Bricks & Bits Brings LEGO Magic to Salamanca: Meet Jonathan Young, the “LEGO Guy”
Bricks & Bits Brings LEGO Magic to Salamanca: Meet Jonathan Young, the “LEGO Guy”
A colorful new shop sparks creativity, nostalgia, and community connection, one brick at a time.
Imagine what work would be like if your view was every color of the rainbow. In some parts of the room, the colors are separated, displaying a beautiful gradient. In others, the colors swirl and stack together to depict stunning creations. Some days you might be looking at rocket ships and sports cars, and the next day it might be dinosaurs and dragons. Picturing it? Well, that’s what it’s like to be Jonathan Young, the LEGO guy.
Young is the owner of Bricks & Bits, your soon-to-be new favorite store in Salamanca. Bricks & Bits is the store for all things building toys - creating, collecting, trading, and of course, LEGO. Young has had his store open since the beginning of September, and speaks of the positive response with such gratitude.
“Honestly, I would say it’s been unexpectedly lucrative. There’s been an amazing response from the community,” said Young. “I haven’t had a single day yet where I haven’t had a full 6-8 hours of something to do,” he continued. Young gushed over the love and support from new regular guests, chamber members, press, and local businesses. Young’s store is being welcomed to the Salamanca community with open arms.
But honestly, how could it not be? It’s safe to assume that everybody has played LEGO at some point in their life. It’s the most popular toy in the world by revenue, according to Visual Capitalist. And now the people of Salamanca have their own one-stop shop.
Young’s theory on this overwhelming support has to do with the niche nature of his business. He touches on something we’ve probably all noticed: that a good old-fashioned toy store is hard to find in 2025. “Toy stores in general are difficult enough to come by, but a specifically LEGO-focused store tends to have an attractive look and garner attention,” said Young.
Young himself even admitted he never had a LEGO retail experience growing up. That’s when everything clicked for him, and he discovered just how special this toy was going to be. Young’s grandparents had gifted him a set for Christmas - a car set that you could disassemble and reassemble into twenty different model cars. “That was the first time that LEGO really took what I had in my brain as an 8-year-old kid of thinking of what a toy could be, and it just exploded these ideas and this creativity,” said Young.
The 27-year-old entrepreneur has been creating with bricks for 19 years, and many would consider him a “master builder.” Young told me this is a term fans hear thrown around in LEGO’s several movies, theme parks, and fandom in general. It’s a person who can build intricate and artistic models from nothing but their own imagination, and while Young still believes he has some work to do, Bricks & Bits regulars would consider him to be pretty darn good. “I’m definitely working towards the level of master builder, and I think most everyone else would consider me a master builder, and I’m one of the last people actually to recognize that,” chuckled Young.
To him, though, it’s not about the skill. “I would definitely say at 27 years old, I’m more in love with LEGO than I ever have been. There’s no sign of it fading away, and there’s no sign of it getting boring,” he said.
Young’s passion runs so deep, he is committed to making the hobby accessible to all people, no matter what they can afford. From a quick Google search, the most expensive LEGO set boasts a $1,000 price point. Young’s store is the exact opposite of that experience. It only furthers how much this opportunity is about sharing something so dear to him, more than it is about profits. Young’s store features a “Pick-A-Brick” station, a concept not new to LEGO-focused stores. You get to peruse an extensive selection of individual bricks segregated by their shape and color. “My option in the store is actually filling up a small container of pieces, which ends up being about seven ounces, and you only pay 5 dollars, which is about 1/3 of the price that you would find in any other Pick-A-Brick option,” said Young.
Young takes it one step further, offering a free-of-charge LEGO experience for guests who come into the store, unable to spend money. “I allow anybody to come into the store, and they can build any minifigure at the minifigure station, and if they don’t want to pay for it they can choose to display it on any of the many display shelves that we have around the store,” added Young.
This makes the shop especially appealing to younger children who don’t have any money, but the store is far from being just for kids. Jonathan’s philosophy actually lies in breaking the mold of quitting playing once you’re all grown up. “I think it can be a great resource for people to lean into. Maybe they can touch on that nostalgia from when they were younger, or maybe it can be a new way for adults to engage with their younger ones,” said Young.
This is your sign to let loose, go be creative, and have fun. After all, why wouldn’t you want to listen to somebody who goes by “the LEGO guy”? Bricks & Bits is located at 8 Main Street in Salamanca, NY. It’s open weekdays from 11:00am-5:00pm and Saturdays from 8:00am-4:00pm.
“I would really like to thank all of the people who have, right out of the gate, believed in me, and that this is something that could really happen,” said Young.