From Player To Shop Owner with Tony Bogan

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Sometimes talking with friends feels like role
playing. Sometimes it feels like comeback,

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join us at the round table and
roll an ish too. This is Curmudgeons

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and Dragons. Hello adventurers, guys, welcome to Curmudgeons and Dragons. My

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name is Jason Bortizo. Today I'm
enjoined by, of course, mister Jim

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Crocker. I think you mean Curmudgeons
and Dragons. Lie, Curmudgeons and dragon

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and I'm getting into that. Yes, hello, curtain back. We you

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peeled it from. Okay, Hello
adventures We are Jason and I are ten

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feet away from each other and it's
just I'm a little excited about it.

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And we are actually joined by mister
Tony Bogan. That would be me Tony

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is. We're gonna get through who
Tony is and what Tony does. But

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James right, this is Curmudgeons and
Dragons live. We are We are live

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on site at the Keep in Brick, New Jersey. All the times that

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I say that I've been running one
shots at my my my flgs, this

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is my flgs. We're set up
in the end the back gaming room,

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taking you over all their tables and
just tanking their square footage. Dollars today.

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It'll be deducted from your face.
Yeah that's fine, that's fine.

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It's a marketing expense, yes,
yeah, yeah, they'll call it that.

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And also fun fact, first time
Jim and I have been in the

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same room together, so this is
actually kind of cool. That's pretty amazing.

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Yeah, I was able to give
him other things. I kept saying

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that I was going to like give
him like all the pins and stickers and

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stuff, and I've been putting it
off for too long. So let's Tony,

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let's let's talk about who you are, what you do, why we're

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here. So as you were the
owner of the place where at right now

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this is uh, we're over at
the keep. You are the man in

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charge. I am one of the
men in charge. One of the store

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is actually my son's my son Michael, who is working another job today.

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I really did this for him more
than anything. We have a few friends

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that are partners as well in the
store, and one of the first people

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to invest in the store, before
there was a store to invest in yet,

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was one of my friends Dan and
another friend Corey, So we have

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we brought friends in to make this. The idea behind it was we wanted

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it to be our hangout. This
was a place where don't take this wrong

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way. Profit is a good thing, but as long as the store could

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self sustain itself, we could literally
do it forever. So we wanted to

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have a place that we could hang
out as much as have people come and

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hang out, especially because my background. You know, I started playing D

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and D in nineteen seventy six,
and there were no stores to go play

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games in. Sure. Back then, there were no stores to go buy

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this stuff, and other than hobby
stores or mail order was the only way

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you could even get the books or
anything. So to forty fast forward forty

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plus years later and have a game
store where if you don't have gaming space,

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you're doing something wrong. I think
it's fantastic. Yeah. Actually,

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like building your own space to play
in and then just opening it up to

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others. It sounds a lot like
why I opened my recording studio years ago.

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It's like it's it's I believe it's
not that different. Well it was.

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It was something that we talked about
when we were playing, you know,

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and literally in my friend Rich's basement, talked about, boy, wouldn't

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be cool if we had a place
where we could go and play and here

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we are doesn't exist yet. You're
right, But if it's self sustaining,

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you know you're getting value out of
it. If you enjoy being here,

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absolutely that, you know, no
question about it. Doesn't need to make

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necessarily, you know, make extra
income if it's self sustaining, but you

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know you love being here. The
primary point of the extra income is so

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we can expand yeah, you know, yeah, I want to I want

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nothing but more. I want more
space, I want more games, I

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want more players. I want more
people to come in and hang out.

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And and we've been really fortunate in
the sense that my business, you said,

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who I am and what I do, My actual businesses boats. You

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know, my family's had fishing boats
and river boats and stuff in Brielle and

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Point Pleasant since nineteen thirty one.
So this was something that I had talked

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about doing, literally since I was
a little kid, and I'm fifty four

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now. And at the same token
was something that my son had had been

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a partner with a friend in another
store that had been opened less than a

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year when the pandemic hit, and
the store didn't survive the pandemic. So

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he had already gotten kind of his
feet wet and had a bug for it.

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So when we decided to do this, it was to me it was

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something that was totally unrelated to what
I do for a living, which is

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run boats for a living. We
have fishing boats, like I said,

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take people off fishing, and I
have a paddle wheel or a riverboat that

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we do know weddings and birthdays and
banquets, things like that. So God

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forbid anything happened to me there would
be something for my family that my wife,

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my daughter, my son could literally
jump right into and still have a

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source of income. And it's the
same token. It's you know, I

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grew up less than fifteen minutes from
work literally my entire life, so when

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I wanted to open up a store, it had to be one of the

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requirements was it had to be within
a twenty minute radius of my home.

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I wasn't going to work full time
fifteen minutes from home and have a side

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gig that was a forty five minute
commute. It just wasn't going to happen.

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And fortunately for us, we found
this space here that not only has

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our cool vault and everything in it, which was really the that was the

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selling point, but Also it is
literally within two tenths of a mile of

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exactly halfway between my work and my
home. I drive by it every day

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on my way to work, and
I drive by it every way a day

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on my way home from work,
which I couldn't ask for a better location.

