You are living the dream. Specifically, a dream of a friend of mine.
I wish you the best of luck!
Wait, so you’re opening a store but won’t be physically there all the time? Man, that seems like a recipe to either get ripped off or spend all your revenue on employees. You’d best watch your receipts and inventory like a hawk.
Very cool, and it’s especially cool to take a risk like this. Just curious, but since it’s a franchise, did they put some limitations on you? For example, say you wanted to put in eight standup video game machines, quarter per play, etc., could you do that? If you wanted to put a wall of fantasy and SF books in, could you do that?
Said as much on FB already, but I’m super excited for you dude! This is so cool. I wish I lived a little nearer so I could stop by and spend some cash on a boardgame I’ll never actually get to play, as is the tradition with all game stores :-D
But seriously, glad it’ll be in good hands. The store my gaming group deals with is pretty poorly managed and it’s really souring our (not to brag, but fairly financially significant) relationship with them; the owners don’t seem very interested or invested in what goes on, and that attitude bleeds through to the employees. It’s an industry where passion helps and I know you’ve got that in spades. A great game store is a thing to be treasured :)
Also, more of a personal note, but I know that Magic players are a games’ store’s financial bread and butter. But if you invent some way to quarantine them from the other patrons, you’ll work true magic indeed ;-)
I listen to a blood bowl podcast, and one of the duo owns the local game store. It’s kind of cool.
He too talks about the importance Magic the Gathering money.
But as Strusser mentioned, being hands on seems to be important. Don’t be like the owners of subway stores or other similar franchise. Those seem more like landlords, rather than business owners.
Shipping is the trick as board games are heavy. But potentially! I have a sound system in the store so I may just do that. Probably not too extreme though. Haven’t thought about Halloween decorations - but that’s a darn good idea!
Sadly I do not have a liquor license.
The animal hospital is right next to my space actually. Coal Mine Shopping center is why it is called that, because it’s on Coal Mine Ave.
Her name is Andrea and she worked at the Dekalb store.
I’ll be there as much as possible but yeah, I can’t escape my day to day job just yet. The manager comes highly recommended and I will have full surveillance cameras anyway. Really the biggest risks for anything nefarious are Magic card singles that can have high value for small size.
There are actually more limitations from the lease/landlord. Things like I can’t have any coin operated machines in the store. As far as books or other things I want to stay focused on being the best gaming store in the area rather than dilute the image. We are going to be the first store in the chain to have gaming rooms for rent. (Incidentally, we are also giving people who rent these all of their money back as store credit so they are ‘free’ but generate sales of products).
NOW it makes more sense, lol
Awesome, I don’t know her as DeKalb was about an hour and a half away, but the manager at the Tinley store for a while was from DeKalb. So best of luck to you, I like the Goat people I’ve met so I’m hoping this works out for you.
Sounds very awesome, congrats! I’ll be sure to pass on the info to my friends in the Denver area!
I think it sounds really cool, and if I’m ever in Denver I’ll make time to check it out. I was going to bring up the beer thing too, my local game store serves up beer and lets you sit and try out games with a pint. It’s awesome.
Yeah that’s a pretty common thing in Portland. Which, coming from Chicago, strikes me as crazy. I’d never heard of such a thing!
But it’s pretty cool. I’m down for beer and board games,
Best of luck. This sounds awesome. The franchise site looks awesome and…
If this was the case with my local stores, I would go to the local stores. Their used prices are higher than Amazon. I’m excited for you!
Good luck! I owned and ran a game store in the mid-90s (Neutral Ground in Mountain View if any of you ever came by). As some people above have said, carrying Magic and having a large enough space to run games/PTQs carried us during the slow periods, as did having a LAN gaming section. If you have any questions I’ll try to be helpful but it was a long time ago, and to be honest after running it for a few years of 60-70 hour weeks I realized that as fun as being in the store was, I could be letting someone else run the store, work in Silicon Valley, and hang out there after work with three times as much money. But the individual days were pretty fun!
Not sure you could have a better name? Man, so jelly. Will have to look out for the franchise.
Will the place serve coffee and pastries, etc, or pure gaming store and table rental? Just curious about the day to day economics.
I visited a spot in New Haven, CT a year or two ago, Elm City Games, bought my son a D&D manual, had a good cup of coffee, and perused their awesome game library. Seemed like a dream gig, but as always, you wonder how it can pay the rent. Elm City is a stroll from Yale, so I can easily see a steady crowd during the academic year.
We are enlisting a local bakery to make some snacks as well as having the soda fountain (with branded mugs you can buy and then get cheap refills), and some packaged snacks. There will be no cheetos, doritos or other highly-messy snacks though.
Sounds like a good plan. Maybe in the future a few spin racks with books or comics might be fun. My personal experience is I love these kinds of stores, but I’m a bit of a browser rather than a participant, so if there is stuff I can buy for a solo experience (books, comics, etc.) I am more likely to come back for a second and third visit.
Also, if you could sell beer and have a table to sit at and drink and get wifi, that would be nice. I have no idea if that would be a plus or a detrimental expense, but I love being around geek stuff. That’s my tribe.
I can only speak from experience in Portland, but it seems to be a huge plus, and revenue source, for these stores. Especially ones with regular league and game play. Beer on tap or in cans probably one of their biggest sources of regular revenue. No idea how feasible that is in Denver though.
That’s another thing I know has probably been brought up by the Goat franchisers. League play = regular weekly customers = more revenue. I know I always buy local at the stores I frequent. I’m willing to pay a slight premium even.
Best of luck @Vesper. If I find myself in Denver I’ll have to look you up.