Local Love: Toys & Wheels

[calzephyr]

Toys & Wheels was a chain of Canadian toy stores that thrived for many decades until 1995. Canada's retail landscape changed with the arrival of Wal-Mart and big box stores. I'll always remember Toys & Wheels as a boutique toy store as a child :-D If I had to rank toy stores, it would be Toys & Wheels, Tops N Toys, then department store toy aisles--Woolco, The Bay, Eatons and Sears :-D

It was a cozy little store with a wide range of toys and prices--from little nickel farm animals to Breyer horses and Barbies! I loved the window displays :-) I found this ad for a local history group where someone was trying to determine was store was near the Toys & Wheels in Edmonton Centre--which is probably a vintage ads post for another day!

FWIW, Toys R Us didn't arrive in Edmonton until 1984, and then it was a destination--you needed a parent to drive you!

Comments

[soemand]

Had neither, but that was probably typical for rural Canada. If it wasn't at sears or the department stores—looking at you zellers and k-mart—it didn't exist.

[calzephyr]

So true! We used to stop in Gibbons on our way to the "farm"--a bare bones acreage Dad had for gardening--and it was so small at the time. We stopped at some place that doubled as the Sears catalogue order desk :-D