New Bricks and Minifigs Store Brings Lego Fans Together in Westerville
WVLNEWS Business Report
From Rare Sets to Bulk Bins, Bricks, and Minifigs Lands in Westerville
Five-year-old Charles stands on a stool peering over the edge of a giant bin filled with loose Lego pieces at the new Bricks and Minifigs store in Westerville, sorting through the mix with steady focus, lifting one part after another as if each might be the spark he is waiting for. The shelves behind him are stacked with boxed sets, yet he remains absorbed in the open search for a single piece that feels right.
Scenes like this set the tone for what the store offers. It sells rare and collectible Lego sets, buys and resells older builds, and gives customers room to hunt for the parts they need to repair, expand, or start a model from the ground up.
The new Westerville store continues that idea. Shelves hold unopened sets, including a Millennium Falcon priced at three thousand dollars. Glass cases display minifigures that range from every Star Wars character to odd pieces like alien photographers. Above the cases, assembled sets for sale sit, including a space fighter fitted with chrome parts. Lego no longer produces chrome elements in standard sets, which gives the model a bit of rarity.
The minifig cases resemble rows of mini-figurines lined up like tiny soldiers. Each figure stands with its own uniform, headgear, hairpiece, or tool. The scale behind that variety is enormous. Lego has created more than 16,406 distinct characters as of April 2024, and total production since 1978 has passed 4 billion figures. That scope explains why the displays in Westerville feel almost endless.
A party room sits off the main floor. The shop offers a ninety-minute package for up to twelve kids, complete with tables, chairs, tablecloths, a racetrack, and Lego racecars. Families bring their own food and cake, and the shop handles cleanup. Each child takes home a Build-A-Fig, and the birthday child receives a cup of bulk pieces. The schedule blends free play with a short break for food, then a Build-A-Fig session before returning to open play.
On Friday, Charles and his father, Nate, spent their afternoon sorting the bins while Charles’s mother had her nails done a few doors away in the shopping center on North State Street. The store sits beside the Market District grocery, which makes it an easy stop for families already in the plaza.
Matt and Lindsey Reeves opened the Westerville shop after years of running their first location in Powell. Matt began as a quiet collector who spent his workdays waiting to return home to his family and his bricks. He tracked rare sets online and kept an eye out for pieces he had only ever seen in photos. During a trip out of town, the couple walked into a Bricks and Minifigs store for the first time. Matt saw shelves lined with sets he had chased for years. Lindsey saw how much the place energized him. That visit stayed with them until they opened their own shop in Powell, where Matt found work that fit him better than his old job ever did.
The larger Bricks and Minifigs story began in 2003 with David Ortiz, a stay-at-home father surrounded by bricks, figures, and half-finished builds from his twin boys. He wondered why there was no place to replace lost parts or find discontinued sets that no longer appeared on shelves. Years later, in 2009, he crossed paths with retailer John Masek while bidding on the same online lot of Lego sets. They split the collection, talked, and realized their skills fit together.
They opened the first Bricks and Minifigs store in Battle Ground, Washington, in 2010. Demand grew quickly, and they soon created a franchising branch to support new locations. The first franchise store opened in 2011. The corporate office moved to Utah in 2018. By 2024, the company had opened 130 stores across the United States and Canada.
The company now operates as a national franchiser. The home office sets the structure for buying, sorting, and reselling Lego products. Local owners shape each store’s character through displays, customer contact, and the steady flow of used sets and loose pieces that pass through the counters. That model is what Matt and Lindsey brought to Powell and now to Westerville. The new shop gives families, collectors, and curious kids a place to search, build, trade, and explore.
The Westerville News is a reader-supported publication by Gary Gardiner, a lifelong journalist who believes hyper-local reporting is the future of news. This publication focuses exclusively on Westerville—its local news, influence on Central Ohio, and how surrounding areas shape the community.
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