Okay if you recall I bought my Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS) last year. In fact, in a couple of weeks, it’ll be exactly a year. As a reminder, I stumbled onto an ad for a Board Game Cafe up in Saskatoon Canada. Looked interesting and I spoke to my good friend, who was the owner of my FLGS along with his wife. Just to be clear, I do go to many of the surrounding game shops but Atomic Goblin Games is my F LGS. After discussion and months of review, getting financials together, getting a loan, approvals from my wife, I purchased my FLGS, which is now actually my FLGS.
I did hire the former owner as my store manager/purchasing manager. I also kept on the other employees and gave them all raises, now being paid above minimum wage (just a little though, they do get a 30% discount on games). I also brought in the former game store owner where my guy used to work, as a contractor for an occasional couple of hours of work when needed and as a mentor to help me on my way as a retail game store owner. These guys have been great, let me just say. Plus the number 1 ‘senior associate’ is in line to be assistant manager.
Anyway, we’re now bursting at the seams. Lots of gamers, lots of customers, and lots of product. Humorously last year I told the “management team” that I’d want to open a second Atomic Goblin Games Too or move to a bigger location and they were all, “well, get some experience and let’s see in a year or two where we are”.
Since I took over and since I implemented changes, over the course of the year since I purchased it, we’ve had the best 12 months in the almost 11 year history of the store, most of the last 12 months have been the best month in the 11 year history, and right now we’re better than 50% higher in sales than last year at this time.
The problem with where we are is the management companies (yes two) have not been helpful in us expanding into the mainly empty space next door. This would let us expand another 600 or so square feet, from 1,400 to 2,000 square feet mainly (I don’t have an exact number so close enough). It’s being used a storage for the end unit, a gas station/convenience store. Not only that, I’ve been trying to get the lease in my name for over a year, and a couple of places won’t let me take over the old account until the lease is in my name. I can’t even replace the carpet (3 year old carpet and it’s been 10 years) without permission from the owner due to the cost (over $10,000 amount requires approval).
Anyway, enough of that. What’s new?
Well, since I can’t get the lease and can’t expand, and must expand we’ve been checking out possibilities in the city. There are three other game stores. One is in downtown (5th Street) and two are close to each other on the corner of Main Street and 119, another major road that passes through Longmont. The downtown shop is mainly comics with games and puzzles. The two on the corner are either mainly Magic specific or Warhammer specific. We are the board game shop in town.
We had one really good choice. A bit larger than we needed but with some leeway from the owners, and they were very positive, we could grow into the space. It’s a bit over 5,000 square feet which doesn’t count the upstairs that they were throwing in for free. Unfortunately they were working with a nationwide Salon first. But we were lower initial maintenance costs, no need to drill holes in the foundation for water drainage and just needed the bathrooms upgrade and replace the carpet (which the salon would need anyway). It’s also a pretty good price in general, $12 sq/ft NNN ($7.50 sq/ft) (NNN is basically the exterior maintenance costs; parking lot, grass, trees, roof, etc).
It was the spot Hobbytown occupied so was already a gaming/hobby destination in town. Win-Win, but unfortunately again, not really available. I did send a couple of emails asking if there was any way we could slide in but in the event we couldn’t, we would still look around.
Link to the listing if you’re interested: https://www.coloradogroup.com/property/1935-main-street-suite-b-longmont-co/ (it may be gone in the future of course 🙂 ).
Here’s the floor plan. The lower piece they were throwing in for free as it’s inaccessible otherwise.
And here’s one of the pictures.
The nice thing is it is on Main Street, there’s a BBQ Place in the end unit, Dairy Queen and Wendy’s next door. Pretty good for the gamers and such coming into the shop.
Anyway, my wife and I went driving around town today to check out places based on several commercial listings we found on line. One is a former Big 5 Sports big box store. 10,000 square feet. We checked it out and it’s really 5,000 of retail and a second floor with an additional 5,000 of office space. Could be interesting however it’s really quite large but I will call to check.
There were several other possible places. A couple in a kind of skeevy strip mall. Not horrible in general, there are several restaurants and fast food places (like Five Guys and Chipotle’s) but I dunno, kind of an off-putting feel. Plus there were 4 open spaces, not lending itself to confidence in the customers.
A second block was better, a former K-Mart converted into several shops like a Big Lots, a Cricket, and an Arc shop. It looked good looking into the window, but when I checked on line, it’s almost 8,000 square feet.
We went into one strip mall and from the listing, it looked like the open space was taken. We continued on but my wife said there was another open space that wasn’t in the listing. We were able to locate the commercial listing on another site.
Listing here: https://www.loopnet.com/viewer/pdf?…Bridge%20Park%20Plaza15151517%20Main%20St.pdf
In the picture, it’s 1517 units A and B.
It’s a touch over 3,000 square feet which fits nicely into our expansion needs. Unit A is separated from Unit B by a wall with a double wide door like opening (it was a single use). The front part is 1,500 square feet, the back the same. With us using the front part as retail, we could use Unit B as the gaming area. More room for tables and such. Plus if we are able, we might pick up Unit C and add it as an RPG gaming area with two walls as a corridor so RPGers could have quiet to play.
The cool thing? There’s a sliding garage type door. The gap in the wall between Unit B and Unit C. Now that would be great during nicer days. Open the door for the gamers and expose them to fresh air.
The bottom of the pic faces Main Street. If you clicked the link, there’s a Taco place, Pizza Hut, and an ice cream place. It feels so much nicer, neighborhood wise with outside seating at the Taco place. It just feels like a good place to move to. At 3,000 square feet (or more if we take Unit C or even Units D and E (the office space)), it would let us grow just a little better and saner than the 5,600 or 10,000 square feet places and in 5 years, maybe then move into a much larger space.
Cool beans.
Looking forward to seeing how this shakes out.
