Stroll by S.W. Randall Toyes & Giftes on Smithfield Street, Downtown, and you will feel transported to the scene in Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" when Tiny Tim peers through a shop window at a display of magical dolls and toys. Victorian Christmas music piped through a speaker to the sidewalk heightens the mood.
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Jack Cohen, owner of S.W. Randall Toyes & Giftes, at the company's Downston Pittsburgh store.
Click photo for larger image.
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The only item in the current window display that hints of the 21st century is the Pittsburgh Steelers train that plays a soundtrack of famous team moments as it chugs along the track.
"Our customers hate the big-box stores; they say our atmosphere is refreshing," said Jack Cohen.
It's been that way for 35 years, since he and his wife, Linda, opened S.W. Randall Toyes & Giftes in a small retail space in Squirrel Hill and immediately found an enthusiastic market. They now own and operate four old-fashioned toy stores in the city of Pittsburgh. The Downtown location is the largest.
From the beginning their strategy has been altogether different than the big chains, such as the now defunct Children's Palace, which was in business when they opened, and current competitors Toys R Us, Wal-Mart and Target.
First, the Cohens wanted to operate in urban settings, in part because they are longtime city residents, but also because Mr. Cohen, 58, believes city shopping still is convenient for people. After rapid success with the original store in Squirrel Hill and the Downtown location, which opened in 1978, S.W. Randall opened in Station Square in 1984 and in Shadyside in 1988. The four stores together employ about 30 people.
Even more significant than the locations, though, is what's inside.
"We quit selling Fisher-Price because our customers said they could get it anywhere," Mr. Cohen said.
"We don't have much room so we have to be selective."
So instead of shelves and shelves piled high with popular plastic brands, S.W. Randall carries traditional, classic items that middle-age shoppers likely played with when they were kids: wooden toys including blocks, tables, chairs, kitchen sets, dollhouses in various sizes and designs, brightly painted rocking horses and toy chests.
"You'll never see this stuff in a garage sale because it's basic, it works. People grew up with this stuff and now they want it for their own kids."
It was that same motivation that prompted Mr. Cohen, a mechanical engineer by training, to open a toy store in the first place.
He had worked only a year for a local engineering firm in an office without windows, when he left in the summer of 1970 to run two Mister Softee ice cream truck routes in East End neighborhoods. That fall, he combined his profits of $10,000 with $15,000 in savings to open his first store on Forbes Avenue in Squirrel Hill.
The Cohens had thought about trying a women's shoe store but with four young children at the time, "We decided on toys because we could never find toys for the kids' birthdays."
They didn't want the store to sound like a kids-only place so they named it for their children: S for Stacy and Sherry, W for Wendy, and Randall for their son's middle name. "We thought it sounded classy," Mr. Cohen said.
Besides toys, S.W. Randall has an extensive line of gifts and ornaments for adults, including miniature Christmas villages and hand-painted, Russian Matrushka dolls.
Because there are no runaway, must-have toys this season, customers "come in with a clear mind," Mr. Cohen said.
That gets the shoppers thinking a bit more creatively about S.W. Randall's ample supply of metal wind-up and tin toys, puzzles and board games, he said. "We are low-tech."
Though he concedes, "You have to have one battery-operated toy under the tree."
This year, it's the stuffed penguin that bounces as it sings, "Sleigh Ride." The $24 penguin with the bright blue scarf is a huge seller, Mr. Cohen said, because of this year's hit movie, "March of the Penguins" and Pittsburghers' high hopes for the local hockey team following the signing of star player Sidney Crosby.
Trains for collectors as well as the Thomas the Tank Engine line of toy trains are perennial best sellers. The hot train this year is the Steeler model priced at $349.
"The quality is why we succeed. It is the stuff that lasts," Mr. Cohen said. "And people can take them out of the box and try them."
Mr. Cohen's wife, the chief buyer for all four stores, "has always been good at that and I was a good coordinator," he said. "That makes the difference between profit and loss: If you buy the right items and it looks great, the people keep coming back."
His retail career hasn't been without failures, though. Mr. Cohen opened two stores, Alphabet Soup and a crystal shop, in PPG Place when that complex opened in the mid-1980s but neither survived. "There was not enough traffic."
When he opened S.W. Randall Downtown nearly three decades ago, Gimbels' department store was across the street and the shopping district hummed every lunch hour and many evenings and weekends. "We felt we couldn't go wrong."
Although the Downtown retail environment since has struggled, his store on Smithfield Street has thrived and evolved into somewhat of a tourist destination, Mr. Cohen said, especially among former Pittsburghers who stop in when they are back in town to reclaim a piece of nostalgia.
He's optimistic about plans to redevelop vacant Downtown buildings into apartments and condominiums. "That's fine with us. Those people will be our customers and they'll bring convenience stores and food stores."
His biggest competition today is online shopping so he tries to match Internet prices -- "if it's reasonable" -- to keep customers coming back. Then there are the shoppers who show up the last three days before Christmas in a panic because their online or catalog orders have not arrived.
When the rush is over and the store closes for Christmas Day, Mr. Cohen, who has six grandchildren, says he will go home and "do nothing."
Then it's back to work and brisk business in January when shoppers seek post-holiday deals.
First Published: December 11, 2005, 5:00 a.m.