Letter from the Owner:
Hi, my name is Rachel Joffe. and I grew up in Commack NY, before going off to school and landing in Queens, NY for the next 20 years. I have since returned to Long Island and I am thrilled to have opened the first Bricks & Minifigs in New York as part of the amazing West Babylon community.
The dream, the foundation and the creation of our store was launched by my husband, Larry Joffe, and his life-long passion of building all things LEGO. He had a lifelong passion for collecting and building, which led to rooms full of LEGO sets and minifigures, and a wife that wanted it out of the house. Larry was burnt out from his lifelong career in IT and this seemed like the perfect fit. Research, planning, buying, and creating brought to life our amazing store.
Sadly, my daughter Dani and I lost Larry right before we officially opened. Since then, we have been committed to seeing through his dream of running a Bricks & Minifigs store. Through our tragic loss, we have found tremendous joy in running the store and all that it has become.
As a lifelong social worker who currently continues to practice, I have been quite amazed by all the benefits that engaging in LEGO play has to offer. Creativity, art, connection, relaxation, strategic thinking, therapeutic benefits are at the tip of the iceberg. The customers engage with me as we find the needle-in-a-haystack brick in our bulk tables. I have received many texts with the amazing creations that people have made with the bulk. So while I am on a learning curve with all the different categories available, I learn and enjoy LEGO through the community that has emerged in our store. I have found a love for botanicals that I can’t kill and I love the playful Friends and Disney sets.
I have enjoyed meeting people from all over Long Island, NYC, Upstate, Westchester, Pennsylvania, DC, Virginia, Boston, Utah, Kentucky, Rhode Island and even Italy who have made a visit to our store. I have been afforded opportunities to have people with various disabilities enjoy our products and events; I have been able to host vocational programs, fundraisers and Septa events, giving people opportunity to learn life skills through LEGO.
This has been quite a year for us, but we have truly loved creating a mix of helping people find rare and cool LEGO sets and figs, as well as developing all kinds of community events and activities. Dani and I are forever grateful for the embracing our store, our family and for allowing us to connect with you in our Bricks & Minifigs store.
