GREENFIELD — The Magical Child toy store on Main Street reopened Thursday without much fanfare, but its new owner said she has a two-day celebration planned for later this month.
Jessica Mullins, owner of World Eye Bookshop, bought the toy store from former owner Mary Walsh-Martel last month. The two spent part of late Thursday morning opening large, brown boxes filled with science kits, Easter products and baby dolls, and stocked the store’s shelves. They’ve been working together over the past several weeks to get everything ready for the reopening, but Walsh-Martel said Thursday would likely be her last day in the shop.
Although the store is not fully stocked yet and she hasn’t publicized the reopening, except for a short Facebook post, Mullins said she had several customers come in during the morning.
“I would say the customers we’ve already had this morning are people that are World Eye customers of past Magical Child customers,” she said. “They’re people that are happy and excited and ready to come back.”
The store’s reopening also garnered praise from Greenfield Business Association Coordinator Caitlin von Schmidt.
“We’re always happy when a business doesn’t close, certainly one that’s such an established part of downtown,” she said. “We look forward to seeing what Jess is going to do with it and continuing to patronize it for some time.”
Mullins said she wants to be as receptive as possible to feedback from the community and encouraged customers to let her know what type of product they’d like to see on the shelves. She said although she won’t be able to carry everything, she wants to know what people in the area are missing.
Mullins is planning to hold a grand reopening celebration March 25 and 26 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. featuring door prizes and raffles — including a 4-foot stuffed giraffe valued at $100 and a Melissa and Doug play kitchen valued at $135 — as well as refreshments. She said Pierce Bros Coffee Roasters donated coffee and hot chocolate for the event.
The store will be open Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. until March 14, then Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Mullins spoke to the importance of keeping independent stores like Magical Child in downtown Greenfield, saying, “If you’re an independent store you can change with the times, you can change your flow and you can keep things that are different and unusual, and then when people come in they’re not seeing the same as everywhere else.”
“I just can’t say enough that when we do get tourists in, they are so excited about our downtown,” she added.
Walsh-Martel said keeping Magical Child open is a great step toward keeping downtown Greenfield diverse.
“I just think that Jessica is doing a wonderful job getting lots of new and fun product in here and people should really come in and check it out,” she said. “It’s like Magical Child has been reinvigorated and I think it’s really exciting.”
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