West Concord Five & Ten

I love that this store is here in West Concord. The employees are so helpful and the old timey atmosphere is great. I work in the area and walk over from time to time for penny candy or a little toy for the kids’ birthday or stocking at Christmas.
Seriously though, I have found items here that I was specifically looking for that even the big box stores didn’t have… Submersible pump? They had them when Lowe’s was sold out. Need a plastic peacock for a school project? They had one when I couldn’t even find one at the large craft stores. Pinewood derby car parts? Absolutely.
If you are in the area, stop by and give the local store some love, this kind of place just doesn’t exist anymore!

My favorite store in the area. The staffer I’ve dealt with is wonderful. We had a great chat one day last Fall about the squirrels going crazy and she mentioned the old wives tale that suggests it would be a bad winter. I had never heard that but it seems to be holding true! The store itself has some amazing finds — namely their halloween masks and infant shoe bells (random!).

This place is great. They have everything from light bulbs, to sewing notions, hair nets and kitchen wares, extension cords to penny candy, duct tape to pigface masks, crayons and paints to cleaning products, gumby and pokey dolls to stickers and discount Christmas décor. And everything is super cheap!
I am also might add that the manager found my debit card and saw to it that it was returned to me.

This is such a great little place, and I love to poke around in it, just to see what they have. It’s a small and crowded old fashioned general store, with an astonishing variety of miscellaneous items for sale. Hardware, sewing notions, kitchen items, Melissa and Doug toys, shoelaces, hair nets, candy, party goods, etc., etc. all vie for space. My favorite quirky items last visit were a glass coffee percolator top and aluminum hair clips for home permanents. You never know what you’ll find, but you’ll probably find something your forgot you needed! A couple of very pleasant teenage boys were there for help and check out – one of them said «it’s a great place to work, but taking inventory is a nightmare». I believe it!

This long standing Five & Ten is a sweet road down nostalgia lane. It’s a great place to find all kinds of original and cute stocking stuffers and anything you can’t find anywhere else.

This place has everything… its very, very rare that I go in looking for something and cant find it. Often the prices are as good as the big box stores. Love this place!

If you need it, they’ve got it. The amazing people who work there give consise directions through the crowded and maze-​like aisles with high precision. Likely it’s down this aisle, up the ramp, and to the right halfway to the back.

The West Concord five and dime is where a short road trip and $ 1.29 can still buy you a ridiculously good time plus a new pair of shoelaces. This place is a retro classic, and its eclectic inventory gives you the impression that if you want something, you can probably find it here. If some of its offbeat oddities don’t make you laugh at least once, you are clearly taking life too seriously.
I brought my camera to capture some of the weird and wacky items that caught my attention. Enjoy!

For those of us who remember 5 & 10 — that meant cents and not dollars. I wonder if there was ever a brand or should it have been?
Cheap stuff every where. Since Spags is gone and well I can’t think of another 5 & 10 anywhere. It’s a great spot for stocking stuffers, widgets and things you might find only in a hardware store. Shelves so stocked you could never ever find it yourself. Browse and take in the smells of old wood shelves, almost as old cardboard boxes and other things that remind me of the old 5 & 10 on Mass. Ave in Cambridge just across the street from the Gulf station (not sure it’s still there) — and right next door to the old A & P.
Nana used to send me up there when you could charge anything and they would say «hello to Edith.»
Need a key… the got it… light bulb .no problem. That particular hanging gadget… yup. Fly tape… back in a minute.
Back to West Concord and the little store that has everything. If you have not been by it is probably as best described as a wanna be hardware store with the great aroma of the 50’s and 60’s.

Great little store! A throw-​back in that they carry a little bit of everything. Toys to shovels to kiddie pools to… well I could go on for days. It’s the kind of place where you find stuff you didn’t know you needed before you walked in.
We just moved to West Concord and I’m glad I’ll be in walking distance of this store. And plan to do a lot of shopping here as we outfit our new house and yard.

I’ve been going to the 5&10 for years. I can’t count the number of times I’ve gone from Home Depot to Lowe’s to the little local hardware stores and came up empty-​handed, only to find the oddball thing I needed at the 5&10. I start there now and seldom am I disappointed. And where else can you find hair nets, shelf liner, and Chinese lanterns for $ 2.99 all in the same little corner?

This place is basically a dollar store, except there’s no way Concord would let a place called «the Dollar Store» plot itself in Concord center. It’s got lots of random items for very cheap. Some useful, like paints and cleaning supplies. Some items are useless crap you wish you had as a kid but couldn’t afford like parachute men and slingshot monkey’s. I actually got something I needed here recently — a small dry erase board, for only $ 5. Saved me a trip to Target, and kept my cheese local. Worth checking out for novelty value at the very least. Rumor has it they are not so nice to employees, but I can’t confirm this first-​hand.

This big little general store is an oasis in Metro West. They have just about anything you would need, and have great prices. More than once I’ve found their prices to be lower than a chain like Lowes or Home Depot, and there have been times when they have what I’m looking for when Lowes does not! If you live near this store, there is no question it is tops.

This is a real 5 and 10 store. Like Ben Franklin, though even more so.
It’s so cool! Think of a general store, way up in Vermont or something.
If you can’t find it, ask. They have it somewhere in there, I promise you.
Hardware, crafts, kitchen wares, tools, toys, and garden supplies.
I go here before Kmart, because it’s more fun, and chances are, they will have what I want.
Plus, I want these folks to stick around, y’know?