S.W. Randall Toyes and Giftes is a toy store which was established in 1970.[2][3] It is a specialty toy and gift shop with headquarters located in downtown Pittsburgh, selling old-fashioned, idiosyncratic, and nostalgic toys, along with modern toys.[2] The store has been a local landmark since 1970,[3] and "is a Pittsburgh tradition".[A] It is Pittsburgh's largest specialty toy store, and with a half century of service it is the city's oldest surviving toy business.[5][6]
History
Downtown location 630 Smithfield St. Pittsburgh, PA
Jack Cohen and his wife[7] founded the original store in 1970 in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, when Jack was 23 years old and working as an ice cream truck driver.[1] They named it after their children Sherry, Stacey, Wendy, and James (middle name Randall). As of 2019, the Cohens still work for the company and it remains a family-run business.[1][8][9] Specializing in quirky products that "nobody else has", the store has earned Jack Cohen the sobriquet of "The Toy Keeper".[10]
The stores have been a Pittsburgh landmark and tourist attraction since 1970,[2][11][12][13][14][3] and it sells classic toys.[8][15]
As of 2019, there are three stores: Shadyside, Squirrel Hill, and Downtown Pittsburgh which is the flagship location.[16][B] There were seven stores at the apogee of the company's growth.[C] The company is privately held but according to a 2009 report, the business stocked 30,000 different items, had revenues of $2.5 million and employed 28 people.[4][17] The company is a member of the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association.[18]
During the 2011 filming of The Dark Knight Rises in Pittsburgh, the store received a boost in sales of older nostalgia Batman items; customers included Christopher Nolan, the film's director, who said he "loved the store".[19] The downtown shop is often a stop on "Haunted Pittsburgh" tours; the third floor reportedly hosts apparitions.[D]
References
Notes
^"Today, SW Randall Toyes & Giftes has become a Pittsburgh tradition in an industry in which the specialty toy store seems almost as quaint as a cobbler, and in which even major mass market toy retailers are struggling." The large and diverse product line in such small quarters creates a bewildering forest of Stock keeping unit ("SKU") numbers.[4]
^"... the original Squirrel Hill store, one in the city's Shadyside neighborhood, and their flagship location on Smithfield Street in downtown Pittsburgh. It fills a five-story building that the Cohens own, and it's just blocks from the David L. Lawrence Convention Center where ASTRA will hold Marketplace & Academy in June. "If ASTRA attendees come in, we'll take them up to the third floor in our antique, 80-year-old elevator that one of us will operate," Cohen said. "It's even got a crystal chandelier. We're old school, you know."[1]
^Per Mr. Cohen; "We've had to close some stores that weren't profitable. At one point, S.W. Randall had seven stores. We closed Wild & Woolly, a stuffed animal store in Oxford Centre, Downtown, around 1986 after two years in business. A Station Square store closed in 2007 after 25 years because the shopping center didn't have enough traffic under new ownership. A toy store, Alphabet Soup, and a glass store that opened in PPG Place, Downtown, in the mid-1980s were closed."[1][8]
^"Staff members tell of seeing a lady's apparition on the third floor with the dolls," reports The Globe, the student newspaper of Point Park University, "Customers have reported 'cold spots,' feeling a 'presence,' and feeling like their energy is being drained."[1][20]
^Dan Majors (20 August 2011). "Pittsburgh businesses get major boost from Batman film". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 8 March 2020. The store's new customers have included Christopher Nolan, the director of the film; his wife (and the film's producer), Emma Thomas; and their children. "He told me he was the director and that they loved the store", Mr. Cohen said. "They were here with four kids. They had to buy something."
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