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Not a lot of upsides to the
pandemic, but one of them is

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that if you did want to start
a business, there's a lot of commercial

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space available because of what happened.
So yeah, also a lot of new

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d D players and also a lot
of new d D players. Yeah,

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yeah, you know, one of
the biggest sources of new players for decades

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now has been the military. If
I had a dime for every person that

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I've met over the decades, that
says, oh, I started playing when

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I was in the military. I
started playing when I was in the military,

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and it made sense. Long periods
of downtime, you know, accentuated

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with brief periods of you know,
massive amounts of activity and guys that were

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on ships. I have a nephew
that's in the Merchant Marines, and the

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same thing on there. They're either
playing a role playing game, which there

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are so many to choose from now, but years ago there weren't quite as

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many, or they're playing a tabletop
card game, they're playing a TCG or

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an RPG. Yeah, because it's
a great way to kill those long periods

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of time. You know, you
might work twelve hours on and twelve hours

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off, but they're not going to
sleep for that twelve hours. Yeah.

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And in today's world now, between
specifically Stranger Things and the movie coming out,

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have been two massive increases in popularity
for the game. And you can

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play DND anywhere, right, if
you've got you know, you can play

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PlayStation or something like that, but
you need access to screens and electricity and

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all that kind of stuff. But
I mean, you could play D and

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D with a couple of notebooks and
a handful of dice at an fob.

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If that's what you want to do
there, you can do it anywhere.

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That's one of the beauties of it. Yeah. Yeah, I think I

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have a few military friends that played
well while they were at station. And

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then now you mentioned it, I
haven't really thought about it. One of

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our first groups we had when we
when we opened the store, and we

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had the private gaming room at that
time, which is now the RPG room.

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But we're two of the guys who
were military ex military, and I

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have several friends same thing. They're
like, oh, you know, I

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remember you guys used to play when
we were in grammar school and high school

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and I never never even had any
interest in it. I was out on

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a ship for six months. I
was hooked. Yeah, and again,

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it's a great way to not only
to pass the time, but to pass

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time with friends, not just sitting
in front of a screen by yourself.

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As much of a video game as
I am sure. And that was the

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other thing, because you know,
you make those friendships you're if you're in

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the military, just like if you're
working in any job where you have people

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on your shift that become your acquaintances
and hopefully become your friends. Well,

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when you get to the point where
you're on time and off time is not

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only at the same time, but
in the same place. Yeah, it's

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a great way for people to get
together with the same people like. Yeah,

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so captive audience is the way to
start your your next gaming table.

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A lot easier to schedule a group
in D and D if you're stuck on

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a ship for six months in any
place else anywhere, Guys, I can't

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make it. It just jumps off. So yeah, I just actually wouldn't

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put that past my players. Back
in my days as a retailer, when

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I used to go to trade events
and things like that, pretty much just

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about every store owner had either a
university of some kind, university, college,

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or a military base within ten miles
of the store. That was,

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you know, kind of the main
source of customers that they had come into

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them. A lot of college players. Same thing with the TCGs, you

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know, with the card games,
big college thing for again, for some

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of the same reasons. You know, if you're in that same dorm and

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you're in the same place every night
and that kind of stuff, it's a

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great way to pass the time,
and it's constantly changing, you know that.

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That was always the beauty for me
of D and D to begin with,

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was the fact that it was never
the same game twice. Yeah,

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never. You could play the same
module over and over again and it still

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wasn't the same game twice, which
was also the beauty. And of course

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part of that's the randomness of the
dice. Yeah, you know, the

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dice rule the world in one way
or another, no matter how much emphasis

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you do or don't put on the
dice. As long as you use them

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in some way, shape or form, they control the game and they add

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that element of oh, you're kidding
me or oh no way, Yeah,

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you know, dice absolutely tell the
story. Man. Yeah, so I

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want to know what it's like going
from the player into the store owner.

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Um, what was it like transition
to the other side of the cash register?

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Uh? An eye opening experience and
it sounds like I guess. And

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the other thing I want to ask
is it sounds like you during your time

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playing D and D, we're mostly
a player we ADM. Yeah. Okay,

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that's interesting because I'm more of a
forever DM than than a regular player.

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So that's another thing that's a interesting
goal. Fortunate that you know three

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of the people that I began playing
D and D with. I apologize for

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back and forth, but since you
both ask me questions, I'm going to

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keep looking at both of you.
Three of them. We still play.

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We don't play frequently, we may
still do get together and play. So

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the fact that my friend Rich was
our DM to begin with and it just

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stayed that way, and it stayed
that way for well from nineteen seventy six

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till now. So forty seven years
that it was just a thing. Yeah,

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and when we played, you know, one of the thing things that

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I've noticed that's, I know it's
a little off topic, but different from

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playing the game in fifth edition as
opposed to some of the earlier editions,

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especially first edition in O, D
and D, which is where I started

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with with the White Box in seventy
six, is we never played just one

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character because if there are a lot
of times there was only three people to

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play, it was Rich. Sometimes
his little brother would come in, who

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was you know, we were nine
or ten, he was seven or eight.

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If you only played one character each
and there was only three of you

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in a D and D, yet
you weren't surviving walking out the door,

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let alone your first encounter. So
we always played at least two, if

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not three characters each, sometimes usually
two, so there would be three or

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four of us playing, so we
could have a party of six or seven

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or five or six whatever it was. So Rich also quite often played a

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character as well because we simply needed
the extra the extra ADVENTURER DMPC. Yeah,

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yep. So that was not all
the time, but when it when

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it was required, you know,
when we reached that point of you know

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what, there's no way you're going
to get through this, and there's only

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that, Yeah, we're gonna we're
gonna throw another concerning all kinds of colors

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right now. That's fine, that's
it. It's a different game. But

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that translates into from the difference between
DM and Lifetime DM and lifetime player is

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you know, since my lifetime DM
was also a lifetime friend I've gotten too,

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I kind of feel like I was
part of the DM two because we

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helped build the world together. When
stuff was over, we'd be like,

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let me see what you had behind
this, and we would check it.

