Bob Medcraft mentions the word “serendipity” often as we sit in one of the two birthday party rooms at Choo Choo Bob’s, chatting about his store on Marshall Avenue in Saint Paul that has become a Twin Cities icon. Instead of taking credit for the über-popular story time, the 10 train tables in the back of the store constantly crowded with kids or the Emmy-award winning TV show all about trains, Medcraft simply sits back and chalks it up to being in the right place at the right time. And knowing the right people. By way of a career change, Medcraft wagered it all on the neighborhood store that ended up selling a lot more than model trains.
Films like Grumpy Old Men and Jingle All the Way have special meaning to Medcraft. He was a location manager for those iconic Minnesota movies—along with TV commercials and music videos for various artists But by the mid-2000s, the local film and music video industry had dried up and Medcraft was forced to find other opportunities.
Opportunities came in the form of a shuttered furniture shop on Marshall Avenue that would become the home for Medcraft’s next project. Choo Choo Bob’s opened in 2005.
“I started out thinking this would be a model train store,” Medcraft says. “But we’d have three guys in here looking at the trains and 20 kids crowded around the Thomas the Tank Engine display.”
Medcraft quickly tweaked his business plan to cater to a younger demographic—kids. This launched a store like none other in the country—both a blessing and a curse. There was no model to follow, no marketing professional to help with branding, no analytics proving this idea would work. Just a guy who liked trains and wanted to make them accessible to kids. Fortunately for him, the idea worked.
With the store rolling along smoothly, another idea soon surfaced. This one involved Medcraft’s former expertise as well as his former colleagues: a children’s TV show about trains, featuring real railroad trips and local music. Medcraft and his crew produced six episodes that would air on Channel 23. They had the talent, the space and the idea, but were lacking money to produce subsequent episodes.
Serendipitously, along came Bob Vince, a medicinal chemist who invented an HIV medication used to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS. A model-train enthusiast, Vince learned about The Choo Choo Bob Show through one of the actors and was interested in helping the cause.
“I like to find organizations and charities giving of themselves—who are trying to do something creative,” he says. Vince became half-owner of the store, and with his investment, an additional 38 episodes of The Choo Choo Bob Show were produced and are still airing on TV today on the Qubo and Ion networks.
In addition to the TV show, Medcraft, with the help of his staff, has instituted other popular traditions. Just peek your head in on a Tuesday morning, where you’ll see Engineer Paul—one of the first employees Medcraft hired—in his bib overalls and bandana singing and reading to dozens of kids all huddled together for story time.
As I sit chatting with Medcraft, out of the corner of my eye, I see my own little 4-year-old train enthusiast, James, playing at one of the busy train tables, enjoying every second.
Medcraft smiles. “I may not get rich off this store, but down the road, when your son is 80 years old, I hope he tells his grandkids about a store he used to go to as a kid,” says Medcraft.
Story time is featured every Tuesday at 10 a.m. Birthday party packages are also available; check the website for details.
