Bricks and Minifigs in Franklin will give you the chance to buy, sell and trade LEGOs

"For a lot of households, the song "Let it Go" (from "Frozen") was on repeat," said Jessica VandeLeest. “In our house it was "Everything is Awesome" and we didn’t mind at all.”

That second song is the soundtrack of “The LEGO Movie” and VandeLeest is on track to take the passion she, her husband and two sons have for LEGO to open Bricks & Minifigs in Franklin.

Bricks & Minifigs is a franchise founded in Portland, Oregon in 2009 focused on buying, selling and trading LEGO. This new location is opening at 2838 W. Rawson Ave. on Saturday, Jan. 27 ― the day before International LEGO Day.

“It was a little bit of a happy coincidence,” VandeLeest said of the timing.

The first 100 customers through the door on opening day will get a free customized “Bricks & Minifigs Franklin” minifig, short for miniature figure. There will also be drawings for various LEGO items.

The store will be open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

VandeLeest, a Racine resident, chose Franklin because “the Oak Creek-Franklin area has been coming up in recent years,” she said. Additionally, with a LEGO store already in Kenosha and others planned for Brookfield and Fox Point, it was a gap in coverage.

“You can’t have one within someone else’s territory,” she said.

Many LEGO sets say they’re for ages 4-99 or 99+ because, according to VandeLeest, LEGO is “appealing to every age.” She is excited for her store to be a “central hub for creativity” in the area.

Buying, selling and trading only LEGO brand

Bricks & Minifigs only works with the LEGO brand, according to VandeLeest, due to an agreement to be an authorized seller. This agreement affords the stores opportunities to get new products in stock for release day. VandeLeest has already preordered product for the March, April and May releases.

“A lot of that stuff we don’t even know what it is yet,” she said, laughing.

While it’s great having new offerings, it’s the used or no-longer-in-production pieces she thinks will be most important to her store.

“Those are the things you can’t just get at a regular LEGO store once it’s no longer made,” she said, suggesting someone might be searching for a specific figure or part. “You won’t be able to get that without scouring online and you don’t know if it comes with everything. Here you can touch it, you know exactly what you’re getting.”

The store will have a process to ensure used sets are as complete as possible.

No buying from public at first, but it's planned

The Franklin store won’t be buying from the public initially, but will announce via social media when that will begin. VandeLeest said she’s hoping to arrange a “buy day” to offer cash for products and build inventory.

“A lot of people have been asking (and) offering up things,” she said.

Sellers can opt for cash or store credit for complete sets, loose bricks and anything in between.

No current openings at the store

Want to work with LEGO for a living? VandeLeest said people have already expressed interest in joining the team, though she is not currently accepting applications. If and when she does, she’s looking for more than just an interest in LEGO or for someone to simply say “Star Wars” when asked their favorite theme.

“I want conversations,” she said. “I want my employees to go further than just the answer because guess what? These people coming in are just as excited about this stuff as you are so you shouldn’t be hiding that.”

Bricks & Minifigs Franklin will focus on attracting girls to LEGO

VandeLeest said she will have elements in the store specifically to attract girls into LEGO.

“I plan on having something right when you come in the door that will kind of draw in everybody, but I have a mindset of wanting to really catch the attention of the girls,” VandeLeest said, naming a newer Disney castle set as an example.

VandeLeest had some experience with generic LEGO sets growing up, but it wasn’t until the ‘90s when the LEGO Paradisa sets came out ― with pale pink, pale gray and white bricks creating beach scenes with fancy buildings ― that she first got interested.

“My parents still had the pieces and I’m working on completing them to have them complete in my office,” she said excitedly. “I put hours and hours into these things.”

From art teacher, to retail, to incorporating both into one

VandeLeest went to school for art, planning to be an art teacher.

“Until I realized that’s the program that ends up getting cut by most schools,” she said.

Instead, she ended up working retail sales for U.S. Cellular for over a decade. She expressed her creativity through bead work, selling at some vendor fairs. However, that was not sustainable.

“Everyone’s real quick to tell you how talented you are, but not to support and buy any of the stuff, so you end up spending more in than you end up getting out of it,” she said. “If you could pay bills off of people telling you you’re talented, I’d be a millionaire.”

Now, VandeLeest said this new venture incorporates all of her passion for creativity and art along with her extensive retail and sales experience.

“Ultimately, it’s being able to utilize all of that I think I’m really excited about,” she said.

Getting back into building with her husband

VandeLeest said she would sometimes help her husband, Seth, a lifelong LEGO collector, with his builds ― specifically with color theory due to her art background. She also started playing around with her husband’s sets such as adding two figures to the bow of the LEGO Titanic to recreate the classic scene from the 1997 film.

She’s also built sets with her husband such as a recreation of “Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh.

“I got familiar with (LEGO) from him,” she said.

As time went on, she started getting more interested in LEGO, appreciating the intricacies similar to her bead work and the creativity of not only those who built their own creations, but the company itself, reusing elements in different sets such as a saxophone as a green hooked plant or frogs as the leaves of a bonsai tree.

“It’s fascinating, it draws you in closer,” VandeLeest said. “You can see things from far away and they mean something and then you get closer and there’s more to it. I think that kind of encompasses us as human beings too. There’s more than meets the eye.”

She also gained an appreciation for the variety in subject matter from botanicals to Star Wars, the "Friends" TV show, the "Home Alone" house, "Seinfeld" set and more.

“I love how they’ve moved to have things for everyone,” she said. “How many products can appeal to so many different aspects?”

VandeLeest tried operating an online shop via eBay, often selling her husband’s duplicate LEGO minifigs. However, she said the fees are soaring and it’s hard to get such small items to people without losing money through fees and shipping costs.

From online selling to a brick-and-mortar Bricks & Minifigs

It was a search for a toy store for her two LEGO-loving boys, one 12, the other 14, during a vacation that first introduced VandeLeest to Bricks & Minifigs.

The family were coming home from a trip to the Wisconsin Dells searching for a toy store when they came upon Bricks & Minifigs for the first time in Madison. VandeLeest thought it was a local store, unaware it was a franchise.

“My kids were thrilled to see the Star Wars troopers; that you could buy them individually … we spent a good part of an hour in there,” she said.

The boys forgot the name but didn’t forget the experience, always asking, “could we go back to that one place?”

“It stuck in their minds,” she said.

Near the end of 2022, she saw ads for the Kenosha Bricks & Minifigs store opening along with franchising opportunities which planted a seed. A trip to Texas to see family sealed the deal when VandeLeest visited the Plano, Texas, store, met the owner and learned more about how the franchise operated.

VandeLeest applied and, after some talks and interviews, she was invited to “Discovery Day” in Utah in March 2023, a company event where potential franchisees go on store tours, get presentations and have one-on-one conversations about possibly opening their own store.

“They did offer it to me,” VandeLeest said regarding opening her own store. She and her husband discussed it for about a month and signed on in April 2023.

VandeLeest left her job at U. S. Cellular and cashed out some of her 401K to make this dream happen. She got into the Franklin location in November and is currently wrapping up construction, painting and other work, making sure everything is awesome for opening day.

Contact Erik S. Hanley at erik.hanley@jrn.com. Like his Facebook page, The Redheadliner, and follow him on X @Redheadliner.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Bricks and Minifigs, a LEGO-focused business, opens soon in Franklin