The Mar Vista Time Travel Mart

What You’ll Find

The Mar Vista Time Travel Mart greets visitors with its mercantile aesthetic and wall-to-wall inventory of anachronistic novelties. Shelves display products labeled as imports from various eras: medieval leeches, caveman candy, and futuristic robot accessories sit alongside each other in categorized sections. Each item comes with its own backstory and packaging designed by writers Mac Barnett and Jon Korn with designer Stefan G. Bucher.

The merchandise reads like a parody of specialty retail. Robot Emotions come packaged as USB jump drives in four varieties: joy, sadness, anger, and fear. Bottled Time offers sand in jars sized from five minutes to a full year. Viking Odorant promises authentic Norse smell. The Medical Humors section sells vials of black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. Primordial Soup comes canned. Barbarian Repellent warns against improper application. The store maintains this satirical tone across hundreds of products, each one a small exercise in creative writing itself.

The real merchandise sits mixed among the gags. Books and journals line entire sections. These aren’t props—they’re actual publications written by students in 826LA’s writing programs, sold alongside McSweeney’s literary journals, The Believer magazine, and other independent publications. Student anthologies showcase work from local kids who participate in the tutoring center that operates in the back of this store.

The Connection to 826LA

Behind the storefront sits the actual tutoring center. The Time Travel Mart exists as a fundraising mechanism for 826LA, following a model established by Dave Eggers when he founded 826 Valencia in San Francisco. Each city with an 826 chapter operates a themed retail store: San Francisco sells pirate supplies, New York runs a superhero supply shop, Seattle stocks space travel gear, Michigan fixes robots, Chicago equips secret agents, Boston researches Bigfoot, and Washington DC operates a Museum of Unnatural History. Los Angeles is the only city with two locations—the original Echo Park convenience store opened in 2008, followed by this Mar Vista mercantile in 2012.

Every purchase supports free writing tutoring for LA students ages 6-18. The nonprofit offers after-school programs, in-school support, field trips, and workshops. The store’s existence advertises these programs while generating operating funds. Staff members work both the retail floor and tutoring sessions. The model turns browsing into participation—you buy a can of Mammoth Chunks, and that money pays for a kid’s writing workshop.

The Visit

Expect to spend 15-30 minutes browsing. The space functions as both gift shop and installation art. Signage jokes appear throughout: employee of the month photos feature historical figures, warning labels carry absurdist disclaimers, and product descriptions maintain deadpan commitment to the premise. Visitors often photograph the displays and purchase items as conversation pieces or gifts.

The staff welcomes questions about both products and programs. If tutoring interests you for a child you know, they can explain enrollment. If you want to know whether the Time-Freezy Hyper Slush actually contains frozen time, they’ll maintain the fiction. The tone stays playful without pushing sales. Some people come specifically to support 826LA, others stumble in from Venice Boulevard and discover the cause through the comedy.

What Makes It Work

The Mar Vista Time Travel Mart succeeds as fundraising theater. The joke never breaks character, the products justify their own existence, and the cause behind it all operates transparently. Kids see their published work for sale. Donors get something physical for their support. Casual shoppers encounter youth literacy programs through humor rather than solicitation. The store proves fundraising can entertain without compromising mission or taste. Your Robot Toupee purchase might seem silly, but it directly funds writing education for LA students who need it.