Brookline News Gift Shop

by Erin W.

Clearly the best store in this annoying neighborhood.  Walking in here was like a breath of fresh (tobacco-scented) air.  A cute and quirky place, in a totally non-self-conscious kind of way.  Sells a variety of unique products, and the owner/employees are super-nice laid back people.  The clutter and general atmosphere are charming, in certain ways reminiscent of a 1950's 5-and-dime shop.  If you don't like this place, you are probably way too uptight for your own good.

by Ian M.

This place is pretty kick ass... well.. the front half of the store anyway.They have a huge selection of random pipes, tobacco, cigars, flasks, canes, etc. Typical badass "old man" accessories. I've never actually heard the owner speak, he seems like your typical grumpy old man, which I don't have a problem with, that will probably be me one day if I live that long. As you go deeper into the tiny, narrow store it turns into gag gifts and porn and crap, not my stuff. But I feel I can give them 4 stars just based off of the front half of the store.The random shit in this store just piles up it feels like, and you can tell that some of it has been sitting there for ages and some was probably dropped there the day before. It's like your typical junk/thrift/dirty old man's gag shop on crack. I love it.

by Zev F.

AH.......what can I say about Brookline News gift...... This place is tiny, crowded, and full of pornos, and kid toys. The candy is thirty years old, most of the toys have dust on them, and you would think that this shop is right out of Narnia. This is a very unique shop, that has recently been bought by a new owner, which is changing the shop a lot, and is getting much less business because of the new owner. Most items are overpriced, and a lot of cheap stuff.

by Theresa H.

This place is just surreal. I'm almost certain that this guy has just been hoarding random things for over 20 years - except for the pornography, which I'm sure is current. It gets one star more than it deserves because a regular inside stopped us to ask about the Trader Joe's flattened banana that we were eating. We then shared some with him. It must have been the warm weather.

by Tom E.

first 5 minutes in this shop..."shit, I've died and gone to heaven... this is going to get Yelped about big-time, five stars guaranteed"next 5 minutes..."err, actually this is kind of a sketchy place, I think I'd like to go now"I came in here on the off chance that they would have a specific toy, and I fell totally in love with the madness of the clutter and the seemingly infinite toys and board games. They must have every board game in existence. Plenty of joke toys too.But the owner was weird. I inquired about my toy, and he dragged me around the shop in some manic frenzy showing me all sorts of crap I obviously didn't want. He actually broke some of the things he was showing me with his wild enthusiasm.When I did spot the toy - I found it, not him - I was happy to pay and get out. Hey, the toy was perfect (although i did have to clean a ton of dust from it) but I wasn't feeling comfortable. The girl who rang up the cost shot me a "you'd never want to fucking work for this guy look" and at that point all enthusiasm for a five star review drained away. A great place to go when you're looking for that obscure item and it would be a lot of fun if you were with friends and drunk too. But don't forget it's uber-sketch.Kids Toys + Pornos = Dodgy

by Aluminum Chefs, C and T.

Ahhhh, Brookline News and Gift.  Unchanged by style, time and Coolidge Corners pandemic liberal sentiments.  The owner hangs out behind the counter, smoking.  The help shuffles around the crowded aisles, which are jammed with everything from straight razors to creepy old toys to antique pipes.   It's like someone cracked Tom Waits' brain open and is selling everything that tumbled out.The store is completely devoid of sunlight, it's windows blocked by a nightmare of sun-bleached board games and cigar ads.  The aisles are piled up to the ceiling - literally - with wolfs-head walking canes, pulp novels and cap guns.  The air is thick and yellow with cigar smoke, and smells like the upholstery in your grandfathers car.  In a neighborhood where smoking is tantamount to treason, BNG sticks out like a sore thumb - I mean, the guy SMOKES inside the store for chrissakes.  But it's so weird and old that nobody would try to shut them down.If youre used to shopping at, say, Leavitt and Pierce in Harvard Square, give BNG a try next time you need some old-man aftershave (Oooh, Pinaud Clubman - my favorite!) or a bunch of Macanudos - hit these guys up instead.

by Walter G.

ok well i wanna share a quick story and then i'll respond to some of the other reviews. i was looking for a hookah for my new hookah den and someone directed me to brookline news. i inquire about hookahs with the owner (mike) who only had a couple on hand. he showed me a catalogue and told me that i could order anything i wanted. i picked one out and he said "ok well we'll see if it comes in." i didn't really like this non-committal response and tried to get some kind of concrete time frame which he was reluctant to be specific on, so i just assumed that i wasn't getting it. WRONG, he called me the next week and said that it came in! AND i got a killer deal on it. way to come through Mike! i go back on a semi-regular basis for shisha and coals and i always buy a TON of other useless kitsch while i'm at it cuz there's so much cool stuff in there.Tom E, if you're consciously going about your daily life evalutating how you're going to "yelp" about stuff and then base your reviews on an ARBITRARY rubric consisting of metrics like "sketchiness" then something's wrong. ALSO, brookline news isn't sketchy  at ALL, and if you think otherwise then you need to take a little vacation from your ivory tower of pretentiousness and spend some time in the real world.oh and B.S., i see where you got your name because i HIGHLY DOUBT that mike grunted and blew smoke at you as you were leaving because 1) he's a really friendly guy. and 2) YOU CAN'T SMOKE IN BUSINESSES IN MASSACHUSETTS. you fail at life.

by Russ S.

You know that opening scene in Gremlins, when Billy's dad wanders into the old chinaman's store and, after some interaction, goes "whoa, a mogwai". I'm guessing if you hung out at Brookline News and Gifts long enough, you'd probably find a mogwai in there too. First of all, you'd most likely pass this place and think that it was closed. The stuff up in the window seems to have been there forever, and it blocks any kind of ability to peer in and see whats going on inside. This probably throws a lot of people off, because we live in a day and age where people are somewhat afraid to walk blindly into adventure. But no kidding, everything is stacked in the meager window space that faces Harvard Ave, and it's all very very sun-faded. Which would seem normal except a lot of the stuff in the window is circa 2005, but it looks like its cicra 1975. You'll often find a handwritten note on the door that says they closed up shop for the weekend to "go fishing". Which is a bummer if you made the trek to find some obscurity on a whim. And obscurities you will find. And somehow strangely organized. A friend from out of town once declared that "whoever runs that store has some severe OCD, and its amazing that they worked out an entire business that allows them to harness that power." The products available at Brookline News and Gifts can fall under a total of 6 categories:*Smoking Products (tobacco, pipes, hookas, lighters)While I have never purchased anything from this category, I wouldn't put it past myself to do so on a whim. *Porno Can you say "Whorientals?"*Gag Gifts (joke toys, dirty cards, stocking stuffer-esque items)This one time, a bunch of my friends and I bought fake mustaches and wore them during Zaftig's brunch. Good times, man, good times. *Board GamesWe went in there looking for CatchPhrase, the electronic game that's a cross between Taboo and Hot Potato. I go to the guy who owns the place, "Hey do you have CatchPhrase?" He immediately knew exactly where it was in the store and pointed it out to us in a matter of seconds. *Antique robotsThis one speaks for itself.*OtherThis is the category that includes the Mogwai. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised to find the Holy Grail in that store somewhere. Probably right next to the Buttman magazine rack.