You know that sinking feeling when you go to place that last Lego brick on your masterpiece, only to realize it’s missing? With the Nov. 23 opening of Bricks & Minifigs in The Shops at West Falls Church, you needn’t ever have that sensation again.
Falls Church resident Christian Luik has spent 18 months preparing to open the store with new and retired Lego sets, minifigs and a la carte bricks. During the one-stop Lego shop’s grand opening Nov. 23 and 24, shoppers can get a free minifigure torso emblazoned with the store’s name, and bricks with the opening date and logo on them. Raffles and balloon and airbrush artists will also be part of the celebration.
After that, a routine visit to Bricks & Minifigs will provide a different experience from Lego stores at, say, the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City or Tysons Corner Center, Luik says. An authorized Lego reseller, his shop has a dedicated non-retail space for events such as birthday parties (look for bookings to open next month for dates in early 2025).
Other ideas he’s toying with—see what we did there?—include STEM classes such as Lego Robotics, play time for homeschooled children and summer camp.
That’s not all. For aspiring builders, the store will feature a roughly 28-foot-long racetrack that kids can trick out with their own freestyle creations. “We’re going to have a wall that has a bunch of Lego base plates attached to it where kids can build off the side of the wall and create little mosaics or write their name,” he says. “It’s just going to be a lot of free building with Lego. Kids getting to explore their creativity and do so with their friends.”
Shoppers can dig through bins of bricks, create their own minifigs and browse sets ranging from chunky Duplo for the youngest builders to complex creations aimed at AFOLs (adult fans of Lego).
“We will have a variety of different sizes at different price points,” Luik says, with displays that allow shoppers to cherry-pick the pieces they need. For instance, “‘Hey, I’m building a castle. I want a bunch of gray pieces,’ or ‘Maybe I want to build a spaceship. What cool spaceship pieces can I find here?’”
Got bricks or sets collecting dust? Bricks & Minifigs will buy them for cash or store credit and then resell them at a fraction of their original prices.
“Our team will basically validate that all the pieces are there and include the instruction manual,” says the shopkeeper, 34, who formerly worked in software sales.
This Luik’s first venture into retail. Watching his 4-year-old become a “full-on Lego guy” rekindled his own childhood passion for the plastic pieces. When he discovered the Bricks & Minifigs parent company on Reddit, inspiration—like the bricks—just clicked.
“I see it as this marriage between wanting to interact with people on a day-to-day basis while working with something that I really enjoy,” he says of his decision to open the franchise.
The store is ideally situated, he adds, given that the same shopping plaza is home to several kid-centric businesses: Gold Fish Swim School, Kips Family Gymnastics and Sharkey’s Cuts for Kids.
Although Luik suspects little ones won’t be his only customers. This area has no shortage of Lego fans of all ages. Case in point: The store’s Instagram page already has almost 1,700 followers, and it hasn’t opened yet.
The greater D.C. region is home to six Lego Stores, a Lego Discovery Center (in the Springfield Town Center) and the BrickFair LEGO Fan Expo, which comes to the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly each year.
As of this year, Lego has produced more than 1.1 trillion pieces. It’s the world’s biggest toy brand, reporting nearly $10 billion in revenue in 2023.
“A surprising amount of people…when you tell them that you’re opening a Lego store, will confide in you that they love Lego,” Luik says. “I’ve probably talked to 20 different sets of parents and kids who have come up to the door, interested to see what we’re doing. It’s been a great validation of the general enthusiasm for Lego in this area.”
Find Bricks & Minifigs at 7395 Lee Highway in Falls Church.