The New Canaan Toy Store: A Family Atmosphere with the Hottest Items in Stock

Chris Kilbane knows a thing or two about predicting toy trends—and with good reason. He's been the owner of the New Canaan Toy Store for 19 years.

The toy store is the oldest in New England. It has a history dating back roughly 90 years, the last 19 of which have been under Kilbane's direction. They've been in their current location on Park Street for just 3 years, having moved from the previous Elm Street address for more plentiful parking available in the lot behind the store.

"Kids from New Canaan High School will come in and find out the store is 86, 87 years old, and they'll look at me and ask, 'Have you been around the whole time?'" Kilbane said during an interview Thursday. "I'll laugh and yell, 'How old do you think I am?!'"

Kilbane, a former pharmaceutical rep who moved to New Canaan in 1987, left his job in New York because he "got tired of traveling all over the world." Looking to settle down, he realized he wanted to run the store on a visit with his children one day and reflected on how much they loved the store and how many memories he, himself, had there.

"I asked the owner one day, 'Hey, have you ever thought about selling this pace?' And the previous owner said yes and that she thought I was great," he said. "She handed me a key and I owned the place a week later."

This summer's hottest item is the Rainbow Loom, a bracelet-making device that allows girls and boys to sit down and make their own wearable product of their own design using various colored plastic strings. Kids can be seen wearing them en masse all over town.

Like the Beanie Babies, Razor Scooters, Pokemon cards, Webkinz and Silly Bandz that came before them—all trends Kilbane was on top of before they exploded in popularity—Kilbane stocked up and is one of the only places in, or out of, town to consistently find Rainbow Loom kits and supplies.

"I'm very good at spotting trends well in advance of them becoming trends," he said. "We started carrying a lot of this back in January, and it really kicked off in mid-May. It doesn't always take off everywhere, sometimes it just takes off in certain communities. But here, it's been maybe slightly less crazy than the Beanie Baby craze."

The Rainbow Loom is one of those rare creations that does a number of really great things but does one thing particularly well that is of the utmost importance: it gives parents a little time to breathe. The activity will keeps kids busy for hours, lets them get creative, develops fine motor skills and rewards them for persistence with a finished product they can wear.

"Both the kids I babysit have kits, and I'm always bring them refills from here," said Meghan Guarnieri, 21, an employee of the New Canaan Toy Store who's working through the summer home from college. "They'd rather do this than watch TV. That works for me."

Guarnieri's presence drives home another of the store's highlights. It's a local small business that almost exclusively employs high school and college students from the area, giving them valuable work experience.

"We're all family here," Kilbane said. "This is really a family business. Interacting with them here, I get to help them learn and grow. All the kids who came through here are part of this great informal network and we all keep in touch."