Stay's Holly Jolly Trolley-Stop Pop-Up Shop is coming in December

A circa 1930 trolley-stop building in Hershey will be our pop-up home in December.

If you truly want to shop small this holiday season, Stay has the perfect place for you.

It’s going to be our place, and we’re officially calling it the Holly Jolly Trolley-Stop Pop-Up Shop. Measuring less than 70 square feet (by comparison, our tent is 100 square feet), it will make for an intimate holiday shopping experience.

Other than our online store, the trolley-stop building will be the most permanent presence in our six-year history, even if it’s just for several weeks in December.

The building is at the entrance to the Hershey History Center, 40 Northeast Drive, across from Starbucks and the Tanger Outlets Hershey.

It’s an authentic Hershey Transit Co. trolley building, circa 1930, that was restored in 1999. The Hershey Transit trolley system operated from 1904 to 1946 and grew to encompass 35 miles of track.

Opening Dec. 7

We plan to open Dec. 7 and operate Thursday through Sunday in the three weeks leading up to Christmas. However, we hope to expand hours/days of operation if customer demand warrants it.

Historic Pinehurst property

The nonprofit Hershey History Center, under the leadership of executive director Nicole Soliday, has been a good friend to Stay since our inception, carrying some of our Hershey-branded tees and knit hats in its store and including us in events such as Hershey Artfest.

History and nostalgia are important components of the Stay brand, which makes this pop-up feel especially authentic.

The Hershey History Center occupies land that was established as a dairy farm in 1820 by a great uncle of candy magnate Milton S. Hershey, who later acquired it and incorporated the so-called Pinehurst farmhouse and barn into his Hershey Industrial School for orphan boys (now Milton Hershey School).

The barn is home to the Hershey History Center’s offices, museum and store. The center’s annual Holiday Train Show runs Nov. 24-Dec. 30, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

We’re tentatively planning to mirror those hours at our store, which will open Dec. 7. We’ll be there at least Thursday through Sunday for the three weeks leading to Christmas, but we are hoping that the response from customers is strong enough to warrant adding days and hours of operation.

We’ll always have the most up-to-date hours on our website under this tab.

Stay’s Holly Jolly Trolley-Stop Pop-Up Shop is coming. We hope you will come along for the ride.