It might not be as high-tech or as fast as Doc Brown’s DeLorean, but great Scott! The nostalgia-inducing experience the Denver couple has offered since opening the brick-and-mortar Fifty-Two 80's: A Totally Awesome Shop and Yo! Nineties twelve years ago has made it the go-to place to find that favorite toy your mom inexplicably threw out without asking after you moved out.
That feeling of spontaneous excitement, of rediscovery, hits as soon as you walk through the door. You’ll find all of your long-lost friends hanging out together within the 1,000-square-foot space, with Thompson and Vecchio standing in as their loving caretakers until you can take a break from adulthood to check back in.
The pop-culture utopia is home to 6,000 items at any given time, and allegiances and old grudges matter not. Pikachu and his Pokémon pals have no problem with the pesky Team Rocket here, while He-Man and Skeletor stand side by side without incident. Even Freddy Krueger stays out of your head. Of course, it helps that the only dreams you might have at Fifty-Two 80's are ones of wistful memories.
Owners Dede Thompson and Tony Vecchio are all smiles, which is a common reaction whenever you visit their shop on South Broadway.
Courtesy Dede Thompson and Tony Vecchio
“The shop itself is all based on individuals’ nostalgia, whoever comes in and sees that thing they had growing up or thing that sparks a memory that they fall in love with again,” Thompson explains, adding that it's supplemented by the overall vibe. “You come in and we have a bubble gum smell, there’s ’80s music going. We try to appeal to all of the senses and make it an experience to actually come in.”
While the sign specifically points to the ’80s and ’90s, two time periods that are undoubtedly well represented within, the shop lives up to its tagline of “Decades of fun under one roof!” Vintage offerings stem from various eras between generations X and Z (and yes, that includes Millennials).
“Of course, we kind of span 1975 into 1995," Thompson notes, "but definitely getting a little more focused into the '90s stuff, as well."
That means there are Smurfs, Alf, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Simpsons, Beetlejuice, Polly Pocket, Mighty Max. If you’re a sports fan, check out the back corner and all the Denver Broncos Orange Crush memorabilia. Into trading cards? Fifty-Two 80's offers more than 200 varieties of non-sports packs — unofficially the largest assortment of such in the city — including one-off movie sets and, of course, numerous Garbage Pail Kids series. We could go on and on. But if you had it as a kid, you can almost definitely dig it up here.
The best part? Thompson and Vecchio are constantly adding to their carefully curated collection.
“We’re always bringing in new stuff,” Thompson says. “We have Care Bears, and I just put out some really fun Christmas Trolls. I have Christmas Snoopy ornaments. We have Cabbage Patch Kids and Barbies and My Little Ponies. We have Star Wars and G.I. Joe and He-Man. We’re putting new stuff out all the time.”
Needless to say, it’s a must-visit if you’re still checking off — or just starting — your holiday shopping. As Thompson likes to say, you’ll leave with much more than just a one-of-a-kind gift.
“One of our biggest things that we put out there for the holidays is 'Give the gift of a memory,'” she says, referring to the motto displayed on the front window. “That definitely sums up what this experience is. When you give somebody that Popple" — if you remember those, how’s your back feeling? — "they had as a kid, that’s a whole different feeling and emotion than when they open up, like, a toaster or something.”
Plus, you’ll be supporting a local business that only sells its recycled wares in person. That means there’s no online store to pull from, though the Fifty-Two 80s website is fun to visit, and it’s best to keep an eye on its social media to see what’s new.
Now, you might be thinking that Thompson and Vecchio are avid collectors who turned their passion into a full-blown career. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, Thompson worked in the mortgage business, while Vecchio made his living as a chef.
“One day Tony called me out of the blue and was like, ‘I think I want to open an ’80s store.’ I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’” Thompson recalls, adding that they’re “just adults who grew up in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.”
“Even to this day, we have very minimal that’s at our house, just a handful of things that are on our desks, but other than that, it’s down here at the store,” she continues. “But one of the things that appealed to us [was how] we would enjoy when we would go out to antique stores finding things we had as kids that were nostalgic to us. That was his thought: having all of that in one place, one store that held all of our childhood memories.”
While it’s always exciting to find a rare or obscure object, even if it’s a little sad when it eventually walks out the door with a new owner, unexpectedly reuniting people with a once-cherished childhood souvenir is what Thompson and Vecchio love most about the store.
“That’s one of the fun things about our store and what we do, is hearing all the stories and all of the people coming in and they’re emotional,” Thompson says. “There’s a lot of emotion involved in nostalgia.”
It’s something that hadn’t crossed her mind before opening, but it didn’t take long for her to see the impact such a store could have. Thompson still remembers certain customers who found exactly what they needed, for one reason or another, inside the magical Broadway boutique.
“One of the very first things that happened to us — we weren’t really prepared for this — but not too long after we opened, we had a woman come in, and she was very emotional looking through and picking up stuff, like with tears in her eyes,” Thompson shares.
“She brought up a Pound Puppy, Rainbow Brite and Teddy Ruxpin. She was very emotional, so I was chatting with her, like, ‘Are you okay?’ She told me that she had a tough childhood and ran away as a young teenager, and those were the last things that she remembered seeing when she closed the door to her bedroom," she continues. "It was just such a touching story. She was like, ‘You let me be a kid again.’ That was pretty impactful for us, and for her, too.”
Such reactions have become a common occurrence over the past decade-plus, and, like Care Bears, each one is special in its own right.
“There was another woman who found a TV Guide and just broke down crying,” Thompson recollects. “Once again, we were like, ‘Are you okay?,’ and she just said that as a little girl, she would sit on her dad’s lap, and they would look at the TV Guide and go over what programs they were going to watch that week and circle them. Then she said her dad had passed away and that brought back a fond memory that she had.”
Those are powerful customer testimonies, and only a couple examples of what Thompson and Vecchio have heard within the walls of Fifty-Two 80's.
“That’s one of my favorite things. To me, it’s very gratifying, because I feel like in some way this is a place where you can go and it doesn’t matter what demographic or color you are or what childhood you went through — this is a place you can come and be in a happy space,” Thompson says.
Yeah, "time machine" might be a little too scientific of a title for a place filled to the gills with action figures and dolls, but actual time-traveling is just too dangerous, so a little imagination goes a long way.
“That’s the beauty of it. That’s one of things that I enjoy. I like it when I’m here and people can start talking amongst each other about things that happened when they were kids, and people are laughing with strangers about stories that they had,” Thompson concludes. “That’s a pretty awesome thing. That’s a little more unique than going into Walmart.”
