Shortly after Steve Levy opened Toy City for the day on Tuesday, he was ringing up a stream of customers.
From the other side of the register, people asked how much longer the Elm City staple would be open, offered their well wishes and said they hope to make it back in before he’s gone.
After almost five decades of running the business, Levy, 69, plans to retire in the coming months. He said he hopes to be able to sell Toy City so someone will keep it going. But he has no solid plans to sell, and said it’s possible the store closes.
As of Tuesday at about 10:15 a.m., he said he’d heard from one interested buyer.
Levy began announcing his retirement on Monday. Signs in the windows of the Key Road store share the news, thank customers and advertise a 20 percent off sale.
In making the decision, Levy said he’d weighed whether to move in a year — when the lease on his current space is up — and start what he said would likely be at least a five-year lease, or move on. Dick Anagnost, who bought the building last December and owns Keene’s Revo Casino on Emerald Street, previously said Revo would move into the unit when Levy’s lease ends.
Anagnost received Keene Planning Board approval for his plans at the end of September. He previously said the Toy City unit is the only one in that building with its lease up soon.
Levy said he came to a financial agreement about a month ago with the casino to leave early, and has to be out by the end of March, although he hopes to have depleted his inventory by the end of January.
Though the Keene location opened in 1972, the store has a history going back to the ’60s and as a small chain spanning towns in New Hampshire and Massachusetts at its peak. Levy took over the Keene location in 1977. The toy store has been in the Key Road spot since 2007.
When asked how he was feeling about his retirement decision, Levy said he’s happy — “sooner or later this had to happen” — though he’s sad to leave the supportive Keene community with a gap in his store’s toy-and-hobby niche.
Anagnost said Toy City’s early exit paves the way for Revo Casino to begin the move about 10 months earlier than if Levy was finishing out his lease. Construction on the unit could begin this spring, and the casino could reopen at the end of 2026, but certainly by January 2027, Anagnost said.
Anagnost previously described the renovations as “major,” and said he will be adding a restaurant and bar, and that there is significant electrical work that needs to be done to accommodate all of the machines.
He added he’s excited to move into the new space because it will allow Revo to offer a better experience to customers.
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