By George Caratzas
Like most eight-year-olds, Joe Cino III loves LEGO.
That love inspired his father, Joe Cino, 36, to open the latest LEGO store on Long Island: Block Party.
With the help of co-owner Lucas Wachsberger, Cino opened the doors of Block Party on Thursday, Feb. 12, at 630 Wantagh Avenue in Levittown after months of preparation.
“We started working at the end of October,” Wachsberger, 24, told SciFisland. “It was a lot of researching, deep-diving and getting questions answered. What makes LEGO people tick? What are LEGO people looking for? What are the things that these people want to get?”
The idea came from Cino’s son, whose affinity for the Danish-made toys completely overtook the Cino family home.
“My business partner’s son, Joe, is a LEGO fanatic,” Wachsberger said. “I mean, their whole house is completely covered in LEGO, and Joe came running up to me and said, ‘Look, I’m running out of space in my house. Let’s go open a LEGO store.’”
Enter Block Party, which utilizes a unique concept that provides more than a standard store would. For $20, kids can spend hours digging through bins upon bins of pieces, building whatever their heart desires.
Then, upon completion, their designs can be weighed and purchased.
“Kids come in, pay the $19.99 for open play, and then they can stay as long as they want with no time restriction,” Wachsberger said. “If they like what they built, they throw it up on the scale near the register. It’s crazy because I would have kids come and build some crazy houses or a huge dragon, and it comes out to $4. It’s really cheap.”
Block Party furthers its uniqueness against typical franchised LEGO stores by offering select rare sets that often have been retired.
While Wachsberger said that most people are interested in the Marvel, Harry Potter or Star Wars themes, the niche collectors who are looking for discontinued sets are particularly drawn to Block Party.
“We have a whole wall to showcase [retired sets] for some people,” Wachsberger said. “There are people who come in looking for sets that they have been looking for for 5-6 years, and they can’t find them anywhere. They will come into our store, and they will find it.
“It’s a really good feeling to be able to deliver something to a customer that they have been looking for or desiring for a long time.”
While the newer releases often steal the show, discontinued sets are seen as relics to some collectors.
“I’m looking at a Star Wars one from 2010; that’s more than 15 years old,” Wachsberger said. “It’s almost like a classic or a vintage piece.”
To be able to offer this sort of special service took plenty of work. Cino and Wachsberger spent months sifting through flea markets, tag sales and online communities to find any available sets for purchase.
With doors now open, Cino and Wachsberger hope that their business can inspire children to get back to playing in the real-world to combat the online presence of today’s youth.
The two put the pieces together, creating Block Party as a way to bring about a communal play-space for kids.
“Joe lives in the area, and he noticed that there was no real place for him to get away with his kids and hang out with them,” Wachsberger said. “He didn’t want to stay at home, give the kids their iPad, and keep them inside all day. We wanted to give the kids a place to come and give them more of a LEGO experience than just a normal store. He noticed that the community needed a place, and he thought he would make it.”
Even with Block Party in its infancy, the two business partners have their goals for the store set high.
“The end goal, ideally, is to be able to deliver one of these to every town,” Wachsberger said. “LEGO people seem to have a tough time finding a store or sets that they want. Ideally, we would like to be able to deliver that on multiple fronts and bring this closer to them.”
In just over a month, Cino and Wachsberger have seen their business plan come to life. The two began working together at Cino’s Hot Bagels, which has a location in Massapequa and Oceanside.
“It’s been nothing but rewarding and an honor, in all honesty,” Wachsberger said. “I didn’t realize how many people were into LEGO and the demographics of it, whether it’s a five-year-old or a 75-year-old person, it’s just crazy. Everyone who is into LEGO is really into it.”
George Caratzas is a reporter with The SBU Media Group, part of Stony Brook University’s School of Communication and Journalism’s Working Newsroom program for students and local media.
Photo: Block Party Facebook page, Image by M W from Pixabay.
