Local toy story: Downtown Beaufort store built on relationships and touch of nostalgia

When the pandemic first forced Beaufort’s merchants into shutting down temporarily in the spring, Joe O’Brien decided that if customers couldn’t come in for the toys he sold at Monkey’s Uncle, he’d be happy to take the toys to them.

Now, in the midst of the “new normal” holiday season and wreath-lined downtown streets aglow with shoppers, you might forgive O’Brien for feeling like, well ... a kid in a toy store.

“I love when my customers come in and talk or just play,” said O’Brien. “I’ve built relationships and a place where people tell me they like to come.”

Though the store has not changed in its seven years of existence, the target market, of course, is the younger child. However, the store’s mix of nostalgic appeal, educational toys and unique merchandise that can be distinguished from Amazon or chain retailers becomes that much more important in a pandemic economy.

So when product and patron align in that perfect moment of purchase, it’s a happy experience for all involved.

“Joe always helps me find the perfect gift and he and his staff are always friendly,” said Katherine Grace Hefner, mother of three young children.

The sounds of the season abound in the store, though you’re as likely to hear Django Reinhardt as you are “Jingle Bells” on the store’s speakers. There are also the ever-present voices of children begging for one more book of Mad Libs or another plush toy to add to a growing collection. They’re only countered by the sounds of a parent saying “not today, baby” as they know they’ll be back within a month. As always, it’s the customers who help make the store lively.

“We get the whole spectrum of people here on Bay Street,” said O’Brien. “All socio-economic levels, military families, tourists, and, of course, locals come in.”

Those of us who grew up when Boombears was the local toy store on Craven Street can appreciate the opportunity still before us to take our children to a locally owned business. One look at the World’s Smallest Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots on the shelf or the display of Sesame Street hand puppets clues you in to the Generation X influence, but it almost never came to be.

A former journalist who briefly lived on Hilton Head and worked at The Island Packet in the 1990s, O’Brien later moved to Chicago and pursued life in a more frenetic, urban environment. Oddly enough, it was there that he met Beaufortonian Liz Gibson at a party, and the future Mrs. O’Brien matched his pace with her own work in advertising.

After the two married and started a family while O’Brien was earning his law degree from the University of Illinois, O’Brien, a Kansan, decided it was time to move his family somewhere with a little less traffic and a lot less snow. Liz might have had her fill of the latter, too, but they both knew Beaufort was a logical and welcoming place for them.

Several years as an attorney with varying levels of stress and the accompanying long office hours left O’Brien with the need for an even slower pace. A long cry from the social and economic ladder climb that practicing law sometimes requires, it was a cry nonetheless for finding balance between family life and earning a living wage. It was time to leave the past, with its dangling participles in need of good copy editing and the endless pro forma paperwork that gets tied in legalities, behind for an uncertain future.

With no prior experience, the adventurer knew he wanted to try his hand in business, but he also knew that a toy store would fill a need for many. After finding the right spot on Bay Street (across from its current location) and setting up with multiple vendors to provide the unique inventory he was seeking, O’Brien needed only a name for the store. The accompanying family brainstorming session led his mother-in-law, Weezie Gibson, to suggest the primate’s relative that has adorned the awning ever since.

Anyone who’s been in the store on a weekend or random summer’s day can attest to the family atmosphere that’s been created. “It’s a real mom and pop shop,” said O’Brien. “Mostly pop, though, since mom is busy being an actual mom.”

Liz might be a little more visible in the Monkey’s Uncle float in parades, but their two children, Emmett and Nora, have both been seen working behind the counter, among the merchandise and behind the costume of a children’s book character. Other employees of the store are generally local teens whom the O’Briens have known for years.

“Healthwise I’m great, and this job has dovetailed nicely with Beaufort life,” said O’Brien. “I look forward to coming in every day, but I also get home at night. I know my kids.”

Maybe it’s the slower pace, the genial, familiar atmosphere or just the diverse and adolescent clientele that’s worked for O’Brien, even during a trying year.

Maybe it’s the momentous decision he made to try something new in the first place.

Either way, a lot of children in Beaufort think it’s been their gain. That includes O’Brien’s own, of course.