Gourmet Grocery Will Replace Famous Bed-Stuy Candy and Comic Book Shop

Jimmy’s Stationery and Toys, an odds-and-ends shop in Bed-Stuy stuffed with vintage candies and comic books and other man-made delights, has been living at 406 Tompkins Avenue for the past 40 years.

That is, until last spring, when — in a tragic yet not entirely unique turn of events for the neighborhood — shop owner Jimmy Leary lost a battle with his new landlord.

Leary was famously kicked out of the candy shop on May 27.

At the same time, Sheshe the cat, the store’s unofficial mascot, was (also famously) locked inside. For upward of six weeks, no one knew whether Sheshe was dead or alive.

Sheshe has since been freed from her candy-shop prison. Word is that old Jimmy Leary, though, hasn’t quite recovered from his lost battle with wildfire gentrification in Bed-Stuy.

“He’s kind of just on the quiet side right now, not really doing anything, just living each day,” Sharonnie Perry, a 61-year-old community activist and friend of Leary’s, told Patch. ”There’s nothing for him to do.”

And without Leary’s shop, she said, “You can’t get all the newspapers you could get before. He had all the community newspapers. He was the only store that sold books, comic books, crossword puzzles. So now if my grandson wants comic books, he has to go to Park Slope or Brooklyn Heights.”

Leary’s iconic “Stationery & Toys” sign has since been torn from his former storefront — creating a clean slate for new owner and local restaurateur Tara Oxley to design her latest Brooklyn venture.

Oxley, 41, has lived in Bed-Stuy for the past six years — just around the corner from Leary’s candy shop, in fact. She remembers Sheshe the cat as ”very lovable, very cuddly.”

Oxley said she could not speak to what happened over the summer at 406 Tompkins.

“I can only speak to the idea that I’ve seen change happening in my neighborhood over the past six years,” she said. ”You can stand still, or you can help embrace the change.”

“I welcome people coming in and doing whatever,” Oxley added. “I embrace the change. As a homeowner, that only brings more value to my property. And as a business owner, that only brings more business.”

Just nine months ago, Oxley opened a hip, homey farm-to-table restaurant called Eugene & Co one block up from the candy shop, at 397 Tompkins, to a roar of approval.

A glowing review in New York Magazine earlier this summer described the restaurant’s ”appealing brand of refined global soul” as ”a winning concept for the neighborhood.” (Starters at Eugene & Co run between $10 and $15 ; main courses run between $15 and $20.)

Oxley’s new outpost at 406 Tompkins, she said, will complete her “nice little triangle” in the neighborhood.

She plans to turn the cozy, 1,000-square-foot space into a gourmet grocery called Chicky’s General Store.

Chicky’s will resemble Dean and Deluca, the other gourmet grocery Oxley owns in Williamsburg — only a bit cheaper and more community-centric, she said.

“I love a good bargain, and I like to do something that’s unique,” Oxley said.

Take ketchup, for example, she said. Oxley hopes to offer Chicky’s shoppers a variety of ketchup choices. She might sell, say, a classic bottle of Heinz for around $2; a slightly higher-end ketchup for around $5; and a full-on gourmet ketchup made with Jersey tomatoes for around $8.

“I want to be able to cater to everyone’s whims,” she said. ”I don’t want to alienate someone who can’t pay $8 for ketchup.”

Oxley also plans to offer house accounts so that local kids can pick up groceries for their parents.

“This neighborhood, it’s special,” she said. ”It’s such a community. People are honestly concerned about people. Everyone is so involved in everyone’s life.”

But community activist Perry, Bed-Stuy born and raised, said the new reality of Tompkins Avenue is nothing like the neighborhood she’s known all her life.

“At this point, it’s like, what do we do?” Perry asked. “How do we maintain and preserve what’s left of the community? It’s hard, because people are offering [building owners] so much money. It’s sad, because it’s taking away the character of the community.”

“It’s definitely not the community I grew up in, that’s for sure,” she said.

Perry said she was running out of affordable places to eat in the area.

At another new eatery near Leary’s old place, Perry said, she was recently charged $7 for a hero sandwich. “A plain little hero sandwich, for $7,” she said. “Not only are they driving us out with rents, but they’re driving us out with food prices, too.”

Sandwiches at Chicky’s General Store will go for around $8, according to Oxley.

“Do I want to see a gourmet store go there?” Perry said of Leary’s old space. “No. But that’s what all the new residents want.”

The popular Brooklyn blog Brownstoner reflected upon this demand in a recent write-up on Chicky’s General Store.

“With numerous full-line grocery stores, specialty shops and farmers markets, Bed Stuy is far from the stereotypical inner city ’food desert.’ But as the Whole Foods bags in the arms of residents heading home from the subway attest, locals have long complained they had to go outside the neighborhood to buy such items as grass-fed meats, wild fish, artisanal cheeses and organic strawberries. Now a gourmet grocery is finally headed to Bed Stuy.”

Oxley declined to reveal what kind of rent she’ll be paying at 406 Tompkins.

However, the guys who run La Bellaca Grocery, the bodega next door (on the corner of Tompkins and Hancock), said they’re being charged more than $3,000 per month.

“We can’t eat here; we can’t live here; we can’t pay the rent,” Antonio Aria, who works at the shop, said in Spanish. “We probably won’t last longer than another year or two.”