BELLEFONTE — Bellefonte Brick Studio held its grand opening on July 1. To say it was a success might be the understatement of the year.
Lines to get in snaked out onto North Allegheny Street as Lego enthusiasts came out in full force. Owners Jon and Meredith Houser were amazed — and pleased — with the number of people who showed up on day one.
“We couldn’t believe it,” Jon Houser said. “That many people? We were definitely a little overwhelmed. We knew that Lego is popular. That’s why we opened the store. But, boy oh boy, we underestimated the demand.”
And those who turned out in droves at the independent Lego retail store weren’t there to window shop or browse. They bought just about everything in sight. New, old, used — it just didn’t matter.
“We had some people who knew exactly what they were coming in for,” Houser said. “The very first sale … the woman came right in the door, right to the counter and said, ‘I want this guy right here.’ She knew exactly what she was looking for.”
Houser said he was expecting “five sales an hour,” but day one easily topped that goal.
Jon works at PennTerra Engineering, Inc. Meredith will run the shop. He said they always enjoyed Lego. Shops they visited inspired them to open Bellefonte Brick Studio.
“We’re definitely not the first people. We have been collecting for about 10 years. My son was really into ‘The Lego Movie’ when it came out in 2014. We started buying Lego at that point. I had always bought Lego when I was a kid,” Houser said.
He said he had all of his old Lego. Once he got those out, it was game on.
“We’ve always been collectors. We jumped around from baseball cards to Beanie Babies to action figures. We always collected something. When we started doing Lego, we found that there were a whole lot of really great sets that we wanted. We started collecting … going to different conventions and other independent Lego stores,” Houser said.
Bellefonte Brick Studio is located at 104 N. Allegheny St. in Bellefonte. It’s the site of the former CO2 Boutique. The Housers haven’t had a chance to change the signage just yet.
“We opened earlier than we expected. We were casually looking around at different places, different locations. That one became available and was offered to us and we jumped on it,” Houser said.
One of those in attendance was the chair of the Centre County Board of Commissioners, Mark Higgins. While he wasn’t purchasing any Lego, he was there to check out the crowd. He wasn’t disappointed.
“The crowd is amazing. When you combine Bellefonte and Lego, you get a big crowd,” Higgins remarked. “We’re very supportive of our small businesses in Bellefonte and throughout the county.”
He said that Bellefonte Brick Studio is part of Bellefonte’s “revival.”
“There’s a nice collection of businesses for all ages now. The young, the adults and the seniors. We look forward to continued sustainable growth in downtown Bellefonte,” Higgins said.
John Peterson of the Small Business Development Center at Penn State was also on hand for the grand opening.
“We were real excited to work with Jon and Meredith. We helped them out with their business plan, formulate their business and their LLC through the Invent Penn State initiative that we have. We met continuously throughout the last couple of months to get them set up and ready,” Peterson said.
Peterson noted that the Housers’ passion for Lego made things possible.
“They have a real passion for this,” Peterson said. “They can actually commercialize it and bring a lot of fun and excitement to the community. It will bring more folks into downtown Bellefonte.”
The store is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. Inventory and updates can be found at bellefontebrickstudio.com.
