Toy store moving to new location

 Sprecher building will be going up for sale

The Fun-est Toy Store is not closing, however it will be moving to a new location at the end of the year and the historic Sprecher building will be going on the market.

Owner Melissa Palermo-Spero said she wanted to set the record straight regarding the future of the store, currently located at 24 East Main St., Ephrata.

“What’s happening is it’s a small town and rumors are swirling around and I certainly do not want any misinformation out there,” she said. “There are going to be some changes in my family, so my husband and I are selling this building.(that houses the toy store)”

The couple, who Palermo-Spero said is getting amicably divorced, purchased the building six years ago from the Ephrata Economic Development Corporation.

“We put quite a lot of money into renovations and getting the building further along and being taken of and looking better,” she said. “And due to the changes in our family, and other reasons, we just can’t take it any further. We had hoped to try and do something upstairs, but because of zoning issues and finances, there is just no way we personally can do it.

She said although the building is not currently on the market, she is working with three private entities that have interest.

“That being said, I don’t want anyone to think the toy store itself is closing because it’s not,” she said.

Owner Melissa Palermo-Spero shown back on the day she opened the toy store in 2008 at the Sprecher building.

Palermo-Spero opened a second Fun-est Toy Store this year in Brickerville at 2 East 28th Division Highway, Lititz.

“I actually did not see this coming when we opened our Brickerville store so I didn’t open that store with the thought that one day we would close Ephrata,” she said. “Ephrata is my home. I love Ephrata. So the toy store itself will move to a different location and we will also keep the Brickerville location.”

She said plans are in the works to move the Ephrata store to the Cloister Shopping Center, pending the signing of a lease agreement and “we are excited about that.”

Palermo-Spero is very firm about a timeline.

“We will continue in this location through the end of the year,” she said. “So Santa will still be here like he has for the past five years and we will still be open and doing everything that we do for Christmas.

She said what will happen is right after Christmas, they will look to sell down on inventory and display items, things they do not need for the new location.

The comic book section of the store, Comic Books and Paperbooks Plus, a separate entity, has grown and the owner of that is looking to get another space somewhere in Ephrata, as well, she said

“So nobody is closing their doors,” she said.

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