It's pre-historical

Teddy bears never turn down a good cuddle. They're equally comfortable as car trip companions as they are as china cabinet curios. Dinosaurs, on the other hand, never turn down a good meal (especially if that meal's another dinosaur) and are more apt to stomp your china cabinet to bits (especially in Tokyo) than pose politely next to the Wedgwood.

But if you're Build-A-Bear Workshop, that's no worry. The retailer has already proven that its make-your-own plush concept works—at 240 stores in three countries, at zoos, at baseball stadiums—and is moving to make dinosaurs play as nicely as its teddy bears do thanks to a partnership with Schussler Creative and Landry's T-Rex Cafe restaurants.

This summer the first Build-A-Dino store (“Where Best Friendosaurs Are Made”) opened inside the debut T-Rex Cafe in Kansas City, Kansas' The Legends mall. The shop offers eight 16- to 20-inch dinosaur designs, from T-Rex to Pachycephalosaurus, ranging in price from $15 to $20, plus a wide assortment of add-on outfits and accessories, from “Cave Girls Rock” T-shirts and “I Dig Dinosaurs” pajamas to “dino do” wigs and Fossil Feet shoes.

“Build-A-Dino in T-Rex Cafe has been a great way to launch this partnership,” Maxine Clark, Build-A-Bear's founder and “Chief Executive Bear,” tells Playthings. “Our strategy is to bring the experience of making stuffed animal friends to wherever families go to have fun. We feel T-Rex Cafe restaurants exemplify this strategy.”

After less than two months in operation, the Build-A-Dino concept “is already exceeding our expectations,” Clark says. Plans call for expanding the concept to future locations but specific details have yet to be announced. Build-A-Bear has launched a Build-A-Dino branded Web site ( www.buildadino.com) and dinosaur product “may make its way into several Build-A-Bear Workshops this fall,” according to Clark. T-Rex Cafe has at least two high-profile openings planned for 2008: a location at Orlando, Fla.'s Downtown Disney World and at the Mohegan Sun casino complex in Connecticut.

“[Kansas City, Kansas] is just the first of many (T-Rex Cafe) locations that we will open in the U.S. and internationally,” promises Tilman Fertitta, president, chairman and CEO of Landry's Restaurants, which operates more than 300 eatery or entertainment locations, including Rainforest Cafe, several seafood chains and two Golden Nugget casinos.