The Legacy Sale

A beginning wrapped in a goodbye.

I don’t even know where to begin.

Maybe it was the moment I stood at the door, keys in hand, trying not to cry. Or maybe it was the moment I looked up and saw the line—more than 150 people deep—wrapped around the block. You waited. With coffees, with strollers, with brunch still digesting. You showed up like the place mattered. Like you’d been waiting not just for the store, but for this version of it.

Because you were.
And so was I.

The Legacy Sale wasn’t just a clearance event. It was a love letter. A final bow for Downtown Book & Toy. A tribute to the nostalgia and history that lived in the shelves, the toys, the strange leftover inventory that somehow found its way into someone else’s memory bank. It was part liquidation, part community reunion, part rebirth.

When I took over this space, I knew I was stepping into something sacred. And I knew I had to make room for something new. That meant sorting through literal truckloads of old paper, scrubbing down every inch, saying goodbye to things that had been here longer than I had lived in this city—and choosing, with intention, what to carry forward.

I wanted to honor what this place had been.
But more than that, I wanted to show you what it could become.

So we threw a farewell party that turned into a movement. Within six hours of opening the doors for our first soft event, we hit my stretch goal—the one I hadn’t dared to say out loud. The kind of number you scribble down and then immediately cross out. The kind that makes bootstrapping something this big, this bold, feel… possible.

The store was buzzing. Not just with sales, but with story. I heard so many of yours: first visits as kids, birthday toy runs, memories of the train table that, yes, went up for silent auction and turned into its own saga of competitive love. (The bids were wild. My heart was full.)

People didn’t just shop—they lingered. They wandered. They talked. They played. They treated the moment like something to remember.

And that’s exactly what it was.

The Legacy Sale gave us our footing. It created breathing room to build the next chapter without drowning in debt. It proved that the vision I had — for book/shop, etc. — wasn’t just in my head. It’s real. It’s ours. And it’s already becoming what I knew it could be.

We reopened the next day for a few more hours, and still, people came. And they’ll keep coming—because something is happening here. Something slow and sacred and wildly alive.

The official soft launch starts July 11. The grand opening is still in the works (we’ve got 1,800 more square feet to transform, after all). But this sale? This first step? It changed everything.

Thank you for making it matter.

Come see what we’re building.
Better yet — come help build it.

With my whole heart,
Lauren
(still emotional. still not over it.)