Here’s a bit of Rhode Island trivia: prior to changes in the state’s blue laws in the 1970s, what were stores permitted to sell on Sundays?

If you picked automotive parts along with bread and milk, you are right. And if you remember Benny’s as one of those few stores open on Sundays, you would be right, too.

“The store opened at 8, but it wasn’t until after church at about 10 that it got really busy,” Howard Bromberg said last Thursday at the Benny’s on West Shore Road near Wilde’s Corner.

Howard wasn’t the only Bromberg visiting the store. There was a contingent of Brombergs representing two generations of the family that opened the first Benny’s at 79 Fountain St. in Providence 90 years ago on Nov. 9, 1924.

It was Howard’s grandfather, Benjamin, who opened the first of what would become as Rhode Island as coffee syrup and Del’s Lemonade. As Howard tells it, his grandfather had a job mounting tires and “decided to go into it for himself.” Back then, the store specialized in auto parts and supplies. It still carries batteries, tires, oil, oil filters, windshield wiper blades and lots more – but nothing like it once did.

An ad from the Dec. 12, 1924 Providence Journal features Holley carburetors for $3.43, auto socket sets at 39 cents and automobile radiators at $10.93. Tires sold for as little as $7.35 and tubes – remember when tires had tubes? – were an additional $1.23.

In the early days, and until cars were controlled by computers, Bromberg remembers the high volume of brake pads, spark plugs and distributor points sold on the weekends.

“There were lots of backyard mechanics,” he said. “Today, you got to be an MIT-certified mechanic to work on a car.”

The automotive section doesn’t take up as much of Benny’s stores as it once did. But then there are some things that never go out of favor, such as paints, cleaning supplies, bikes, fishing gear and seasonal items, from patio chairs to snow shovels and, of course, toys.

That ad from 1924 also featured genuine RCA Radiotron tubes - remember when radios had tubes? – for $3.29, radio headphones for $2.49 and crystal sets (a kit to make a radio) for $7.89.

The ad didn’t feature toys, although the store may have carried them incidentally. Today, toys are a big part of the business, especially this time of year.

Benny’s has the distinction of being named the state’s best toy store by Rhode Island Monthly. There’s a good reason for Benny’s to have the “Toy Princess,” which is the name Howard and his brother Arnold have given their sister, Judy Rosenstein. Rosenstein has been the toy buyer for the Benny’s chain for years.

Asked what one of her popular toys was, she guided a reporter over to an aisle filled with boxes of Star Wars figures, cars and trucks. She pulled a box with a pancake-sized, true-to-life tarantula, a radio-controlled toy spider that Benny’s has been selling for about 10 years and has to keep on the shelves.

Rosenstein is proud of the store’s selection of science-related toys and Legos.

Benny’s son, Malcolm, eventually took over and then Malcolm’s three children, Howard, Arnold and Judy, have carried on. At the time that Malcolm died earlier this year, the chain had grown to 32 stores. There are Benny’s in Connecticut and Massachusetts, but don’t expect to see them popping up too far away from Rhode Island.

Howard said this week there are still a few areas in Rhode Island where they could expand, but they’re really not looking to make New England, or places beyond, Benny’s territory.

“We’ve got to get home in time to have dinner with our families,” said Howard.

Last Thursday, Mayor Scott Avedisian stopped by the store to talk with the Brombergs and give them a citation for the store’s 90th anniversary. Discussion quickly focused on the growth of the chain, and its first Warwick store opened in the Meadowbrook Shopping Plaza in the early ’50s. As the family recalled, the store was not far from John Haronian’s Douglas Drug.

Howard remembers opening on Bald Hill Road in the mid-’60s, when there was fields and woods and not a lot more. The store near Wilde’s Corner was somewhat of a serendipitous addition. Once a supermarket, the building had been vacant for an extended period. Malcolm, Howard’s father, was running the operation at the time, had looked at the building and thought it might work but wasn’t convinced.

Then, Howard recalls, they drove by one day and spotted a crane with a wrecking ball. The building was stripped and ready to be leveled. The Brombergs told the crane operator to wait. They went ahead and bought it, then put a new façade on the former market and opened in 1999.

Howard handles most of the operations while Arnold buys everything other than the toys. Howard says the stores are “constantly changing…we keep up with what the customers want.”

As for what is planned for the 90th anniversary, in addition to the current sale, Howard said, “You have to stay tuned.”

Does that mean the Brombergs have something up their sleeve?

Howard laughed. Not likely.

“I always wear short sleeve shirts,” he said.

And, we would add, a bow tie.