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You know, we could have fun
with that. So where that translated into

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being behind the counter instead of in
front of the counter was my perspective change

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just over the course of time,
because originally there was no counter to get

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most of this stuff. It was
mail order when I started playing. It

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wasn't until Borders Bookstores got the contract
with TSR to start selling the books that

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you could actually go into a bookstore
and buy the books. It was a

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hobby shop or mail order. So
I kind of watched that change over the

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decades too, where it became more
than toy stores and game stores. So

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when we started doing the store that
my son and myself, by the way,

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a couple of our employees or partners
too. I neglected to mention that

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when I said we have partners Mike
that works with us, and Rob they've

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brought into the store too, because
it kind of became their thing, you

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know. So it's it's family,
not just first you know, first generation

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family. It's extended family too.
It is. Yeah, But one of

206
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the things that I realized was,
first and foremost, what I think is

207
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cool is not necessarily what the public
think is cool. So I had to

208
00:12:26.720 --> 00:12:30.559
start looking at stuff that don't just
buy what I like does don't just buy

209
00:12:30.559 --> 00:12:35.120
the dice to sell that I think
look really good variation, don't just buy

210
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the book or then you know,
one of the things I had mentioned is

211
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I love Cobald Press. I love
their stuff, and I have a smattering

212
00:12:43.200 --> 00:12:46.399
of Cobalt in the store because I
can only sell so much of so many

213
00:12:46.440 --> 00:12:50.200
things. Sure, and the biggest
thing with the books in particular, are

214
00:12:50.279 --> 00:12:52.279
there's only so many dms that come
into the store. Yeah, so the

215
00:12:52.320 --> 00:12:56.039
average player is they they're going to
buy a PHB A written at one point

216
00:12:56.080 --> 00:12:58.720
or download one if they use an
electronic version, whatever the case may be.

217
00:13:00.039 --> 00:13:01.399
That's, of course far different from
what I started with. Two.

218
00:13:03.039 --> 00:13:05.159
As much of a computer nerd as
I am, there was no such thing

219
00:13:05.200 --> 00:13:09.120
as downloading anything. You could.
You could have downloaded a text document of

220
00:13:09.159 --> 00:13:13.159
a book back in nineteen eighty and
eighty one when I had my three hundred

221
00:13:13.200 --> 00:13:16.120
BOAD modem, and it took about
an hour and a half to download one

222
00:13:16.200 --> 00:13:20.759
hundred and forty K disc. One
hundred forty K disc. Yeah, you

223
00:13:20.799 --> 00:13:22.759
would. You would take the you
would take the handset for the phone and

224
00:13:24.399 --> 00:13:28.240
into a acoustical couple or nineteen seventy
eight, I had an acoustical that was

225
00:13:28.279 --> 00:13:30.840
only one hundred and ten board though, so they don't call it bought anymore,

226
00:13:30.840 --> 00:13:33.720
and I was bps but bits per
second, but it was bought back

227
00:13:33.799 --> 00:13:35.799
then. So at any rate,
my point was is that you know the

228
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books, same thing I'm buying what
I would play, Yeah, and I

229
00:13:39.440 --> 00:13:41.840
would give it to Rich and be
like, we're going to run this,

230
00:13:41.960 --> 00:13:46.799
right, so I have to have
to adjust what I'm looking for. And

231
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of course with the store, one
of the things that we wanted to do

232
00:13:50.480 --> 00:13:54.440
when we opened the store was we
wanted to sell what we know. I

233
00:13:54.480 --> 00:13:56.360
can sell a product. I've I've
dealt with the public my entire life on

234
00:13:56.399 --> 00:13:58.480
the boats, and we sell We
have a tackle store where we sell the

235
00:13:58.519 --> 00:14:03.519
phishing Town all that kind of stuff. But I wanted to We wanted to

236
00:14:03.559 --> 00:14:07.360
be able to not only sell a
person a product and tell a person what

237
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a product was, but then when
they asked, how do I use it?

238
00:14:09.679 --> 00:14:11.679
What do I do with it?
What's going that? We could do

239
00:14:11.720 --> 00:14:15.039
that as well. So my son, we'd be buying Pokemon for him for

240
00:14:15.120 --> 00:14:18.879
you know, we do Pokemon Magic, the Gathering, Funco pops and RPGs

241
00:14:18.960 --> 00:14:22.120
or the four Core products in the
store. We do all of those,

242
00:14:22.159 --> 00:14:24.000
our Funco collection at home, Dwarfs, what I sell in the store really,

243
00:14:24.039 --> 00:14:28.679
Oh yeah, yes, it's a
it's a habit. I think I

244
00:14:28.759 --> 00:14:33.279
own six Funkos. They're all D
and D stuff and I don't care who

245
00:14:33.360 --> 00:14:35.679
knows it. I took out the
boxes. Oh yeah, well, we

246
00:14:35.759 --> 00:14:37.720
see, we have to buy two
of everything, so we can have the

247
00:14:37.960 --> 00:14:41.600
shelves where everything is split, and
then we have the one we keep in

248
00:14:41.639 --> 00:14:46.000
the box, one to rock and
one to stock. That's right, Yeah,

249
00:14:46.080 --> 00:14:52.639
it's absolutely right. Yeah, I
found myself a Funko gelatinous cube on

250
00:14:52.840 --> 00:14:54.759
a Facebook market for really not the
expensive one, one of the one of

251
00:14:54.759 --> 00:15:00.480
the con ones that only goes for
like thirty bucks, and had a quote

252
00:15:00.559 --> 00:15:03.559
unquote damaged box, which I am
not into funk enough to recognize this as

253
00:15:03.559 --> 00:15:07.519
being a damaged box, right,
Pluster boxes are pretty flimsy. I'm surprised

254
00:15:07.559 --> 00:15:09.039
that any of these boxes are in
better shape than this one. You should

255
00:15:09.039 --> 00:15:11.919
see the way they shipped some of
them. And she's like, it's like,

256
00:15:11.960 --> 00:15:13.919
yeah, the boxes damage, I'd
took a bunch of money off.

