Culture

Puzzle Warehouse Is Crushing It Written by JENNA JONES

Isolation sucks. However, it is a necessary evil with COVID-19 sweeping across the world. One St. Louis company is making sure everyone is occupied during their time with family and roommates. Puzzle Warehouse (655 Leffingwell Ave., Kirkwood) is breaking records selling puzzles, games and toys.

“It seems like every day business is accelerating,” marketing manager Greg Brown tells the RFT in an interview last week. “We broke yesterday’s record.”

It all started on Thursday, March 12.

“On Friday, they were impressive,” Brown says of their sales. “On Saturday, they were really good. And now, they’re ridicu

Puzzle Warehouse is seeing record-breaking sales since COVID-19 hit. | COURTESY PUZZLE WAREHOUSE

lous. Ridiculous in a good way, though.”

Online, the puzzle shop has been doing six or seven times the normal amount of business. The retail shop was also slammed through Sunday, but new “stay home” restrictions from St. Louis forced all businesses not deemed “essential” to close Monday, including the retail store. March had already exceeded typical holiday numbers, Brown says. Despite the gravity of the situation of a global pandemic, Brown says the mood of customers had remained overwhelmingly positive.

“People are kind of joking, but I suppose that’s the nature of the product we’re selling,” Brown said. “We’re not selling necessities, we’re selling something to keep you entertained.”

While a majority of the customers have remained upbeat, Brown said that there has been a couple of exceptions. Some of the online customers had called to have their board games brought to their car rather than going in as a precaution.

A majority of the business is in the 10,000 plus puzzles they carry. The warehouse, which was still open at press time, also has board games and other toys to get its customers through the lock down. If you find yourself with an urge for a puzzle or two, don’t worry about stock running out anytime soon. The arrival of COVID-19 coincided with the new releases of board games. Shiny, brand new games await you at the Puzzle Warehouse.

“We’re ahead of the curve,” Brown said. “We kind of foresaw this. We didn’t expect it to be this dramatic or this fast, but we tend to order this time of year rather large.”

Customers have gotten emails about their orders experiencing a slight delay if they ordered online. The company has hired more than two dozen new people, including people laid off from other jobs, to get orders out as “fast as humanly possible.” n

Buy a T-Shirt, Help Local St. Louis Workers

Written by MONICA OBRADOVIC

We’ve all seen the headlines. “Coronavirus Cases Reach …,” “St. Louis-Area Businesses Struggle to ...,” “RFT Lays Off 7 as Coronavirus Slams …”

In the face of all the doom and gloom, local fiction writer Kellie Lynch wanted to spread some positivity.

They designed a T-shirt commemorating the city’s, for lack of a better word, shitty spring break.

“I’ve been on social media a little too much lately. It’s just a constant stream of things falling apart,” Lynch says. “It makes me want to put a little optimism out there.”

Money from the T-shirt sales will go toward gift cards from local businesses. Lynch will then give the gift cards away to local charities.

Lynch isn’t the only one who had the idea of selling T-shirts to benefit the St. Louis community.

Robin Marquand, the creator of Thrive Book, a passport-style coupon book meant to highlight plant-based food in St. Louis, launched a “STL Strong” shirt to support local restaurants.

All profits made from Marquand’s shirts will go to a GoFundMe campaign started by Byrd & Barrel’s Bob Brazell. Money donated to the campaign will go toward hospitality workers who recently lost their jobs. Although, if anyone not in the hospitality industry needs money due to cut hours, they can email Marquand directly.

As of this writing, the campaign has raised nearly $6,000 of a $10,000 goal. Marquand worked as a server for two years and says she understands “living paycheck to paycheck.” Her Thrive Book was supposed to launch later this year. But with everything going on, Marquand doesn’t know what’s going to happen.

“Our whole mission is to stimulate the economy of restaurants,” Marquand says. “If we can’t do that by selling the book, then I wanted to do something else to help restaurants here and the people who work for them.”

Lynch’s T-shirts sell for $20 each. The

Buy one of these shirts until March 31. | COURTESY KELLIE LYNCH

shirts will be for sale until March 31 on Etsy. They’ve designed T-shirts as a side hustle in the past but usually only sold a couple to their friends. Like a lot of people (or what a lot of people should be doing) Lynch self-quarantined last week, but they used the extra time to design the shirt.

“I was trying to think of ways to help the community, and the T-shirt idea just came to me,” Lynch says. “I could use the profits to put back into the St. Louis community.”

It’s that togetherness, Marquand says, that inspired her “STL Strong” shirts.

“I think it really demonstrates the strength we have as a community,” Marquand says. “We have something special here — we all genuinely care about each other.” n