DiMino's Lewiston Tops adds LEGO section

Left of Center with Joshua Maloni

The DiMino family has long supported family playtime and activities in the River Region, whether it be sponsoring events, hosting gatherings or expanding the Academy Park bandshell. That commitment has grown with the recent addition of a large LEGO section inside of Tops.

“Personally, I love LEGOs. Me and my family, we build LEGOs all the time together,” supermarket Store Manager John DiMino said. “I just thought there was an opportunity to bring something different to our store that wasn't there. LEGO is the biggest toy company in the world. It’s iconic and everybody knows what LEGOs are. And there really wasn't a place you can go. You have to buy them online or go to the LEGO Store, or go to like Target, Walmart. But there wasn't a place in town that would really sell a big variety of them; and that's what brought me here.”

Product hit the shelves last Saturday, in a space just past the checkout lanes. By Monday, there were noticeable holes in the display.

“We’ve already sold some. I’ll be placing another order this week for more,” DiMino said. “And then I’m going to add on to what we have here already. Bring in some new sets. I'm trying to have less-expensive ones, and I’ve got higher-end ones.

“What I've seen is young kids like them – but even I've seen young adults have bought them, or even grown people over 30 years old are excited to buy them. It definitely appeals to a whole range of customers. That was the whole idea about it.

“I think it's working so far, and people are discovering what we have for now.”

The LEGO section is impressive, with a large number of products stretching across several shelves.

“It's a mixture of everything that LEGO has,” DiMino said. “LEGO is kind of broken down by themes. So, there's DUPLO, which are designed for like even babies; they're for under 5 years old. There's that, and then there's ones for young children up to like teenagers.”

LEGOs are displayed accordingly.

“It gets progressively older,” DiMino said. “But there's sets that appeal to girls, and to boys. There's themes like ‘Harry Potter’; there's ‘Jurassic Park’; there's ‘Star Wars.’ A lot of people, when they think of a theme, ‘Star Wars’ is like the big one for LEGO. And then there's all the superheroes, the Marvel characters, there's Batman, and then you got your video game characters like Mario and Minecraft. We’ve got ‘Ninjago’ – that’s a big one. So, definitely, there's a little mixture of everything in here.

“We're going to kind of see how it takes off. The more that people find us and buy them, we’ll continue to expand our variety of what we have.

“When I shop for LEGOs myself, I look for kind of like hard-to-find ones. So, my goal is to kind of have more obscure ones that maybe some places like Walmart or Target wouldn't have.”

DiMino noted, “There's a range of prices that we have. We have ones that start at $5 to $10. But then we have sets that are like mid-range sets that someone might buy for a birthday or gift that will be between $25 to $50. And then I’ve got some higher-end sets that are $100, $200. So, it's definitely a mix for everybody that they could choose from.”

DiMino’s Lewiston Tops Store Manager John DiMino is shown in front of the new LEGO display.

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The new DiMino’s Lewiston Tops seasonal room.

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Great outdoors

Tops shoppers have also noticed the new outdoor seasonal area is fully open, and the garage door entryways are available when the weather is cooperative.

“It came together great,” DiMino said. “We have all our outdoor furniture; it's all built and set up. Everything's on ground level, so customers can actually sit on it or they can look at it in person, other than we used to have a display kind of in a higher area on top of like a deck. Now they can actually see it, and we kind of have everything in one spot for our furniture. We have some of our garden stuff out there. We have our chemicals. We’ll be getting our hanging baskets soon.

“I think it turned out great. It's all-encompassing in one area now. It gave us more room in other areas of our store to kind of have more shopping space. It's not as congested – especially in our front entranceway. We had a lot of stuff going on in one area, where it's more open now when you walk in; so, it's easier to shop.”

DiMino’s Lewiston Tops is located at 906 Center St., Lewiston; and online at https://www.topslewiston.com/.

The new DiMino’s Lewiston Tops seasonal room.