Thirty Christmases. Thousands of kids. One Purple Cow Toys store for sale. After three decades of supplying fun to the smiling faces of Astoria, Katie Murray is ready to retire.

“It’s time to pass the torch on to somebody younger, more energetic,” she said.

The store’s lease on Commercial Street runs out in July.

“I’m hoping to have it done by then,” she said. “I would like to see somebody putting a new touch on it.”

Murray has started to put the word out and has already garnered some interest both locally and from out of town.

Murray and her late husband, Bill Colwill, opened Purple Cow Toys — “with no retail experience and on a shoestring budget”— on June 1, 1995 after they relocated to Astoria from New York.

“I had to talk him into it, he was scared to death,” Murray recalled. But it worked out in the end. “He could sell toys like nobody else. He was amazing,” she said. Colwill died in 2020.

A small-town toy store may seem like a relic. But, Murray said, “I’ve been told over and over again, mostly by outsiders, that it’s so nice to see a real toy store because their town doesn’t have one, which blows me away.”

With 30 years of toy slinging come myriad of memories. “We’re a destination,” Murray said, peppering her recollections with stories of customers who got toys at the store when they were children, returning with their children and, some cases, even grandchildren.

Melissa Bangild, the store manager since 2022, recalled, “The other day I overheard a kid walking by say, ‘Purple Cow is so epic.’ It’s this visceral feeling that people get when they know they’re either coming to Astoria or drive by the store because generations of people have been coming here.”

And, Murray added with a laugh, “They like our music.”

The business may come with a built-in customer base, but Murray has seen many changes in the toy business over the years. The store used to carry more higher-end, expensive toys. She said, “what has changed dramatically is games. We’ve got a lot more games.”

Bangild, in turn, highlighted science toys and sensory and fidget toys from a variety of therapeutic lines. “We have lots of therapists, teachers, counselors that come in and buy things,” Bangild, a former teacher, said.

Some toys have been standbys for many years, like place mats, Playmobil, arts and crafts, baby toys and jigsaw puzzles. One thing Purple Cow doesn’t carry: Astoria items. And, Murray said, “I would like to see less plastic.”

Coincidentally, just before she announced her retirement and the sale of Purple Cow, Murray received the Astoria Mayor’s Award. “Thank you, Katie Murray, for quietly creating community in Astoria,” Mayor Sean Fitzpatrick said during a ceremony at the City Council meeting Monday.

“What he said was just so heartfelt and so true, and it brought a tear to my eye, because it would be so sad to see this go away,” Bangild said.

On a sunny Wednesday morning, Liberty Theatre executive director Jennifer Crockett was buying toys for kids at Consejo Hispano’s Magia Navideña gift-giving program. “Purple Cow is really good at helping me,” Crockett said. “I just walked in and I said, ‘I have a 9 year old and a 3 year old,’ (and my budget), and they pulled everything together for me. Our whole board is doing this.”

Outside of Christmastime, Murray said, “Summers are great; August is our second-best month.”

As to her post-Purple Cow plans, Murray is planning to rest. “Bill and I ran this place for years, and we hardly ever took a vacation together,” she said. “I want to take a long vacation, maybe to Croatia. I went to Yugoslavia in the ’80s, it was a nice trip.”

If she can’t sell the store, she plans to simply close it down. You are never too old for toys, Purple Cow’s tagline maintains, but running a toy store is a different play. “I’ve got to stop sometime,” Murray said.