Mr. Mopps' Toy Shop

Thanks to all of you who have been reaching out to us about potentially opening in some capacity this week. Here is an important update regarding what's happening over here at Mr. Mopps'.

Hello, everyone- we hope this finds you and your family well. These are strange and scary times we are living in right now. We've always thought of Mr. Mopps' shoppers as friends of the shop, and we think about allayouse guise a whole lot. We get a lot of emails and messages and calls from people wanting to support the shop, asking whether or not we can still offer curbside service. We can't. We'd love to, but we understand why. And in having been stubborn about being old fas...hioned-y and wanting to strictly offer Mr. Mopps' as more of an experience (and not so much as "just" a vehicle of commerce- yeah, I know. I'm crazy), we don't have the infrastructure for web ordering or shipping in place. Believe you me, though; I'm kicking myself REAL hard for that right about now. We are looking in to some stuff, but it will be a while before we can set anything like that up. Even with all this "free" time these days, we are still super busy trying to keep our son engaged and active and also still dealing with the administrative aspects of running the shop. Without interacting with you, it seems all we do is pay bills to a ghost shop. Not to doom and gloom out- we are optimistic that we will be able to make it through this. For now, our rent has been deferred, but we still have a ton of other overhead with vendors and insurance and stuff and missing months of sales is going to make this challenging. We will no doubt make a big deal out of any progress we make in terms of offering online service, so you'll hear about that if it happens. In the meantime, we *are* able to have a distributor we work with dropship books to you, and not just kid's books either. Feel free to message or email us if you are interested in details about that. It's a bit slow going, but hey, where's the fire? We aren't going anywhere. We also can charge over the phone for gift cards which we will hold on to for you until we reopen if you like. I wish we had some kind of great news for you, but I'm glad that we don't have terrible news. We're hanging there and we hope you are too. We miss you all. Your messages, emails, and calls of support touch us very deeply and we can't wait to see every single one of you again. Oh, also, in case you missed it, for all of you Moppsters who ask what we are listening to at the shop, we've made this public playlist that has most of it. I've been adding a couple of hours to it every week since we started it a couple of months ago, and it's getting up there. As of today it's up to 1,436 of our favorite songs! (). It's in heavy rotation at the Mopps residence. Seriously, though. We miss you all. So, so much. <3 -Devin (and Jenny)

Unfortunately, in accordance with the shelter in place mandate, Mr. Mopps' is closed until April 7th (or who knows? We'll see how this shakes out). We are looking in to whether or not it is possible to continue to provide pick-up service, although that's not looking good either. We will update our social medias and website to reflect any changes to that end. If you'd like to get in touch, we will be checking all messages everywhere periodically.... We love you, persons. Hang in there and be safe. We hope to see you as soon as we can. #shelterinplace #berkeley #toyshop #childrensbooks #independentbookstore #covid_19

Looks like we're going to have a long few weeks (if not more) ahead of us all, and in this time of social distancing, we need stuff to do perhaps more than ever. At @mr.mopps.toys and @moppsbooks, we hope to serve you and help with your diversion and entertainment needs for as long as we can. Feel free to call the shop for more details about our curbside pickup program. Stay safe, everyone. And hang in there.

Lost and found: does this belong to you or someone you know? Call the shop and tell us what's inside to pick it up.

Hey, everyone! We've been working on a thing! It's a playlist. For you. As you know, we listen to some pretty groovy stuff at the shop. And some rad stuff. And some funky stuff. And some weird stuff. And some other stuff. We don't do holiday or kid's music. Most people probably don't notice, and some people probably hate it, but *some* people ask us what "station" it is on the streaming platforms- it's not. It's an ipod with a whole bunch of music on it. For those people, I'v...e put this playlist together with the lion's share of what we could find on Spotify that we listen to- unfortunately, there's kind of a bunch that's not available anywhere, really. Not for streaming, anyway. But here you go! It's a bit of a work in progress, but it's coming along, and I thought I'd just put it out there for you to check out, if you like that kind of thing. It's pretty good for making dinner or cooling out with some pals and stuff. Some people even shop at Mr. Mopps' to it. If you can, listen to it on a stereo or at least speakers- laptop speakers and mobile devices don't really do it justice and a ton of the songs are pretty old, so it helps to get that hi-fi or at least you can turn the bass up a bit. For best results, listen on shuffle. <3 -.devin.

Big things are happening at Mr. Mopps' Children's Books.

So, we've been a bit busy, but here's an update on the new book shop- click through to see some pics! Feel free to like Mr. Mopps' Children's Books on facebook or follow us on instagram from the link here to stay up on book stuff- we'll be back at it soon with posts about our favorite titles and upcoming events. The toy shop also has an instagram profile- @mrmopps... If you are in to that kind of thing. ... <3

After 6 years, we closed our tiny book shop for the last time yesterday... Because we are moving a few doors up! Starting today, Mr. Mopps' Children's Books will be located at 1401 MLK, right next to (and connected to) Mr. Mopps' Toy Shop, on the corner of MLK and Rose. It's going to be a mess for a bit and we anticipate some growing pains through the transition and as we settle in, but please bear with us- and in the coming year, look out for story times, book clubs and oth...er events! Come say hi! We look forward to welcoming you to our new home.

What's happening here??? #MrMopps #Berkeley #toyshop #toystore #bookshop #bookstore #childrensbooks #childrensliterature #kidlit #shopindie #shopsmall #shoplocal #underconstruction #comingsoon #STOKED ---> BEAT BY DJ DAVE. Thanks, Dave! @moppsbooks Mr. Mopps' Children's Books

Whoah! All of a sudden: SIDEWALK SALE!!! This Saturday we are having MAYJOR (hyuk hyuk hyuk) sidewalk sale! It's Spring cleaning time, and we've come across a bunch of items that we think are (varying degrees of) cool, but for some reason don't retail well, and it's time for them to go! Drop by Saturday to check out some MAYJOR deals on:... Things! Stuff! Other things! Items! Merchandise! -and- Other stuff!!! With up to like... I dunno- 55 percent off (or something) on some items, how can you not check them out? *Sidewalk sale deals are limited to items outside of the shop (on the sidewalk in front) and are non-returnable. But we're pretty sure you'll like them, so... yeah.

Hello, Moppsters! We've got some good news and some bad news. The bad news first: we don't have power at the toy store today, but we are here to help you in the dark(er than usual) shop. At least the power is still running at Mr. Mopps' Children's Books for ringing customers from both shops up. The good news is that the power is off because WE ARE GOING SOLAR!!! We'd expected the power to be back on by the afternoon today, but as these things tend to go, it's taking a bit lo...nger than usual. Fingers crossed for tomorrow morning... So, yeah. Sorry for any inconvenience in the mean time, but the next time you see the lights on at the toy shop, they'll be powered by electricity harnessed from the light of our closest star! Far out! Hmmm... Now we can start looking in to new light fixtures too. Anyway, we hope you all are enjoying this beautiful day and we hope to see you soon. High five.

We are now operating with extended hours for our holiday shoppers! Shop local and small this holiday season. Note: we are closing at 5:30 Christmas eve and hibernating on the 25th and 26th, resuming normal hours on the 27th.