Guerneville’s beloved 5&10 up for sale

Everyone should be so lucky to have ice cream at the end of their careers. So it goes for Robin Johnson. As the co-owner of Guerneville’s 5 & 10, she’s been enjoying ice cream so to speak for the last 17 years.

She and her partner Karen Cox bought the Main Street store – now up for sale – “because the finances were right and because she saw I needed a change,” Johnson said.

Over the nearly two decades the couple has run the store, they’ve watched the joy of community burst through the doors of the 5&10.

“I forget sometimes, forget that we didn’t create her,” Johnson said. “We built upon six other sets of owners.”

The 5&10 has been around since 1949. Its walls are filled with so much fun the eye doesn’t know where to look first: neon toys and rainbow boxes of puzzles, apple buckets of candy, coloring books and every type of utensil to color with, arts and crafts goodies, the best key chains you’d never think of, mylar balloons for every occasion in every color, and summer floaties – oh, the summer floaties – the list is as long as the imagination can run wild.

Lore and stories have made their way into local tradition. Johnson recalls when she and Cox inherited the store, they were admittedly in over their heads when it came to the now-famous window decorations.

“Andi (the previous owner) lived next to us and came over one day saying, ‘Hey so it’s about time for your summer window to be done,’ Johnson recalled the first year they owned the store. “Karen and I. We just looked at each other.”

The following year Jake Hamlin moved next door to Karen and Robin. He introduced himself to the couple and asked for a job.

“And that’s when the tradition started,” she added.

Window traditions are the tip of the iceberg for the couple. Since they’ve owned the shop, they’ve continued one a community favorite: Halloween day photos. In the late afternoon during downtown Guerneville trick-or-treating, the 5&10 turns into a spooky photo studio for neighborhood kids to sit down for a commemorative snapshot of their costume du jour.

“It’s one of my favorite things that we do,” Johnson said.

She was dismayed when, last year, the camera they have used “for basically ever” malfunctioned, resulting in a loss of the 2021 photos.

“We did everything we could to get those photos back,” Johnson said, noting that they spent “a ridiculous amount of money” pursuing every avenue to obtain the photos.

Whether it’s the Halloween photos or a never-ending envelope of funds – “started by the late great John Schubert when kids are a smidgen short” – Johnson’s favorite part of her time at the 5&10 is simple: “It’s the joy. It’s the joy of others and the joy that gets past along,” she said, adding, “I guess I’m a little empathic.”

Johnson left the mental health field, serving as an LVN for 25 years. Johnson worked in hospitals, serving adolescents and adults in the UC Systems as well as working with conserved adults.

“I watched the sadness of our hospital systems shutting down,” Johnson said.

During her career, she and her partner moved to the Russian River area with a group of friends. They arrived in 1996 after the Russian River had flooded.

“We wanted to live somewhere beautiful, and we found it,” Johnson said. “And Guerneville is extra special. There’s a commitment of the locals and visitors. We can be in the middle of fill in the blank: a pandemic, fire, flood, coup, and someone steps up to support one another.”

She felt that at the store and enjoyed that the 5&10 could offer a sense of reprieve during the struggles of the last handful of years.

“You can come in and find some innocence,” she said.

The community has been supportive of the retirement plans.

“Our family has loved the store for three generations,” wrote Sue Walling Rooney on Facebook. “My grandchildren expect to shop there on birthdays! [Robin and Karen] preserved the original atmosphere of the 5&10 and added so much to it!”

Bryan Allan Baker concluded the retirement was bittersweet: “Happy for you, sad for Guerneville,” Baker wrote. “Such a fun little store, would be sad to see it gone.”

“It might get even better,” Johnson responded online. “The store has been evolving for generations and more might come!”

Johnson recognizes she has no control over what will remain the same and what will change when she and Cox finally turn the keys over to the 5&10’s new owners.

Currently, there are no new owners, though Johnson says the realtor receives daily inquiries.

“The new owners will do what they want to do, but I do hope that they continue to participate in this community,” Johnson said. “Participating here in Guerneville is a must. We talk about fundraising here; well, fundraising is an everyday job here.”

As for Robin and Karen; they’ll be sticking around.

“I love this community,” Johnson said. “We’re staying. I don’t know what I’ll be doing next besides volunteer work, but I know I’m staying here.”

Whatever may come, here’s to more ice cream in the next chapter.