TL;DR: Me, my wife and our friends Stephanie and Chris are opening a family game store in Lewisburg!

I’ve been trying to figure out how to open a game store since my teens. We took a serious look at the idea back in 2016 shortly after we came to town. The low margins and high labor hours of a game store was just something I couldn’t get past with a new house and warehouse that both needed to be paid off as well as very young children I wanted to enjoy. (Not that I don’t enjoy my now older children!)

4 years later, our life looks a lot different. My girls are now 5 and 6. We’ve got a great church; we have some awesome friends who support us in all our crazy endeavors. Unlike many businesses, Corona was a huge boon to our core business (we sell a product used mainly by preppers and survivalists). We’re recently debt free (assuming we can get to the bank at some point! I’m still not sure how they will feel if we walk in in masks!).

We feel the game store is a chance to be a positive force in our community. My wife and I and our friends feel called to a ‘ministry’ but we’ve had a hard time figuring out what that meant for us (no, we’re not pushy, please don’t let that worry you). Our young people are incredibly under-served here in Lewisburg, and so a family game store for us is a chance to reach folks with wholesome hobbies. We don’t want to be a ‘gamer only’ store (nothing wrong with ‘gamers’, I am one; but I hope y’all know what I mean). We want to be a family place where folks don’t feel weird playing checkers or Uno at our tables. We want to offer fun games to folks of any background. If that means Chutes and Ladders to some 4 year olds, checkers for 2nd graders, D&D to some pre-teens, and Games Workshop for our hardcore folks, we think that’s awesome and a vision of what we’d like to see going on in our space.

We’re under contract to purchase a building on the square (123 W Commerce). We plan on having our store section all on the first floor (1500 sq ft), and gaming and event space on the 2nd. The plan is to offer some light concessions (self-serve K-Cup coffee, snacks and drinks, and on the weekends and during events something easy like pizza) and modest table fees (converted immediately to store credit). Our initial inventory plan is to carry the top family, casual and light-mid weight board games, the full line of 5E and Pathfinder, Standard blocks of MTG, and whatever miniatures game is most popular here. Plus dice, paints, sleeves, battlemats and accessories for your favorite games. If you are looking for something in particular let me know!

We’re not retail experts, though we have run a pretty big e-commerce store for going on 10 years as well as a small salvage store once upon a time. Our opening day is beyond our ken to estimate at this point, but I am hopeful for at least a soft opening by Black Friday 2020, and a scheduled grand opening in December 2020. For anyone that wants to see a game store thrive here, we’ll need your help. Tell your friends. Hang out on our Facebook page. Fill out our surveys (coming soon, I just finished the first couple!). Let us know what you want to see.

To drop me a line with complaints, questions, comments, or suggestions, send a note to toby@smalltown.games!

Thanks y’all, God bless!