257
00:15:13.919 --> 00:15:15.679
I'm like, I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm super glad that you

258
00:15:15.679 --> 00:15:18.879
did. Took it home, Hi, thank you. Immediately I wanted to

259
00:15:18.919 --> 00:15:20.960
take it out the box in front
of her, just to just to be

260
00:15:20.039 --> 00:15:24.200
like be like, yeah, this
is uh this, but you don't you

261
00:15:24.240 --> 00:15:26.759
don't have to be cruel about it. That's just crinkle the box and be

262
00:15:28.120 --> 00:15:31.720
like, well, don't need that
shit anymore. So well, that was

263
00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:35.120
obviously I'm the D and D guy. Uh. My son's we've been buying

264
00:15:35.159 --> 00:15:39.120
Pokemon and he's been collecting since he's
twenty six now, since whenever Pokemon came

265
00:15:39.159 --> 00:15:43.440
out. I mean we're literally buying
him since they first came out. Um,

266
00:15:43.799 --> 00:15:48.080
both Nick and Uh and Mike and
actually also John that that work for

267
00:15:48.200 --> 00:15:52.799
us, all play Magic, Um
Nixon too. Pokemon. Rob one of

268
00:15:52.799 --> 00:15:58.000
our other both a partner and an
employee. Uh. He has the same

269
00:15:58.000 --> 00:16:00.279
thing like me, has a real
gig, and then he comes here at

270
00:16:00.360 --> 00:16:04.120
nights. Rob was huge, and
he was our best Pokemon customer single.

271
00:16:04.120 --> 00:16:07.919
I mean, he has Pokemon tattoos. And then he felt who doesn't have

272
00:16:07.960 --> 00:16:11.440
Pokemon? Course of course, it's
just me at this table. And then

273
00:16:11.480 --> 00:16:15.279
he got into Magic, and he
got into Magic and he is no longer

274
00:16:15.320 --> 00:16:18.879
our best Pokemon customer anymore, but
he is one of our best Magic customers

275
00:16:18.919 --> 00:16:22.519
now and he works here, so
we give him an employed discount fair So

276
00:16:22.799 --> 00:16:26.120
you can literally come into the store
and if I'm not here because I'm on

277
00:16:26.120 --> 00:16:29.360
the boat or my son's work,
because he works with me on the boats

278
00:16:29.360 --> 00:16:33.000
as well, we know that no
matter whether it's Nick, it's Mike,

279
00:16:33.120 --> 00:16:36.159
it's Rob, it's me, it's
my son Michael. Yeah, more than

280
00:16:36.200 --> 00:16:38.919
one Mike. I also learned another
thing too by having employees both at my

281
00:16:40.120 --> 00:16:42.639
boats and now at the store.
Most of the employees are less than half

282
00:16:42.679 --> 00:16:48.039
my age. Apparently my generation of
my parents, we weren't really creative in

283
00:16:48.120 --> 00:16:52.080
naming because everybody's Mike and John.
I have more Mike John's and Chris is

284
00:16:52.120 --> 00:16:53.879
that work for me between the two
businesses. But at any rate, I

285
00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:56.600
know that if they come in,
I'm a Jason born in the mid eighties.

286
00:16:56.679 --> 00:16:59.279
Yeah, I know, right,
Yeah, there you go. I

287
00:16:59.320 --> 00:17:03.000
went by my last initial until I
was twenty. Yeah, that somebody comes

288
00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:06.839
in the best example I can give
you, and we see quite frequently with

289
00:17:06.880 --> 00:17:11.839
Pokemon is h grandma bringing in the
grandson or granddaughter and grandma or grandpa know

290
00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:17.279
nothing about Pokemon, but they know
that's what the kid wants, so they'll

291
00:17:17.279 --> 00:17:21.119
come in. And usually the children
know, as we know, exactly what

292
00:17:21.720 --> 00:17:23.440
makes a kid happy, but they
can come in and they know they can

293
00:17:23.440 --> 00:17:26.720
come in. Now we have our
regulars that come back and forth that know

294
00:17:26.920 --> 00:17:30.680
that they can not only bring their
grandson or granddaughter in, but then they

295
00:17:30.680 --> 00:17:33.839
can go and walk over and check
the laundry in the laundry mat, they

296
00:17:33.839 --> 00:17:37.440
can turn around and go down and
pick up the and leave the child here

297
00:17:37.519 --> 00:17:41.559
knowing that they're going to be not
only perfectly safe, but perfectly happy because

298
00:17:41.559 --> 00:17:45.799
we'll just give them binder after binder
of Pokemon cards to go through, knowing

299
00:17:45.799 --> 00:17:47.759
that they're only going to buy a
few packs. They're not going to buy

300
00:17:47.799 --> 00:17:51.400
the expensive singles, but they love
looking at them. So that's been one

301
00:17:51.440 --> 00:17:53.519
of the great That's that's something a
lot of stories don't like, is like

302
00:17:53.559 --> 00:17:56.960
the look you lose, like whether
whether they're five years old or four.

