Issue date: February 23, 2000
By BUD WENDELL
Amidst all the changes in Menlo Park's downtown business district over the last few years, with businesses coming and going, one store has been missing. That, local kids might be quick to point out, was a toy store.
That situation changed last November, when Cheeky Monkey opened at 714 Santa Cruz Ave. It is a colorful, vibrant new business on the city's main drag that is focused on children from birth to 14 years old. While there are several toy stores in Palo Alto, and a Toys R Us in Redwood City, Cheeky Monkey is the only toy store close at hand for Menlo Park children and their parents.
The brainchild of Louise Gaffney, a Canadian who "studied child psychology and the philosophy of parenting," Cheeky Monkey sells toys ranging from $1.95 Stretchies (lizards, snakes, frogs) to a $3,000 boat.
While there is a wide-ranging product line at Cheeky Monkey, an estimated 80 percent of the products are developmental and educational -- arts, sciences, crafts, musical instruments, gardening tools, American Girl books and games, and puzzles. Rokenbok toys teach kids early architecture and hand-eye coordination.
"They all stimulate kids intellectually in some way," says Mrs. Gaffney's sister-in-law and right-hand person at the store, Robin Gaffney.
Louise Gaffney moved to Menlo Park in 1989 from a small town just outside of Vancouver, British Columbia. She remarried the next year, and the couple moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1998 for her husband's medical startup business. While there, they had a friend who ran a toy store, and they mused about opening one in Menlo Park.
After a year and a half, they returned to this area. For a while Mrs. Gaffney was a stay-at-home mother with a growing family that now includes four children, from a 5-month-old daughter to a son who is 16. She became active in the community, including the schools.
But the toy store vision continued to glow; it became a serious project in January 1999, when she started doing intensive research, she recalls.
"When I was in Arizona, I had this very location (on Santa Cruz Avenue) in mind," she says.
As the company's president, she works there full time, which is about "14 hours a day normally and 19 hours a day during Christmas." Her husband fills in whenever he can and is needed. The Gaffneys own the store and live in Atherton.
An inviting place
What does Cheeky Monkey mean? It's originally a British saying and is widely used in Canada as a term of endearment for a child, Mrs. Gaffney explains.
"It means that society hasn't molded them in what's OK to think, what's OK to do, and what's not OK to think and what isn't OK to do. When kids do or say something on their own, I say 'that's cheeky. You can be your own person.'
"I thought: 'This is the right name for the business. You don't have to be a grown-up to run the store,'" she says. "I don't know if I've ever grown up. When I'm here, I can be a kid. I can be cheeky."
Emphasizing that the store is for mothers as well as their children, Mrs. Gaffney says, "Their lives are so committed to their children and their families. They give everything, and they don't get a pat on the back very often. They orchestrate everything. I applaud them."
When fathers come in on Saturdays and Sundays, she says, "I hear one dad say to the other, 'Boy, you have both kids here. You're brave.' And I'm laughing and thinking, 'Do you know what your wives do during the day?' They have all four with them. I find it fascinating."
Tea for two -- times two
Another Cheeky Monkey innovation is free tea parties for four kids at a time, called "One Lump or Two," every Thursday at 2 p.m. It started out every other week, but has become so popular that Mrs. Gaffney increased its frequency, and reservations are needed. She says that "high tea" in the afternoon, a British and Canadian tradition, was a big part of her life when she was growing up. There are finger sandwiches and cookies to go along with the tea.
What about competition from the toy company chains and the Internet? Mrs. Gaffney says that she doesn't have any local competition, and she isn't worried about competing with the Internet.
Cheeky Monkey customers apparently agree. "We love this store and come here often," says Amy Arnold of Menlo Park, who has her 4-year-old daughter, Grace, in tow. "It's great to have a toy store in Menlo Park. We definitely prefer this store to the big toy store chains. It's so easy to bring the kids here, park downtown, come in and buy the toys. The quality is great." While Mrs. Arnold is paying the bill, Grace is concentrating on the rack with finger puppets.
Sylvia Graninger of Woodside applauds the store's service and convenience. Describing herself as a former "San Francisco freak" before she moved to Woodside and a person who shuns shopping centers, she likes a downtown area "where I can get everything I want. I come here, because I did a school event here for my fund-raiser. They have wonderful toys and great service. And it's not so overwhelming like the big stores, you know, out in the malls. If you need something that they don't have, they'll get it for you. It's wonderful. I'm really excited about it."
Mrs. Gaffney buys a lot of her toys from Europe, but also from Canada and this country. The best-selling toy last Christmas in her store was the shiny Razor scooter for $99 that folds up to the size of a skateboard -- and it's still a hot item, she says.
Palo Alto residents also come to the store. Pam Thomas, carrying her 7-month-old baby girl, says that there are a lot more toys here that focus on development than in Toys R Us.
Sandy Anderson, an Atherton mother with two children, 7 and 10, emphasizes the "good selection of products for a lot of different ages. Menlo Park has needed something like this store," she says. "The owner has been really original about the inventory, the toys that she stocks. It seems like she's really thought out what she's bought. Toys have to be fun as well as educational, and we've bought both."
Future opportunities
Also, the store may soon have some labeled products, such as Cheeky Monkey pocket watches, T-shirts, possibly sweat shirts, and a bath product line, called Cheekies, for older kids and adults.
Community contributions are another aspect of Cheeky Monkey's culture. "We do a lot for local schools, churches and other organizations with gift certificates, money and products for auctions," says Mrs. Gaffney. "Right now, we're involved with eight or nine churches and schools."
The toy business is a rapidly changing, innovative world, so Mrs. Gaffney flew to New York last week to visit the big New York Toy Fair to stay on top of the latest toys for her customers.
What did she find? One new toy is Eloise, "a well-known character out of Kay Thompson's book. It'll be bigger than Madeline," she predicts. There will be dolls, figurines, magnetic-clothing projects. They will be available this spring, and Cheeky Monkey already has placed orders for them.
In addition, wooden toys will be "big," she anticipates. They are being made in China with wood imported from Europe. And she describes "the incredible effort being made by toy manufacturers to respond to what customers want."
So it looks as if Cheeky Monkey will have plenty of new toys to attract not only kids with an unquenchable thirst for playthings, but also parents with a big heart and a substantial checkbook.