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– News about Quincy from Quincy Quarry News
Fun and cheap tchotchke
A Facebook image
No Joke: Don’s Joke Shop is no more.
Arguably the second to the last remaining retail store from Quincy Center’s heyday as Shoppers Town USA has closed its doors.
Reports Sean Quincy Adams on Facebook:
END OF AN ERA – I always said that if Don’s Joke Shop closed, then the entire Square would collapse.
Others joked that it was a mafia front. I mean, how could a store that sells stink bombs and fart machines possibly survive in a downtrodden area that has seen so many other businesses fail? Well, the day has come.
Yet again A City On The Move hits the fan
An iconic Quincy Quarry News file photo
What is possibly the oldest store in The Square is now gone forever. I was walking down to the bank this morning when I noticed the front door open. I remember walking in there as a kid in the 80s. The owner, Don, would pop up from behind the counter and squirt you with fake mustard, or offer you a dollar before snatching it back with a string mechanism hidden in his palm.
Today, I walked in there and heard, “sorry, we’re closed.”
Closed? I was met by Don’s brother and nephew.
They were cleaning up the shop and packing away all our childhood memories.
Both men were very somber. They informed me that Donald Savoie, the 83 year old owner, was very sick and has about two weeks to live. So sad!
I gave the men my condolences. They allowed me to take some pictures and I let them know that Don was a legend. That some of the best memories I have of my own father, was coming into this shop with him and my brother as a child.
That era, with Woolworth’s, Child World, TAJ, Colemans, and Dons Joke Shop, seemed so long ago! It seemed like the 1950s. It was a different era. I wish we could tell Don how much we appreciated his presence in Quincy Square. He will be missed!
Thanks for the laughs, Don!
Actually, there’s still a joke shop in the Q — the corner office in City Hall. I’d also suggest that Quincy Square collapsed long before Don’s Joke Shop closed its doors.
Dom,
No offense intended, but the City Hall joke is spelled joch. Just sayin’…
Don’s Joke Shop was here long before I started to come to Quincy Center. I now work a couple doors down at New England Comics. Many a time I had to re-direct folks who thought this store was the Joke Shop. I was good friends with Don, and often I met him walking to work or just hanging out with the door open. Incense flooded the street from his shop and there were literally hundreds of items to look at in his store. He would talk to anyone and was very generous with his time.
Quincy will be a lonely place without this old-time style shopkeeper and I will miss Don.
Don’s Joke shop is still missed in my household. Every year I would hold a gathering and I always have entertainment and jokes from Don’s shop. Every year since the 80’s I would go in and pick up something new for the gathering (and sometimes more than one thing). And in between my party shopping visits I would go in to just shoot the sh*t and he always had stories to share and he often talked about his up bringing. That and hear static his AM radio static. This year I had to put an end to my gathering due to COVID. Rip Don. My whole family still thinks of you as well as regularly walk by your shop and stare into your now empty storefront and remember happier times.