7 years ago in April Ben and I drove to visit a game store in Albuquerque. I called ahead to see if there was any commander happening, if they had buy-a-box promos for Dominaria, if they had a couple singles I wanted, and to let them know we were coming from Socorro. They said yes to everything. When we got there it turned out they lied about everything I asked.
On the drive home, Ben and I joked we should open our own game store here in Socorro. Over the next couple months we got more and more serious about it. We looked at a number of possible locations before finally settling on 300 South Californa Street. We signed the lease, started to build and buy displays, and open accounts with distribution.
We decided spur of the moment to open on Halloween 2018! We opened and tragedy struck, we could not operate our cash register. Despite spending the previous week setting it all up and practicing, when our first customer arrived… We could not complete the sale. Sorry Corey.
Our first month went great and we quickly replaced the cash register with the Square register you all have come to know.
In April 2019 real tragedy struck, a death in Ben and Val’s family that nessiciated a move for their family. Sadly they were not able to be involved with the shop after that. My wife, Anjie stepped up and helped me out when I needed. Our son Aleister was also a huge help, and our daughter Aurra also helped when asked. 2019 did great for us, then going into 2020 things got scary with the news of COVID. But the shop survived that and moved to a newer, better location on Fisher Ave.
Things we good on Fisher, until April of 2023 when I found out the building was on fire. Luckily, the fire was not in my suites, but the smoke was and I lost A LOT of product. Sadly I did not have sufficent insurance to cover the loss and had a pay out of only about ¼ of what was lost. Then in July I found out the landlord had sold the building he had offered to sell to me. The shop reopened in August, something I wish I had not done. I should have packed things in and liquidated my stock. Between the fire, the sale of the building, and the death of Polly, the shop cat, I was not doing well.
But some good friends urged me to continue with the shop. A decision I still regret. While the community came out in force to show support for me during the clean up sale in late April, the community fund raiser in June, and my move to the current location, community involvement as a whole has been down since the fire.
The move to the shop’s current home, saw a huge loss of square footage, and in increase in bills. Most importantly, the shop lost a lot of important play space.
That brings us to where I am now, I no longer enjoy running the shop, and have not really since I moved. Sales are down, costs and bills are rising. I am unable to keep the shop running. So I am starting the closing process. My lease ends in March, but I hope to be closed by mid January (after the Lorwyn prerelease).
Board games, plushies, vinyl figures, Funko Pops, and similar will be 10% starting this week. As time goes on more items will be added to sales, and the sales will increase, until there is nothing.
I still have outstanding pre and back oders that I have to pay for, but I will not be restocking otherwise. I will still place speical orders (which will need to be paid in full at the time of the order) but may take a week or more to arrive. All special orders will still be full price.
If there is something you have been wanting to pick up but have been putting it off, there is no time like the present.
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