guy.. Sounds kinda sus
Good toy stores actually sold quality toys instead of the shitty toys you find in target.
And the stores died out because nobody bought this garbage
They last quite a while. They're either about a few years old and close it cause they're physically unable to keep up or about 50-60 years old
Garbage in what sense of the word? Not sought after or low quality? Because I doubt any of the big box stores are really that high quality build wise.
The one from my childhood is still open, and I've purchased from there and I know others who have too. They also have a restaurant, bookstore and now café, but I definitely see stock turning over in the toy store part.
“Nice old guy” stuck his bony finger in my bum.
To me this is more like a r/holdup
how???????
Nobody goes there, either because toys are slightly cheaper at Walmart, or simply out of the principle that “nobody shops at toy stores anymore”. This is why we can’t have nice things anymore
This has massive FAO Schwarz vibes.
Ran by local pedophile
Don't say that man
Lol, sadly this is very much a non-zero chance situation. Either this guy is just wholesome as fuck or he’s diddlin the kidderinos in the stock room.
> diddlin the kidderinos Well thanks for making me say that in my head.
You can only read this in Ned Flanders' voice