303
00:17:57.079 --> 00:18:00.519
Yeah, if they're thirty five,
that's but one thing if they pull every

304
00:18:00.559 --> 00:18:03.039
card out of the binder, I
have your price one hundred different cards and

305
00:18:03.359 --> 00:18:06.880
say, okay, never mind.
But with the kids just flipping through the

306
00:18:06.880 --> 00:18:10.279
binders, it's cool. Yeah.
But like I know, I've seen teenagers

307
00:18:10.359 --> 00:18:11.759
that like, are new to a
game, I want to see what the

308
00:18:11.839 --> 00:18:15.960
old cards were like, and like
flipping through stuff and like you know,

309
00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:19.200
we'll see the board guy behind encounters
like I'm just like, here's another one,

310
00:18:19.279 --> 00:18:22.680
and we're just like you're gonna buy
buy something to get out there,

311
00:18:22.160 --> 00:18:26.200
like you know, the old old
quickie mart uh mantra. But U.

312
00:18:26.839 --> 00:18:30.079
But it's it's it's cool to encourage
that a spash you with the young ones.

313
00:18:30.400 --> 00:18:34.119
Sure you gotta you gotta doctorate these
kids into being nerds early on.

314
00:18:34.680 --> 00:18:38.480
And that's one of the things too, is you know, the stigma that

315
00:18:38.680 --> 00:18:42.039
used to be attached to some of
these types of particular damp dungeons and dragons,

316
00:18:42.039 --> 00:18:45.000
but in other games too, those
are pretty much blown out of the

317
00:18:45.039 --> 00:18:48.000
water in today's world. Um,
plus, being a nerd is cool,

318
00:18:48.160 --> 00:18:52.279
yeah, and being a nerd wasn't
as cool twenty years ago, thirty years

319
00:18:52.279 --> 00:18:55.680
ago, forty years ago. So
that's made a difference too. But haven't

320
00:18:55.680 --> 00:19:00.920
people have embraced um getting into your
hobbies? Oh? Absolutely, to a

321
00:19:00.240 --> 00:19:04.880
merely unhealthy level. Um, a
questionably healthy level. Is that is I

322
00:19:04.880 --> 00:19:07.799
think still acceptable? Yeah, that's
fine. Well, as long as you

323
00:19:07.839 --> 00:19:11.480
don't cross that line from hobby to
obsession, right, you know, then

324
00:19:11.480 --> 00:19:15.400
you're okay. Which so that was
part of the part of the difficult part

325
00:19:15.480 --> 00:19:18.880
for us was finding people that had
the same passion for the various things that

326
00:19:18.920 --> 00:19:22.319
we did, um be a magic
or pokemonitor or dungeons and dragons, to

327
00:19:22.359 --> 00:19:26.319
be in the store with us and
be our partners in the store. But

328
00:19:26.680 --> 00:19:29.640
that was also part of the fun
part too though, was seeing the look

329
00:19:29.680 --> 00:19:32.400
on people's faces when they're like,
you mean and I can work here too.

330
00:19:32.519 --> 00:19:34.599
Yeah. Cool. The challenge is
not so much finding people with the

331
00:19:34.640 --> 00:19:37.920
obsession, because you can find those, sure, but it's it's the where

332
00:19:37.920 --> 00:19:44.680
the ven diagram of obsession and professional
enough to trust them with your money and

333
00:19:45.599 --> 00:19:48.039
customers, where that overlap comes that. That's the thing that's a little more

334
00:19:48.119 --> 00:19:52.039
challenge. We trustworthy part for sure, But part of it from my perspective

335
00:19:52.200 --> 00:19:56.119
was was it's one thing that they
can know the product, know the game.

336
00:19:56.160 --> 00:19:59.799
They might have played the game their
whole life. That doesn't mean that

337
00:19:59.839 --> 00:20:04.119
they know how to not just sell
it but actually educate the people when they

338
00:20:04.160 --> 00:20:07.559
ask the questions. Not everybody is
a great educator. I don't pretend that

339
00:20:07.599 --> 00:20:11.599
I am a great educator, but
to be able to say, well,

340
00:20:11.720 --> 00:20:14.119
you know what, I haven't done
that one, but I've done these other

341
00:20:14.160 --> 00:20:18.119
twelve over here, or I haven't
played that format because I play CDH or

342
00:20:18.160 --> 00:20:21.480
I play Modern, but I don't
play Pioneer. If it's magic the gathering,

343
00:20:22.119 --> 00:20:23.559
it doesn't matter because they're like,
oh, well, what's the what's

344
00:20:23.559 --> 00:20:26.920
the commander? Then? Because they
didn't know about that, and so well,

345
00:20:26.920 --> 00:20:29.319
this is what I do and this
is why I do it. Well,

346
00:20:29.319 --> 00:20:30.680
my friends play pioneer. So they
told me to come and get this

347
00:20:30.720 --> 00:20:34.119
and get that. I would do
that, but I know Jack over there

348
00:20:34.160 --> 00:20:37.920
and Jack's playing. Jack's like,
I'm your pioneer guy. Yeah, just

349
00:20:37.960 --> 00:20:41.920
like with Pokemon. Iris. Iris
is a twelve year old who knows more

350
00:20:41.920 --> 00:20:45.720
about Pokemon than anybody else in this
store. So when she's here, if

351
00:20:45.920 --> 00:20:48.519
the guys that know Pokemon, which
I do, not know it like they

352
00:20:48.559 --> 00:20:52.119
do because they've been collecting or playing
all their lives, somebody has a question,

353
00:20:52.160 --> 00:20:53.440
I say, Iris, would you
mind? And she instantly no,

354
00:20:53.920 --> 00:20:56.680
Here, this is what you want. This is what you want to look

355
00:20:56.720 --> 00:20:59.880
at. That's one of the best
parts about it. Yeah. That community

356
00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:06.200
you build as a resource too.
Oh yeah, yeah, that's that's a

357
00:21:06.200 --> 00:21:07.720
big thing I want to talk about. One of the reasons why you even

358
00:21:07.720 --> 00:21:11.559
ask you to sit down is like
you know, uh you not even just

359
00:21:11.640 --> 00:21:18.279
specific to the store, but even
um the hobby as a whole. I

360
00:21:18.319 --> 00:21:25.759
want to get into stuff like um
building, cultivating, maintaining a community with

361
00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:30.680
you know, these these games are
hinge on other people playing them with you.

