Before there were video games or the Internet, local children would rush into Greg Kelly's little hobby shop to check out the latest model train or sailboat. They would follow Kelly outside, where the hobbyist would fly a hand-held balsa wood airplane -- usually propelled by nothing more than a tightly wound rubber band.
"They just loved that," Kelly recalled. "Then if they had a dollar or two dollars on them, they'd buy it."
Three decades later, Kelly's Hobby Shop operates in much the same way it did in the '70s: no website or e-mail address, no credit cards, no fancy advertising.
And although many hobby shops update their merchandise to stay on top of trends, Kelly is content to run his store as he always has, stocked with scale models and figurines, rockets, paints and other supplies. The Old Town Tustin store is so crammed with old-fashioned toys that there is barely any counter space left.
"My thing is the hobbies," said Kelly, 55. "I don't care about upgrading or the world of machines."
Although the inventory and the owner have stayed the same since the store opened in 1972, the customers haven't, Kelly said. Once young and sprightly, his customers today are mainly in their 50s or older and are old-school hobbyists who appreciate Kelly's loyalty to more traditional fare.
The children, Kelly said, have largely lost interest, opting instead for modern playthings such as video games and ready-made toys. These days, they primarily come into his store as part of a Boy Scout task or for a school project.
"Kids today aren't interested," he said. "They want to put the batteries in and go."
Business is steady but slow -- the peak years were in the early 1980s, Kelly said, when a greater interest in hobbying drew large numbers of customers to Kelly's Hobby Shop. The store is still profitable and has annual revenue of about $150,000, he said.
Kelly opened his shop at the age of 20 after his parents bought the building and opened their own store, Kelly's Cards and Gifts, next to his. He prefers to run Kelly's Hobby Shop by himself, seven hours a day, six days a week. To advertise his business, he relies on word of mouth and prints fliers, which he personally delivers door to door.
Jacob Fletcher, a fourth-grader at Red Hill Elementary in Santa Ana, is one of the few children who still regularly stops by Kelly's Hobby Shop. The 10-year-old enjoys building Star Wars and Star Trek kits and boasts that his parents rarely help him with his projects.
