Star Dept Store

From socks to taffy to boogie boards, Star Department Store has you covered.
The guide books are right — if you forgot something on the main land, Star is the first stop you should make when trying to replace it. Case in point: I forgot my socks. Star has socks. And they’re all under $ 10.
While I was at it, I perused the kitschy souvenirs, tried on a few sweatshirts, assessed my mother-​in-​law in a couple of hat options, and got sucked into the taffy display. I left with a giant box of taffy for $ 6.99 and my $ 4.99 socks. Nothin’ wrong with that.
You can also get any number of beach games here — hours of fun for the kids!

Cool and relatively inexpensive stuff for the tourists of Block Island. Lots of choices of shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, stickers, hats, etc. I bought a hat here two years ago and even though it was inexpensive, it’s good quality!

Shirts,
stickers
hats and
magnets
Stars has been around the Block for a long time, I believe it’s started way back in the 1950’s and It’s sold a whole lot of shirts, hats, and sweatpants during that time. It’s virtually the first store you see when you get off the ferry and the first store many people blunder into when they cross Water Street.
Although they call themselves a department store, a tourist shop would be a more accurate description. I doubt if any locals go in here and most of the merchandise is obviously aimed at the people coming over from the ferry.
Star’s is a fairly large store which gives it room to have a huge inventory of hats, shorts, sweats, hoodies, and of course crummy t-​shirts. All with Block Island proudly written on them. Some creative and cool designs but most items have the usual outline of the island or just the name Block Island across the front.
Star’s is also a good place for souvenir trinkets like mugs, key-​chains, bumper stickers and refrigerator magnets. In fact they probably have the finest collection of refrigerator magnets on the island, some with the very cool Block Island lighthouses on them.
Like everything on the island the prices aren’t exactly inexpensive but not outrageous. The one problem that I encountered was that they seem to have a shortage of XXL stuff. Tons of small, medium and large but for some reason not the larger sizes. Curious consider the amount of rather fleshy and doughy folks coming off the ferry.
Star’s is a touristy place but a pretty cool one. A nice place to find something that you forgot to pack, something to keep you warm on those cold and windy island days, something with a lighthouse on it, or something to shut up a friend that keeps bugging you for a Block island souvenir.