Lucy the Elephant to open new gift shop, interpretive center

The popular New Jersey roadside attraction has demolished its original gift shop and opened a temporary gift shop while the new center is built.

One of the oldest roadside attractions in the U.S. is getting a new gift shop and an interpretive center to go along with it. Lucy the Elephant has been drawing visitors to Margate, New Jersey, since 1881, and the attraction has operated a small gift shop and ticket stand on-site for the past 50 years.

“Lucy was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1976,” says Executive Director and CEO Rich Helfant. “The little gift shop that we had on our site was her major source of funding, selling souvenirs and tour tickets.

The attraction welcomed about 4,000 visitors a year back when the gift shop was built. Today, Helfant estimates about 150,000 people come to visit per year and has outgrown the gift shop and ticket stand.

Elephant plush are a top pick at the gift shop.

Lucy the Elephant

“It’s too tiny and did not have public access restrooms. Retail is too small, it wasn’t ADA-compliant, and the administrative office was the size of a closet,” he explains. “It was time for it to go.”

Helfant has been the executive director at Lucy the Elephant for 26 years, and he says he has been wanting to build a bigger, ADA-compliant gift shop and visitor center since the early 2000s.

“I saw the writing on the wall back then that we needed more retail space — that’s how Lucy is funded,” he says. “We have had plans drawn up for a new shop since about 2003, but we never had the money for it. But in 2019, one of Lucy’s benefactors, a dear friend of mine, passed away and left Lucy in her will and left a significant amount of money so we could move forward.”

With funds to build a new shop, Helfant says Lucy the Elephant’s original gift shop was demolished July 1. Administrative and gift shop operations were temporarily relocated into a building across the street from the attraction.

“The building we’re in used to be a bank unit and we’ve retrofitted it to be a temporary gift shop,” says Helfant. “People walk across the street from Lucy to buy souvenirs and tour tickets.”

Although the current gift shop is temporary, Helfant says the new location is much larger than the original storefront.

“It was a bank, so it had beautiful tile floors and marble counters,” he says. “We built a temporary wall in front of what was a teller line that we have merchandise displays on. We bought some merchandise racks from a Macy’s that was going out of business and a Party City that was going out of business. So the store is nicer than the one that we had — it’s much bigger! We were in a store that was 400 square feet, and now this is 2,000 square feet. It feels better. Plus, we have significant office space that we needed, and from the teller line to the back wall, we’ve added storage for merchandise.”

Just like with the old gift shop, the temporary Lucy the Elephant gift shop is stocked with Lucy name-drop merchandise and all-things elephant.

“We have a lot of Lucy stuff — T-shirts, sweatshirts, socks, coffee mugs, keychains, booklets, figurines, and an actual Lucy plush,” says Helfant. “There’s a lot of elephant giftware, even candles and beach towels since we’re right on the beach.”

Helfant says he hopes that construction will begin on a new ADA-compliant visitor center and gift shop in September, with goals of completing the new center by the second or third quarter of 2027.

He adds that the new store will be bigger, allowing the attraction to feature more souvenirs and gifts for visitors. The destination’s new visitor center will also include an interpretive center so that visitors who cannot climb Lucy’s stairs can take a virtual tour using Google goggles. The larger space will also ensure more people can visit.

“Lucy is a part of Jersey Shore history,” Helfant says. “Her popularity skyrocketed after Hurricane Sandy hit the Jersey coast, when we went from 5,000 fans on Facebook to 17,000 in just two days. People all over the country were concerned about Lucy. But Lucy was still standing strong and proud, like a beacon of hope in the hurricane. So that was our turning point, and interest has been growing here ever since.”

He adds, “We can’t wait to welcome everyone inside the new space.”