A cardboard standup of Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch looks away as Brits owner Sally Helm, back right, laughs with shopper Davi Kramer, of Rossville, Kan., on Thursday, May 14, 2015. Working the cash register is employee Cara Powers. The store, which carries fine imported British goods and pop culture items, is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

You’ve got to love the Brits.

You don’t have to love Marmite. Really, you don’t. The English product says so with its official branding slogan: “Love it, hate it.”

I can tell you’re already confused. Marmite. It’s your run-of-the-mill yeast extract spread. Put it on a biscuit and it’s like swallowing a whole cow that’s been put through a smoothie machine. It is very beefy flavored, although it contains no beef. Just one of the many mysteries of the Brits.

“It is the gunk that stays in the barrel after you are done brewing beer,” says Sally Helm, owner of the popular downtown store Brits.

A cardboard standup of Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch looks away as Brits owner Sally Helm, back right, laughs with shopper Davi Kramer, of Rossville, Kan., on Thursday, May 14, 2015. Working the cash register is employee Cara Powers. The store, which carries fine imported British goods and pop culture items, is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

You’ve got to love the Brits. They do some crazy stuff when they get to a bottom of a barrel of beer.

At this point, maybe you’re thinking we don’t have to love the Brits. But for some reason in Lawrence, it sure appears that we do. Brits, the store at 929 Massachusetts St., is celebrating its 20th year in business. In the beginning, a lot of people would have bet against that milestone.

Brits shopper Beth Smith, of Topeka, tries on a veiled hat in the fashion of the popular British drama Downton

“I just remember trying to convince everyone that a British store does make sense,” Sally says.

Now, Sally spends time convincing people that English food is far better than the reputation it has gained. She does not lead with Marmite, nor with pickled cockles, which are not quite as good as they sound. Instead, she points to a wall of chocolate bars, bottles of rose-flavored lemonade, a host of unusually flavored potato chips, known as crisps in England, handcrafted bacon and butter, and jaffa cakes, among other items.

What are jaffa cakes? Well, Sally says they are a “spongy biscuit” with a “splodge” of orange filling. But longtime employee Staci Garman jumps in and says they are a “soft cake” with a “splodge” of orange filling. At least we all agree on a splodge.

A splodge? Listen, we’re never going to get done here if we actually try to understand what they’re saying. That’s a lesson that has been learned on both sides.

“I’ve had to be careful about what I say here,” says Jeremy Taylor, who moved to Lawrence from England in 2004 and is now a radio host for KLWN 1320. “There is a language barrier, no doubt.”

For instance, if I told you the name for a popular custard dessert with currants, I may well get fired. If I told you what they call a house cat, I may well get fired and slapped. Heaven help me if I use them in the same sentence.

Yet we still get along through all the puzzled looks. In fact, some Lawrence residents are just crazy about the Brits. In addition to the food, which is the top seller in the store, the shop does brisk business renting DVDs of popular British television shows and sells a host of souvenirs. (My favorite is a coffee cup of King Henry VIII. It has a picture of all his wives. When you add hot liquid their heads disappear.)

Sally says sales will be strong when the store starts receiving items with the name of Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana, the new baby born earlier this month to Prince William and Kate Middleton. Sure, everyone loves a new baby. But everybody loves a prime minister?

Staci says one Lawrence lady came in the store recently and spent $80 for a watch party for the British elections that also were held this month. Neither she nor her husband is English.

“She’s just a real anglophile,” Staci says.

There are several of those in Lawrence. The store also does a fair amount of business with actual Brits who have moved stateside. Depending on which store employee you ask, they estimate between 20 percent to 40 percent of the store’s business comes from Brits who are missing items from home.

“There are tons of expats in Lawrence,” Sally says. “But usually you don’t know it unless they open their mouths.”

Accents, my good chap. Accents.

There’s also another giveaway, Staci says. Tea. The store sells more than 200 varieties of tea. When Americans come in they buy normal size boxes of tea bags like we’re accustomed to seeing on our supermarket shelves. When Brits come into the store …

“It is like they are carrying out a box of laundry detergent,” Sally says.

No kidding, one particular British customer orders four boxes of 240 tea bags each, every four to six weeks, Staci says.

“We built an empire drinking tea,” Jeremy says. “The thing is America has never built an empire. We have. America has all these problems all over the world to sort out. If you would start drinking tea instead of coffee, it would all become much clearer.”

Yes, we’re familiar with how you run an empire.

Think about that for a moment. Our two countries very easily could be enemies today.

“We always say that little tiff we had in the 1700s,” Sally says of the American Revolution.

“Don’t forget about 1812,” another store employee chimes in.

Even though those hostilities are now more than 200 years in the past, there certainly are countries that have held grudges for longer than that. But America and Britain are great friends. I can make fun of pickled cockles, and Jeremy can correct how I say Jaguar, and both of us can still get together and laugh over a good French joke.

“There’s no ‘wire’ in Jaguar,” he says. “It is that sort of stuff that drives us crazy.”

Why our two countries get along, I’m not sure. Why a store like Brits thrives in Lawrence is perhaps easier to answer.

“It seems like there is a lot of enthusiasm for unique things,” Staci says. “I think that is why downtown is so great. In Lawrence, people still embrace what is unique.”

Ah, you’ve got to love Lawrence. We should celebrate it, but let’s do so with the top half of the barrel.

— Each Sunday, Lawhorn’s Lawrence focuses on the people, places or past of Lawrence and the surrounding area. If you have a story idea, send it to Chad at clawhorn@ljworld.com.