362
00:21:30.279 --> 00:21:33.000
There's very few solo games that you're
selling them. This store, yes,

363
00:21:34.519 --> 00:21:38.599
doesn't really exist in in the TCG
world and in the Dungeon Roll RPG

364
00:21:38.759 --> 00:21:42.839
world. Sure, So so you
not only from a business standpoint, is

365
00:21:42.599 --> 00:21:47.359
it isn't important for you to to
cultivate a culture, but even just like

366
00:21:47.400 --> 00:21:49.319
to keep the hobby healthy. Well, I mean that's the secret, is

367
00:21:49.359 --> 00:21:53.960
it's not just business acumen. You
could know how to order and sell and

368
00:21:55.160 --> 00:21:59.119
market and all that kind of stuff. You know, community management is as

369
00:21:59.160 --> 00:22:03.160
important to a gig like this is
anything else. I think it's more important

370
00:22:03.160 --> 00:22:07.000
because the community will tell us if
we're not getting the right stuff. But

371
00:22:07.119 --> 00:22:11.279
without that community, you're not going
to know. I've seen it somewhat in

372
00:22:12.480 --> 00:22:17.319
Pokemon, even more so in Magic
because we have so many players Magic players

373
00:22:17.319 --> 00:22:21.519
locally that it just Pokemon and Magic
are the two biggest sellers in the store.

374
00:22:21.960 --> 00:22:26.480
Pokemon actually right, and Pokemon is
actually our number one seller. Really

375
00:22:26.559 --> 00:22:30.359
yeah, with Magic about that far. I mean literally, like wow,

376
00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:32.920
any day, if the wind blew
in a different direction, Magic would be

377
00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:34.359
right on top there. But that's
how close to each other they are.

378
00:22:34.680 --> 00:22:37.839
Then comes the role playing games,
specifically D and D. But you know,

379
00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:41.799
we have some other stuff too.
We have some one Ring and Route

380
00:22:41.920 --> 00:22:45.160
Pathfinder, a couple other things that
we have a little dabbling of in the

381
00:22:45.200 --> 00:22:49.279
store, and then the funks and
then the other stuff that dex applies things

382
00:22:49.279 --> 00:22:52.839
like that. But one of the
things we're talking about community and building a

383
00:22:52.880 --> 00:22:59.319
community is people that come in the
store might come to buy stuff, but

384
00:22:59.359 --> 00:23:02.920
the fact that they can come and
hang here for five minutes or five hours

385
00:23:03.640 --> 00:23:07.920
at zero expense to them. Hopefully
that won't be zero expense all the time.

386
00:23:07.359 --> 00:23:10.920
You know, it's like a casino. It's every minute you're on the

387
00:23:10.960 --> 00:23:15.079
floor, you generate x amount of
dollars, and everything is geared towards keeping

388
00:23:15.119 --> 00:23:18.920
you on the casino floor. We
ran about out of Harris for six years

389
00:23:18.920 --> 00:23:22.880
in Atlantic City, for seven years
actually in Atlantic City, so that's when

390
00:23:22.920 --> 00:23:27.119
I learned that there's restaurants, there's
shows, there's theaters, there's all kinds

391
00:23:27.119 --> 00:23:32.000
of stuff, and most of them
are either break even or money losing propositions

392
00:23:32.039 --> 00:23:34.319
as a business on their own.
Their sole purpose is to keep you on

393
00:23:34.359 --> 00:23:37.480
the floor. So you can't get
from one point to another, from one

394
00:23:37.519 --> 00:23:41.640
event to another without walking through the
casino floor. Well, and there's a

395
00:23:41.680 --> 00:23:45.119
reason for that is, like I
said, time on the floor is eventually

396
00:23:45.240 --> 00:23:49.000
translates into money. So for us, obviously we want the players to be

397
00:23:49.079 --> 00:23:52.960
here and hang out and have fun, and hopefully while they're here, Hey,

398
00:23:52.960 --> 00:23:55.039
I'm gonna buy a drink. Hey, I'm gonna I need new sleeves.

399
00:23:55.079 --> 00:23:56.519
Hey, I need to get deckbox
because I just got into whatever I

400
00:23:56.519 --> 00:24:00.200
got into. Hey I saw the
new book for D and D came out,

401
00:24:00.200 --> 00:24:03.640
the new campaign came out, whatever. So that's that's where the profit

402
00:24:03.720 --> 00:24:06.799
side of it or the business side
of it comes from. But the really

403
00:24:06.839 --> 00:24:10.640
cool part about it is that,
as we started to talk about before and

404
00:24:10.680 --> 00:24:15.680
I mentioned Iris, we can lean
on our community because they're not just there

405
00:24:15.720 --> 00:24:18.960
are friends now, I mean there's
there's people that that we didn't know.

