Every Victorian’s favourite downtown toy store has found a new home!
Cherry Bomb Toys has been a Broad Street mainstay for more than 18 years and its upstairs toy museum, which is the National Toy Museum of Canada, is host to hundreds of retro, vintage and rare collectibles.
Owners Candice and B Woodward found out in September that the new landlords of the building they’ve called home for well over a decade had new plans for the space and their leases on the ground floor, mezzanine, basement and upstairs living space would be coming to a close.
That didn’t mean the end for the Woodwards and their toy store though. Right away, they set up a GoFundMe and they got to work finding a new home for all their toys.
On Sunday, December 18th the duo announced they had found a new space and they will be able to stay in downtown Victoria.
“So we looked around everywhere in Victoria, we were looking at all sorts of spaces,” Candice told Victoria Buzz.
“We really want to grow our museum, so we needed somewhere that kind of worked for both the store and the museum.”
While their priority remained focussed on finding somewhere to go, accessibility has become a huge priority and goal for the Woodwards.
“Accessibility is tricky downtown,” said Candice. “There’s a lot of spaces that aren’t accessible.”
The new space they found used to be home to the Patch Clothing, a vintage store located at 719 Yates Street.
Their new storefront is accessible, same as their old location but they want to make the museum accessible as well.
“The Patch location is absolutely perfect for us but it has stairs in it, so we’re going to have to build ramps for accessibility,” Candice told Victoria Buzz.
“There’s the main level, then another little level, then there’s the top level in the back too.”
Another thing that Candice and B Woodward hope to grow in their move is the toy museum.
“Victoria needs some really good attractions, especially family oriented attractions and our museum is perfect for that,” Candice said.
While renovations happen in the new space, the storefront on Broad Street will be open until around the end of April. That will give them time to get some work done on the new spot and get all their permits in place.
The basement storage space in the original location ends at the end of December though, so they are beginning their move with that.
The new location–permits permitting–Candice hopes to open on May the fourth as a little easter egg for the clientele they’ve served for nearly two decades.
