Hollingworth 5 & 10

Hollingworth 5&10, formally known as Ben Franklin is such an awesome store! Reminds me of when I was younger going to a Woolworth’s store. This place has such fun and crafty stuff! Practically anything I need I can find here. My nieces birthday was today so I stopped in and came out with decorations, a present, wrapping paper, birthday candles and everything else I needed! Plus they just started carrying balloons! I was able to buy at least a dozen latex balloons! Now that party needs is closed in Waltham this is definitely the place to go to get balloons for any occasion! Definitely will be back again!

I’m a big fan of this store. It’s the perfect little hometown craft store that has a little something for everyone. From toys, to sewing supplies, to home goods, and a lot more. I’m always afraid that quaint little stores like this will get eaten up by the Targets and Walmarts of the world and I’m happy to support them when I can.
I do wish however that they stayed open a little later as they’re often closed by the time I can make it there.

Thank you, Ben Franklin! I hope all your clients read this story.
My son is in 4^th grade in Belmont. His best friend’s mom has very late stage cancer. She is the bravest woman I know and wants to make a difference. She teaches an art class at Children’s hospital and raises money to fund the class and buy supplies. My son attends the class with her and her son. They are having a rainbow loom bracelet sale in a few days to raise funds. We ran out of bands and since the sale is nearing, I needed them urgently. This morning I went to Ben Franklin. It was still closed but a lady was in and she opened the door for me. I told her I have a rainbow loom emergency. There is something she does not hear every day, I suppose, so after I chose about $ 50 of bands and a kit, she asked what happened. I told her the story. As I was talking she got a bag and put all my supplies in it and was handing it to me. It took me a few seconds to realize what she was doing — she was giving it all to me for free! I did not want to accept the gift but she insisted. All she wanted in return was to know how much money was raised.
There is good in the world!

This is truly a local gem. I found almost everything I needed for my daugter’s Tangled themed party. Unfortunately I didn’t find small, simple gift bags and shiny stickers/​sticker paper. But they surely had lots of paper, yarn and gems!

I went here based on all the glowing Unilocal reviews. Yikes! I think you had to grow up having gone to this place and enter it with nostalgia-​tinted glasses.
It is full of random junky housewares and some craft items. The craft items are very limited. I thought everything was pretty pricey too. A ugly ceramic butter dish was nine bucks — it should have been six, at most. A plant drip tray was something like 1.30 here — at a chic greenhouse near me it’s 80 cents.
I’m glad I didn’t make a special trip and instead went here when I had another reason to be in Belmont. I won’t be back.

My kids and I enjoyed our visit at Ben Franklin. I was unsure of location at first but enjoyed what I found. I remember BF from when I was a kid back in North Dakota. What a treat to find a local place. My favorite was seeing some memorable kids crafts!!!

What a fun and interesting store! You can find a little bit of everything here. If there is something that is hard to find that you don’t know where to look, try here! There is a wide variety of arts and crafts supplies as well as toys, beach gear, and canning supplies. There are also a number of items that bring you back to when you were a child. Visit if only to wander through the aisles!

I love stopping by this store because it brings back such good memories, but I do have to say that they are not as good as when I was a kid. In those days, anything obscure you need, you could find it at Ben Franklin. My mom tells me to get an extension cord with a split head — huh? Go to BF, yup they got it. Not so much anymore, but when my little one wanted regular clay they had it — yay! It is also one of the few places that has sewing stuff — but just the basics which is sometimes all you need.

This is an awesome store where you can buy so many different things: toys, holiday décor, knitting stuff, kitchen stuff, door mats, board games, etc.
Any time I walk in there, I am pleasantly surprised by a new discovery. Ben Franklin is a true neighborhood gem. If only it could be a tiny bit cheaper…

Being a preschool teacher, somewhat crafty and a new (frugal) home owner, this store has thousands of things i either need or want (i walked out having spent only 30 $ but getting a bagful of great items for school and home).
As other reviewers have stated, it is «old school» and has a huge variety of items:
kids toys and books
crafts
housewares and useful home tools and cleaners
tioletries
etc
(The store is packed to the gills!)
reasonable prices overall but if you shop around as i do, ull recognize some items a wee bit overpriced.
overall i love it and will return!

Decided to go here on Sunday for fun crafty project stuff. I remember going to a Ben Franklin when I was a kid in Vermont. That Ben Franklin had a huge candy section (that’s why I went there). This one, not so much. However, since it was craft stuff we were interested in, this totally fit the bill. We bought a bunch of canvases, paints, and pastels to play around with. We got a small (inexpensive) plastic pool for the dog to play in. Also found the plant hanger I’ve been looking for. My fiancée found a bell (think front desk check-​in at an old timey hotel or library or something like that), and he now rings that whenever something inappropriate is uttered in our house. (It’s kinda created a monster.)
The aisles are very small, a little cramped, and things are kind of mish-​mosh in their organization, but it’s a guarantee that you will find whatever weirdo little household trinket that you’ve been searching for if you just look around here. They also have a pretty decent toy section and a good-​sized seasonal area.