406
00:24:18.640 --> 00:24:23.000
Rob perfect example. Rob started as
a customer, yeah, then became a

407
00:24:23.119 --> 00:24:26.119
part time employee in his spare time, and now as a part owner in

408
00:24:26.160 --> 00:24:30.119
the store. Uh. You know, we've built a family outside of our

409
00:24:30.200 --> 00:24:34.119
direct family with that, and the
same thing with the with the other employees,

410
00:24:34.240 --> 00:24:38.119
but also the players. You know, we have Max was as an

411
00:24:38.119 --> 00:24:42.160
example, friends with a couple of
guys that are our employees. But if

412
00:24:42.160 --> 00:24:45.880
we're shorthanded, or somebody has to
run home for something, or somebody's running

413
00:24:45.920 --> 00:24:48.319
late because they got a flat tire
on the parkway, which has happened more

414
00:24:48.359 --> 00:24:52.079
than once. And I know Max
was going to be high. Maxim mind

415
00:24:52.079 --> 00:24:56.000
staying behind the counter because it'd be
like you asking you, or you know

416
00:24:56.039 --> 00:24:59.599
what I mean. It's it's not
just asking random Joe. It's these These

417
00:24:59.599 --> 00:25:03.799
are people that have become our friends
beyond just the store. Like I couldn't

418
00:25:03.839 --> 00:25:06.599
care less if if Max bought anything
when he came in the store, because

419
00:25:06.640 --> 00:25:07.640
I know I could ask him to
go behind the counter while I ran to

420
00:25:07.680 --> 00:25:12.960
the bathroom or whatever. And that's
where building the community is really really important.

421
00:25:14.359 --> 00:25:18.519
Plus growing the community is you're going
to stagnate if you don't grow your

422
00:25:18.519 --> 00:25:21.559
community. I mean, the store
is only going to sell so much product.

423
00:25:21.519 --> 00:25:23.440
There's only going to be so many
one time people coming back and forth.

424
00:25:23.960 --> 00:25:27.480
Your regulars are The regulars aren't where
your profit is. The regulars are

425
00:25:27.519 --> 00:25:30.079
where you get you through the hard
times, the dead times, the quiet

426
00:25:30.200 --> 00:25:33.880
nights, the winter when kids are
in school, there's not as much activity

427
00:25:33.880 --> 00:25:38.000
because the kids are in school five
days a week. So you need both.

428
00:25:38.079 --> 00:25:41.799
You need to have the word spread
that you exist. So the average

429
00:25:41.799 --> 00:25:44.920
one time here, I come in
once a month, I come in once

430
00:25:44.960 --> 00:25:47.720
in a while, comes through the
store. But at the same token,

431
00:25:47.759 --> 00:25:49.880
the regulars also are going to help
spread that work because say, hey,

432
00:25:51.200 --> 00:25:55.680
my friend my cousins in from Kansas
this week and we talk about magic all

433
00:25:55.680 --> 00:25:57.079
the time, but you know he's
never seen it. Well, then the

434
00:25:57.079 --> 00:26:00.319
friend from Kansas was here for five
days because they were here every night,

435
00:26:00.440 --> 00:26:03.920
like, oh, he's hooked.
And I know when they go back to

436
00:26:03.960 --> 00:26:07.240
wherever they live, they're going to
find their local game store and be doing

437
00:26:07.279 --> 00:26:10.519
the same thing there that we were
doing here. And to know that you

438
00:26:10.519 --> 00:26:14.160
can literally have people from any part
of the world and they see that as

439
00:26:14.160 --> 00:26:18.599
soon as they see Pokemon, Magic, dungeons or whatever, they gravity towards

440
00:26:18.680 --> 00:26:21.039
the store and as soon as they
see the games, they're just like,

441
00:26:21.119 --> 00:26:22.920
oh, yeah, you know,
we're only here for a week. But

442
00:26:22.440 --> 00:26:26.240
night, what night's modern? And
they're here? When do you have a

443
00:26:26.240 --> 00:26:27.640
one shot going on? You have
a one shot going on Wednesday night?

444
00:26:29.079 --> 00:26:33.400
Honey? What were we doing Wednesday
night? You know that's up right,

445
00:26:33.559 --> 00:26:38.680
exactly right, And all that casual
downtime sets the tone for those events you

446
00:26:38.720 --> 00:26:45.319
have that are directly revenue generating,
like your pre releases and things like that.

447
00:26:45.480 --> 00:26:48.720
If people are maybe real casual and
would be like, oh, I

448
00:26:48.720 --> 00:26:52.279
could never do pre release stats a
little too intense for me. But if

449
00:26:52.319 --> 00:26:56.839
they're really enjoying their time here,
and you know, they trust that you're

450
00:26:56.880 --> 00:27:00.359
going to be cool about it and
they're going to have a good time and

451
00:27:00.400 --> 00:27:04.039
they're not going to be overwhelmed,
that you know, will encourage people to

452
00:27:04.240 --> 00:27:07.359
do some of those things that do
actually bring that money in directly. I'll

453
00:27:07.400 --> 00:27:11.960
give you the best example of community
that the most recent example that we've had

454
00:27:11.480 --> 00:27:18.440
a couple months ago, a local
store twenty minutes from here closed down after

455
00:27:18.480 --> 00:27:23.559
being open for however many decades they've
been open, and we've got almost all

456
00:27:23.559 --> 00:27:26.599
of their Magic players came from there
to here, because again it was within

457
00:27:26.640 --> 00:27:32.960
twenty minutes of us, and the
week that the store closed was the week

458
00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:37.039
of the set Firexia that has was
coming out for Magic the Gathering, and

