For the love of Lego: Federal Way shop marks first anniversary

Published 3:00 pm Thursday, February 26, 2026

As Charity and Matt Morningstar prepare for the one-year anniversary of their business in Federal Way, their biggest takeaway is an appreciation for the supportive community of Lego lovers.

Their Bricks & Minifigs store at 1414 S. 324th St., Suite B 201, has become a consistent part of their customers’ routine and a catalyst for community-building.

The store is an authorized Lego reseller and features a wide selection of new and gently used Lego sets and minifigures, including rare finds. This includes both new and certified complete used Lego sets as well as loose bricks, accessories, minifigs and a build-your-own minifig station and “as-is” used sets.

It’s not unusual to find customers who spend hours at the store each week. Some are combing through the large tables of loose Legos to find just the right piece for a build they are working on, others are spending time with children or grandchildren or even connecting with other Lego enthusiasts.

The store also hosts several workshops and events each month, many of which feature local Lego legends or are hosted by volunteers who just want to share a unique build, like an infinity fidget cube workshop.

The shop also offers birthday parties where guests can build their own race cars and test them on a sophisticated test track that monitors the speed of each creation.

“I was an electrician for 25 years in Seattle and we were looking for something else for the second half of my career,” Matt Morningstar said.

The couple were customers of the Bricks & Minifigs shop in Monroe, Washington, and saw a link at the bottom of that store’s newsletter to reach out with interest in opening a franchise of the store.

“I just jokingly said, ‘Hey, babe, what if we opened a Bricks & Minifigs?’ And she said, ‘Let’s do it,’” Matt said.

On a whim, the couple sent an email to inquire about becoming franchise owners, and a whirlwind of a year later, they opened the doors in Federal Way.

The couple has two children ages 3 and 13, and they were looking for a change in career.

“We wanted to find something that was rewarding, where we could just build community, something for our kids to be also able to participate in,” Matt said.

Charity didn’t build too many Lego sets as a child. She said she always enjoyed it and used Lego as part of a robotics program at her Renton high school.

As an adult, Charity said, “I actually got into it when [Matt] started pulling out his sets when our son was old enough to start building. He started taking out, like, 20-, 30-year-old sets from when he was a kid.”

Their son wasn’t old enough to put the sets together himself, and Charity said while helping him put them together she learned how cathartic it could be and ultimately started getting her own Lego sets to build.

Challenges and support

Like any small business, the past year has had its challenges, but overall they’ve been overwhelmed by the love and support they’ve received from customers and Lego enthusiasts.

“We’ve built a really nice community here. People have been so kind,” Matt said. “We have customers that know we’re a small family business, and margins are thin and we can’t hire staff to do all the work that needs to be done. So they’ve offered and actually come through on helping us at no charge.”

One time-consuming part of the job is that to certify a used Lego set as complete requires building it brick-by-brick to double-check if it is missing any pieces. If there is anything missing, that means sorting through their tables of loose pieces to find exactly the right shape and color to complete it.

Community members have actually volunteered to do this work for them, as well as spending hours of time sorting bricks and donating their time, expertise and even large Lego builds to the store.

Being on the receiving end of all of this love and support has been “humbling and eye opening,” Charity said.

This support began even before the doors opened. Matt said one day as they were preparing to open, he noticed a man looking through the windows and started chatting with him. Turns out, that man was local Lego legend Wayne Hussey.

Hussey built the large Lego replica of the Space Needle that is housed in the gift shop of the iconic structure and also built a large scale model of one of the Washington State Ferries that is now housed on board.

Hussey is an expert at what Lego lovers refer to as My Own Creation (MOC) builds. These are custom creations that use the bricks creatively in custom ways rather than building from a pre-set design.

The large totem pole Lego sculpture in the shop is his creation and is on loan to Bricks and Minifigs as long as they want it.

Small business reality

Since becoming small business owners, Matt and Charity have become even more conscious of the impact of local spending power.

Every time someone chooses to purchase a new Lego set from them rather than large corporate stores like Target or Walmart, it puts money back in the pockets of a local family, they said. The experience has made them even more mindful of their own personal spending, too.

“We used to always try to support small businesses, but now that we’re small business owners, that’s like all we think about,” Matt said. “We try to support local as much as we can, especially since we ask people to do it every day.”

If customers see a set that costs a little bit more than it did at another store in town, Matt and Charity reassure people that “you might be paying an extra dollar here, but that extra dollar is going to go back into your community. We donate to every school that walks in here and asks us to donate. We’ve never turned anybody down. We’ve sponsored several events in Federal Way … yeah, you might pay an extra dollar for something, but it’s not like that’s going in our pocket. We’re really trying to be out here in the community, to make sure people know where we are and that we’re a safe place,” Matt said.

Reaching the one year milestone, the couple is inviting the community to join them, with door prizes, raffles, sweet treats, specialty printed pieces and more all day on Feb. 28 and March 1.