Local family celebrating one year of providing Pocatello with popular, hard-to-find toy
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POCATELLO — Five years ago, Matt Williams was working toward his dream of being a college football coach. Then COVID-19 hit, and with it, the total shutdown of many jobs — including those tied to college sports.
Needing to find a job, he went back to working in retail, where he had worked for many years before.
He eventually came to the realization that coaching college football was not in the cards — at least in the immediate future. So, he decided to combine his years of experience in retail with another of his lifelong passions: Lego. And the store “Just Brick It” was born.
Matt’s love for Lego has carried on for three decades. He recalls receiving and building his first set when he was 5.
Diagnosed with ADHD as a child, Matt said that, like so many others, the only thing that he was ever able to commit full focus to was Lego.
“(Lego) are a big thing in the ADHD community because a lot of kids have a hard time focusing, but for some reason, Legos are really good for just sitting down and (focusing),” Matt said.
As a collector, he has discovered that Walmart and Fred Meyer — the area’s primary carriers of the toy — carry the same 20 or so sets.
“I couldn’t find anything here in town that I didn’t have already — or anywhere within 200 miles,” he said.
In search of sets, and sometimes individual pieces, Matt and his family began making regular trips to either the Lego Store in Salt Lake City or Bricknowlogy in Boise.
While returning from one of those trips just over a year ago, they discussed a better option.
“Why are we making this drive? Why don’t we just do it ourselves and open our own store?” he recalled asking.
Now, with Just Brick It approaching its one-year anniversary — an April 29 — its owners, Matt and his wife, Chelsey Williams, have learned just how large the local Lego community is.
“The cool part that I like is, gathering and meeting this community more. That’s super-cool. That’s what I like,” Matt said.
Chelsey said that although she appreciates Lego, her passion for building is not as deep as that of her husband or the couple’s 11-year-old daughter, Lillianna. In fact, Chelsey has built only one set in her life. Her interest is in one facet of collecting the popular toy first introduced in 1932.
“My passion is the minifigs (Lego minifigures),” Chelsey said. “I do all the processing for minifigs.”
She is the one responsible for the cultivation and curation of Just Brick It’s massive display of the miniature figurines made popular by the 2014 film “Lego Movie.”
While his wife is a minifig fanatic and he is a set builder and collector, Matt is aware of other Lego lovers who enjoy the toy in other ways. Some, he said, never build the sets, choosing instead to create their own structures with the pieces.
So, his store, a distributor contracted by the Lego company, offers more than just complete new sets. At Just Brick It, customers can buy bulk loose pieces. The store also sells and buys used sets and order parts from a catalog listing pieces by part number and color.
Finally, Just Brick It offers a builder’s room — geared toward children — available for rent by the hour. The room gets popular in the summer, Matt said, when parents can relax in an air conditioned room and let their kids build using the “thousands of bricks” available to them in the room.
Asked why he makes the room rentable at such a low price point — just $5 per hour — Matt said matter-of-factly:
“When I started this (business), it wasn’t about making a million dollars, it was about sharing my passion.
“I could retire doing this,” he added.
Just Brick It is at 611 Wilson Avenue. It is open Monday to Friday, noon to 6 p.m., and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Follow it on Facebook here.