Love it! Awesome combo of old time five and dime and funky housewares. Fabrics and notions too as well as toys. Folks that work there always nice. Even the teens. =)

Incredibly narrow aisles wind you through an arts and crafts heaven, with any craft from paper mache to yard portraits to quilting to make your day. Ben Franklins does carry some random household goods, but the selection is fairly limited if you’re looking for more than one kind of undershirts /​dish drying rack /​tube socks /​coupon organizer. Lots of fabrics and ribbons to choose from.
Great place to goof off while waiting for the #73 to pick you up.

I grew up going to Ben Franklin in the Midwest and was really happy to find the store in Belmont. Ben Franklin is an awesome store to find arts and crafts items, hobby items, and seasonal items. The Ben Franklin store in Belmont has a nice mix of all of these things.
The store is PACKED with items and staffed with people who really know what they are talking about, especially when it comes to the arts and crafts items. I find it easy to wander in and become energized with creativity!

I wandered in one day and somehow, I walked into the variety store from when I was eight years old, thus warping the space-​time continuum.
I ended up spending two hours looking at the enormous variety of stuff that was crammed into one shop. I’m not sure how it was there, but I found almost everything I remember from childhood. Cheap and oddball kitchen gadgets, the kind I’d not seen in fifteen or twenty years. Those odd wallets that exist to hold keys individually. Sheets of felt for crafts and the plain boxes that I découpaged as a kid. Glass kettles for the stove. Rick-​rack for sewing. (I didn’t even know rick-​rack still existed.)
Good toys at regular retail prices, and interestingly, quite a few were name brand. I noticed that a lot of the brands that get Consumer Reports Best Buy or Cook’s Illustrated endorsement — invariably ones you’ve never heard of – were on stock. (I wouldn’t have noticed had I not bought a Cook’s Illustrated endorsed but-​least-​expensive-​available roasting pan for a turkey two weeks before.)
I would differentiate it from every store I’ve liked in Boston on the simple basis that it is the sort of place you might go for any sort of odd or end. I have found wonderful shops stocking things I thought were no longer sold anywhere in the world and I have found shops stocking things I never knew how awesome they were until I had them, but I hadn’t found a shop where I could find three dozen odds and ends in one go. I would not view this as a one-​stop shop and I would not view this as a place I would go for things that I needed to use daily.
It is the sort of place that stocks one or two different kinds of each item — organising boxes, crayons, clipboards, socks, wallets, barrettes, and hairbrushes. And while that may sound bleak initially, if you had a small-​town upbringing as I did, that’s exactly what those shops where you bought penny candy had.
I often think of shops in terms of the archetypal customer. Ben Franklin’s archetype is the frugal aunt who does her own mending and makes crafty things of questionable utility, would faint dead-​away at the things offered, let alone the price tags, at Sur La Table or Smith and Hawken, and would then, after recovering, stare coldly at you for bringing her to such a decadent place full of such parvenus and ostensibly people, and march you straight back to the variety shop and point out that there was nothing at that shop that you *needed* that you couldn’t get for just a tenth of the price at the variety so why do you need such a ridiculously specialised and overpriced thing when what you have will do just fine?
A sobering argument and an annoying one. I’m sticking to my Le Creuset, of coruse, but the next time I need a random supply of cheesecloth, craft projects from hell for my daughters, or a cheap embroidery kit for the kids who will forget about the interest in a week, there’s no question of where I’m headed.

This place is great! It’s old fashioned and looks like it hasn’t been updated since the day it opened, but in a good way. I came here in need of a pastry bag since I was decorating a cake and I knew an odds and ends place like Ben Franklin was my best bet. They had a better quality item and it was cheaper than one from the grocery store.
I should also mention that my boyfriend managed to spend over $ 50 on toys and trinkets for his niece and nephews who were coming to visit. Think gold pirate coins, toy soldiers, etc. You can find just about anything here whether it be a beach chair or a plug for you bath tub drain. Great seasonal items for the holidays and craft supplies too! Go check it out!

Entering Ben Franklin’s is like going back in time to a Woolworth’s. Anything and everything gadgety (is that a word??) or crafty you need, you’ll find here. The store even smells quaint. I love just walking around because I always find something I need. The people who work here are nice and very helpful.

A fabulous, junky little general store from times past. Ben Franklin is great if you want to buy:
— Ribbon
— Rolls of Fabric
— Wood and Felt
— Pots and pans
— A meat thermometer
— Fake flowers
— A toilet brush
— An ornamental duck
— Odds and ends
For about two dollars. Great place to find something unexpected, which you find you suddenly need.

When I was a kid, we would walk up to Ben Franklin, and squander our allowances. They haven’t changed much since then, except to cram even more stuff into the joint. Of course, back then, there were still Woolworth’s around, so Ben Franklin didn’t seem weird.
Now it’s a dinosaur, but the kind of dinosaur you want to pet and don’t want to go extinct. Ben Franklin’s caters to hobby, crafts, and sewing (yes, sewing!) Lots of toys, cards, and the like. It differs from the West Concord 5 & 10, as it doesn’t carry hardware. If you want hardware, cross the street, go to Winter’s, and walk back in time, again.
I think Winter’s opened in the Twenties, and looks it.
PS:(If you don’t see something, ask. It may be in the rafters, but they probably stock it. I pity the poor person who does inventory there)

They are fabulous in here, an old school 5 and dime store with old school prices! They have almost any little trinket you «need» heavy on the crafting supplies.
I remember as a kid my grandmother would take me to a Ben Franklin out in Wisconsin, I was almost in tears when I discovered this one in my back yard!