New toy store looks to bring ‘magic’ to downtown Gig Harbor this spring
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- The Curious Bear Toy & Book Shop will open in May in downtown Gig Harbor.
- The store will stock unique, educational toys for kids ages 0 to 10 years old and beyond.
- Store will replace the Birdnest Gallery & Framing at 3202 Tarabochia St. after 24 years.
Gig Harbor kids are in for a treat.
The Curious Bear Toy & Book Shop will open in downtown Gig Harbor in May, setting up shop at 3202 Tarabochia St. The store will replace Birdnest Gallery & Framing, an independent art gallery and custom picture framing business that opened in April 2002. The gallery’s owners, Barbara and Kim Harder, will be retiring after 24 years of business.
“ ... we’ve had some terrific clients that have become friends of ours, been a great experience,” Barbara Harder said in a phone call March 12.
It’s “hard to retire, but it’s time,” she said.
The arrival of a toy store in downtown Gig Harbor caters to the growing demand for kid-friendly options in the city, which has seen an increase in young families moving to the area in recent years.
Jennifer Luna, owner of The Curious Bear, said that her team is mostly millennials or Generation X and have fond memories of going into a toy store or a Toys”R”Us as kids.
“We wanted to bring that kind of magic feel to downtown Gig Harbor,” she said.
Like their first location in Fircrest, The Curious Bear in Gig Harbor will offer a colorful array of “fun, unique toys that you can’t find at the big box stores,” Luna told The News Tribune. The store will be 1,000 square feet.
The Curious Bear’s website shows that customers can browse dolls, slime, LEGOs and other building toys, puzzles, books and more. Visitors can also search online by themes such as “unicorns” or “planes, trains and boats,” as well as by age and brand.
Luna explained that The Curious Bear focuses on offering toys that are educational or have some kind of benefit for kids, like clay or things to play with outside. The majority of their toys don’t have batteries. They also offer plenty of wood-based toys and try to stay away from heavy plastic, she told The News Tribune.
“We try to find those unique toys that were built to teach something, as opposed to just the lights and the sounds and to get their attention,” she said.
While she described kids ages 0 to 10 years old as their “sweet spot,” the store has products for everyone from babies to “kidults,” according to Luna. They also try to find toys that are trending for tweens and teens, like the viral Jellycat. And it’s not just kids who get excited — grandparents are “probably (their) number one customer,” Luna said.
Born and raised in Port Angeles, Luna said her entrepreneurship journey started in a basement in Gig Harbor. (Her business profile says she formerly worked as a personal assistant and estate manager for celebrities like Scarlett Johansson and Melissa Etheridge.) Her first business, a stationery and gift store named Paper Luxe, was a joint effort with her mother, Laurie Hicks, and now has two locations in Fircrest and the Uptown Gig Harbor shopping center. The Gig Harbor location also includes a baby boutique named Little Luxe, which will transition to its own storefront at Uptown in about three weeks and expand their inventory to serve kids up to age 12, Luna said.
Each of her stores, along with an event venue called The Studio, are linked under her parent company, The Kindship. Luna said the name means “a small act of kindness” and that the company is motivated by helping people “celebrate the little things and the people in their lives.” The Kindship Studio is located at 4793 Point Fosdick Dr. #200 in the Uptown shopping center.
This story was originally published March 17, 2026 at 5:30 AM.
