The Houston Toy Museum, located on 19th Street in The Heights, announced Wednesday night it will close beginning Aug. 30, ending a four-plus-year run in the Bayou City. Museum owners cited the cost of rent as a leading factor in its impending closure.
“After a great deal of thought and many sleepless nights, we’ve made the incredibly difficult decision to close our doors at the end of the summer,” Houston Toy Museum owners Matt and Sara Broussard said in a statement posted on Instagram on Wednesday. “Like many small businesses, we’ve faced the reality of rising expenses and a cost of rent that ultimately became unsustainable for us.
“The truth is, we fell in love with the idea of being in a space that already held so much history and nostalgia for so many.”
The Broussards thanked their thousands of visitors and supporters in Wednesday’s statement. They added they plan to remain in the Texas toy community through participation in LEGO events and future pop-ups and collaborations, and they hope to “find the perfect forever home for the museum,” at a later date.
Launched in January 2022, the Houston Toy Museum was a two-story, 5,000-square-foot space that included a teddy bear from the 1890s and the world’s first Rubber Duck toy from 1977.
Thousands of items in the museum came from Matt’s personal collection, which spans more than 10,000 toys. Exhibits were displayed and swapped out regularly, and in June, the museum held a garage sale in which customers could purchase items from the museum’s sprawling collection.
The Houston Toy Museum will remain open in July and August on Tuesdays through Sundays. The museum opens at 10 a.m. on Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m. each of the other days, closing at 6 p.m. (with a 5 p.m. closure on Sundays). Adults can enter for $14 and seniors for $10. Kids ages 1-13 pay their respective age.