Pandemonium IS my FLGS. Looks like it may be saved by the efforts of it’s many customers and other folks.

Thanks for posting this.

I’m passionate about my favorite stores, and I’ve never known whether that was a common gamer trait. Given the level of intensity in your comments, it appears to be very common — and that’s really neat to see.

Thanks for emailing about Pandemonium, tsuyoshikentsu!

My first real FLGS was Ironbeard Games, in Massachusetts. It was a Magic store. I played my second real tourney there and got my butt handed to me. Good times. The guys there were nice, although they got a bit impatient with you if you came into their specialty shop and knew nothing about the specialty. (This is a trait shared by many specialty shop owners.)

Ironbeard Games is out of business. I don’t know why; I moved out to California before it happened.

My next one was The Game Zone. Cheap furniture, dingy computers that ran MMOs, an entire wall of D&D, and a staff that was friendly enough to let you game late if you got a ride home. GZ brought me back into playing D&D.

It was bought out, went under under the new manager, and was bought out again. I wasn’t sorry the second time. (This is the only time I’ve ever been happy that a game store failed. The new manager did not deserve to be called human.)

After that came AB Toys and Games. It was really a Warmachine store. That didn’t stop Jimmy, the owner, from running a Shadowrun game in the middle of it. My best days as a gamer in a long while were there. Jimmy was the kinda guy who ran a game constantly and only stopped when customers wanted to buy something.

Jimmy also had really bad luck. A lot of the people he hired (including the boyfriend of the mother of the woman who told me about the place) were really just useless, and he got screwed out of a lot of money. He couldn’t make rent and had to close.

Now, I currently game at Game Empire, which is who The Game Zone was bought by. I had heard it was minis-only, but that didn’t turn out to be true. It’s very chainlike (and it technically is one; there’s another branch in San Diego) and doesn’t allow food at the gaming tables, but it’s big and has lots of stuff. It goes by the one-book rule mentioned above, and looks like it’s gonna be open for a good long while.

So why do I care about Pandemonium? Because it has THE coolest gaming space ever: it’s in their basement, which has stone arches, and is furnished with sofas. The store itself has a wide variety of products, and the staff is extremely friendly. Also, Rich Burlew of Order of the Stick has been known to appear there, and they sell in their store a shirt designed for them by him.

It’s also the FLGS closest to where I was born, so I feel a sort of “I’d be there if I hadn’t moved” loyalty to it.

T

If this question had been asked 2.5 months ago, I would have replied that the loss of my LGS would have made very little difference to me. Most have been sad little hole-in-the-wall joints with strange staff and clientele who wouldn’t know customer service if it scored a crit on them. Now however, the loss of my FLGS would be a very painful blow indeed.

Now I do presently work there part time, every Saturday, unless my full time Job at a university Library needs me in on a weekend. The store has been a fantastic resource for me and others. The store owner “Mark” goes out of his way to get stuff not just for me but other GMs and customers stuff they want or he thinks they’ll like. Now true it is profit for him but he could just stick with the standard rules books and dice. He goes so much further then that. He does play in a D20 game I run on Tuesdays at the store as well.

For me I have been able to get great stuff at reasonable prices. He has been a good sounding board for ideas and has provided several of the players in my Tuesday game.

I know I would still be gaming even if the store had not lasted or been there, but I know it would not have been as good an experience with out his store.

Dave

Frank

The Gamers Den has a decent selection of RPGs, trading card games and board games, store copies of a number of board games and a bunch of tables for events and open gaming. They also have a small semi-private area that can be reserved for role-playing, but it only has room for 4-6 people total. They have been wonderful about reserving table space for me to run RPGA events and also offer participation prizes for everyone at the RPGA events. They also draw a well mixed crowd ranging from preteen to retired adults. Currently their biggest things are card games tournaments and click games (mechwarrior, heroclicks) but they are very friendly and very supportive of the local gaming community.

They provide a large area for people to game, as well as keeping everything that I want stocked. Whenever I end up interested in some unusual new system, the owner will order some and keep it on the shelf.

The store went through a few changes of managers, but I’m so happy with the new owner. He’s always got a suggestion, he remembers my preferences (despite my infrequent visits), and in general is a stand-up-guy.

… So, I make it a POINT to buy from him. I can’t afford a ton lately, so every now and then I buy online, but whenever I game there I at least think real hard about buying something. (And I end up buying about $30+ worth of stuff a month.) I also tend to suggest people go pick stuff up.

My Sunday game moved out of the store and into one of the player’s house, so I make it there less often. But, I know that the store drives new players… and I like the fact that if I were to start a new game, I could pop on over to the store and meet a few new players. (They also keep a bulletin board for meeting new players.)

Carolina,

I knew of a combo used books/game store (in another town) where the owner was somewhat indifferent to games. That was just his personality. Old books were his thing. OTOH, he made it a point to hire at least some employees that were enthusiastic and knowledgeable about games. Sometimes, you couldn’t get a good answer, depending on whom was working (and this was pre-internet), but I guess the same thing happened on occasion when a bookaphile found the young gamer clerking alone.

The store did very well until the owner decided to retire. Then it closed within a year or two.

I’m mean, we’re not talking about the local big box, whose employees may not have a vested interest in the products and services being offered. They’re there to pick up a pay check and push things out of the big box.

But we’re talking about HOBBY shops, for goodness sakes. If the people at the Hobby shop aren’t enthusiastic/understanding of their (comparatively small) customer base — then what the heck are they doing in the business anyway?

I mean, there are a lot of easier ways to make money in retail than to sell game books, cards and comics to a group of people whom you hold in contempt.

Game Preserve is the standby– it’s been around for 20+ years and has a solid supply of RPG books and an excellent board game supply. If you’re looking for older games and supplements from older editions, this is the store. Unfortunately, their RPG labeling and grouping is weak– it’s mostly there, it just takes a while to find it.

Titan just opened up late last year. It’s very good at community support– the owner is active in local boards, much of his shop is given over to large tables (with terrain) for pickup play, and he has local minis tournaments. He hosted the Fresno RPG meetup group there on Saturday, and is showing a commitment to be a hub for local gaming support. His supply is strong on Minis, WotC, and White Wolf, without a large backlog yet.

HobbyTown did a good job for a couple of years, hosting an open game night on Fridays. Unfortunately, their commitment to RPGs was weak, and even minis were a bit erratic. I don’t know how well it’s holding up on the hobby end.

Other stores have come and gone– often in 2-3 years. After shrinking for months, Epic Worlds gave up and moved to Clovis. Tower Joe’s never established much of a foothold– it was in the shadow of Game Preserve and never took off.

It was where I met my current gaming group and also the location where I ran my weekly game. Mostly though, I lost a place to hang out, meet new people, and talk about and play games.

Aside from letting me run my weekly D&D game there, the owner did his best to stay competitive. He would take preorders and offer a 25% discount (sometimes 30%) if you paid in full before he placed his order. He ran CCG tournaments, other people ran RPG games there regularly, and even had Battletech Pods that were fairly popular. This was a store that definitely had a sense of community.

The owner was very friendly and created a nice atmosphere to game in. Of the regulars, there were more who leaned towards the normal side than weirdo. Mothers were often stopping in with their kids to buy CCG boosters.

The store went under mainly due to a change in location. It moved from a clearly visible store front in an area with tons of foot traffic, to an a spot where it was practically invisible from the street and had absolutely no foot traffic. The store stayed open for about two years after the move. As others have posted, the common theme when old customers found the store was, “I thought you had closed.” Even with those of us who gamed there making purchases, there just wasn’t enough business to justify keeping the store open and the owner switched sales to an on-line sales only.