Great Falls now has a Bricks and Minifigs shop, specializing in new, used, miscellaneous, and hard to find/out of production Lego sets. The shop is a haven for kids, fun loving adults, and families looking for a good time together. Between the bins of mini-figure parts, where my kids have spent hours putting together mini replicas of themselves, their friends, or just fanciful creations, and the variety of sets or loose pieces that can be purchased by the bag, there is plenty for any Lego lover to enjoy.
I’ve visited the shop with my children several times and have had a blast watching them build from the bulk bins throughout the shop, perusing the used models (which are sold at steep discounts), and the wide variety of boxed sets throughout the shop. The store is a playground for Lego hobbyists, kids, and families. It has rapidly become a most requested destination from the family during Great Falls runs.
Brad and Libby Martinich opened the shop on October 11th of last year in a strip mall on 11th Street S, a couple of blocks east of the Target/Albertsons Plaza. The location is listed on both Google and Apple Maps. You can also find them on their website: bricksandminifigs.com/greatfalls-mt or on Facebook. Their website contains details about their daily specials and upcoming events.
Brad talked excitedly about his lifelong love for building with Lego, which started in childhood and grew into an ongoing hobby as an adult that he shared with his wife. That love is reflected in the joy he gets from his work at Bricks and Minifigs. “Some of our favorites are the adults that come in and you see them turn into a little kid. Then there’s the kids, of course. I mean, they’re kids. They run, play, have fun, and have a good time.”
Libby added “Yeah, some of my favorite things to watch is our adult customers interact with the kids, because they’ll ask ‘What are you working on?’ or ‘What are you building?’ or ‘Have you thought about doing this?’ ‘Oh, you’re looking for that piece.’ and then they’ll come up and ask ‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ Our customers do that. It’s neat.”
The shop itself offers all sorts of trainings and activities aimed at kids and adults. For example, they offer a class, ”that is geared towards adults. It is for adults who are married to a Lego lover or have a kid who’s a Lego lover and are maybe interested but have never done it before.” Libby, who was brought into the hobby by her husband, explained the idea behind the class: “It’s sort of the real basic introduction. Things like what we call the different kinds of bricks. This is how you read instructions. This is how you relate when you’re hanging out with your Lego lover. This is how you build together. And if you’ve got a kid, this is how you substitute pieces. It’ll do what they want, but it’s not exactly the piece that’s in their mind. It’s that kind of thing.”
Bricks and Minifigs offers specials for different days of the week, special events (like the building contest they ran earlier this year), and the owners have plenty of big plans in the works. Amongst other things, they will soon be offering options for children’s birthday parties at the shop. “We have a package for up to 18 kids. It’s a build party. We’ll have a bulk table in here
The Martinichs spent two and half years working towards opening the franchise location in Great Falls. Brad explained their journey to opening the shop: “We found the idea, and then we had to move home. We were living in Nebraska when we first decided to do this.” They explained that part of the goal in opening the shop was moving back home to Montana. “It was something that I came across through just being a Lego collector and talking to Lego people.”
Libby initially laughed when she heard the idea, initially believing the whole thing was a joke. “I laughed. I did. ‘You don’t really want to do this.’” All of that changed when the couple visited a franchise location. “We went into one, because this is a franchise, and it took about 30 seconds before I said, ‘We seriously need to consider this, see if we can make it happen.’” It eventually did happen and families in the greater Great Falls area can visit the product of their hard work and enthusiasm.
Along the way to opening the shop, Brad recruited his childhood friend (who grew up loving Lego just as much as he did) to manage the store, and another young man to work in the shop who is also a Lego fanatic. The crew’s love for the hobby is evident in their engagement with the customers and the joy they bring to the work they do.