459
00:27:37.920 --> 00:27:41.319
we did there. They did the
pre release here instead of at the store

460
00:27:41.359 --> 00:27:45.960
that they had been going to,
so our overnight, our number of players

461
00:27:45.039 --> 00:27:51.119
for doing pre release doubled almost overnight. And I came in here that Friday

462
00:27:51.240 --> 00:27:53.200
night. I was working on the
boat, so by the time I got

463
00:27:53.240 --> 00:27:57.359
off work, it was like six
o'clock and that was when the pre release

464
00:27:57.440 --> 00:28:00.279
events started. So by the time
I got here it was almost six thirty

465
00:28:00.640 --> 00:28:03.400
and I walk in and every table
was full. There were twenty four people

466
00:28:03.400 --> 00:28:07.200
back here. There were twelve people
or whatever it was up front, and

467
00:28:07.359 --> 00:28:11.000
as I looked at every table,
there was at least one, if not

468
00:28:11.079 --> 00:28:14.880
two, of our regular players for
that that had been playing for the past

469
00:28:14.960 --> 00:28:18.880
year since we opened, mixed in
with the guys from the store that had

470
00:28:18.920 --> 00:28:22.039
closed. You only get one shot
to get that right. And now again,

471
00:28:22.200 --> 00:28:27.279
that was really cool because knowing you
had a group of twenty plus people

472
00:28:27.440 --> 00:28:33.519
regular that were regular weekly twice sometimes, you know, twice a week that

473
00:28:33.599 --> 00:28:37.799
had all been playing together for years
at one place. Another group of people

474
00:28:37.799 --> 00:28:40.599
here at our store that had some
had come from other stores, some were

475
00:28:40.640 --> 00:28:41.799
just you know, new to the
games, whatever it be, whether it

476
00:28:41.839 --> 00:28:47.319
was Magic or it was you know, playing Dungeons and Dragons. They all

477
00:28:47.400 --> 00:28:52.039
instantly meshed. And I know with
various types of hobbies with nerd groups,

478
00:28:52.079 --> 00:28:55.200
sometimes they don't mesh real Well,
Oh, that's those are the guys,

479
00:28:55.200 --> 00:28:57.839
you guys are those guys? Were
these now not not clicky, and like

480
00:28:57.920 --> 00:29:03.400
I said, it was literally you
couldn't have if I couldn't have seeded them

481
00:29:03.519 --> 00:29:06.000
better if I had tried to say, Okay, one from Platinum, one

482
00:29:06.079 --> 00:29:07.960
from US, one from Planet,
and that's exactly how and it just did

483
00:29:07.960 --> 00:29:11.559
that organically. It's great and it
was so cool to see. I don't

484
00:29:11.559 --> 00:29:12.480
know if I've ever told any of
the guys that, so if they ever

485
00:29:12.519 --> 00:29:15.880
see this, they'll be like,
oh, he's talking about us. But

486
00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:21.039
it was so cool. The matchmaking
RNG tells us story. Yeah right,

487
00:29:21.519 --> 00:29:22.920
it was so cool to see.
And then, of course, as a

488
00:29:22.960 --> 00:29:26.160
couple of weeks went by and I
started to watch what happened on Tuesday nights

489
00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:30.440
with Commander and what started to happen
on Wednesday nights with Modern. One of

490
00:29:30.440 --> 00:29:33.680
the guy any this all comes from
the owner's perspective. To answer back to

491
00:29:33.680 --> 00:29:38.440
your original question. One of the
guys that plays Modern every Wednesday night,

492
00:29:38.440 --> 00:29:44.319
his name is Joe, And about
two sundays before the game, the game

493
00:29:44.400 --> 00:29:48.440
store up in Howell closed. Joe
and his wife came into this store and

494
00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:52.119
it was a Sunday. I didn't
know anything about Platinum or that they were

495
00:29:52.160 --> 00:29:56.400
closing down or anything at the time, and they spent like a half hour

496
00:29:56.519 --> 00:30:00.160
forty minutes here asking about magic at
looking at all the d D stuff,

497
00:30:00.200 --> 00:30:03.720
looking at Pokemon, and he kept
going back to our wall of deck supplies

498
00:30:03.720 --> 00:30:07.319
that I showed you before, and
so I said, yeah, I said,

499
00:30:07.319 --> 00:30:11.920
you know, if there's something you're
looking for. Fridays are usually our

500
00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:15.240
distributor days where we do a pickup
from one of our main distributors. So

501
00:30:15.319 --> 00:30:18.079
by Friday said, because you know, our stock is actually the dex supplies

502
00:30:18.079 --> 00:30:19.279
are a little low, so we've
got a big restock coming on Friday.

503
00:30:19.279 --> 00:30:22.319
And he looked at me, he
said, that's low because the store he

504
00:30:22.359 --> 00:30:26.119
was used to go into, that
wasn't one of their focuses. It wasn't

505
00:30:26.119 --> 00:30:27.880
because they didn't like they just not
what they focused on. Well, that's

506
00:30:27.920 --> 00:30:30.720
one of the things we do focus
on. So I come to find out

507
00:30:30.799 --> 00:30:33.839
later that Joe was the scout for
the guys from Platinum because they knew the

508
00:30:33.839 --> 00:30:37.119
store was closing down and they were
looking for another place close by. So

509
00:30:37.160 --> 00:30:41.279
he came in to check out the
store because they knew we existed, and

510
00:30:41.359 --> 00:30:44.440
maybe a couple of them had been
in here. I see Joe every week

511
00:30:44.839 --> 00:30:48.559
every wednes a few exceptions obviously,
but he'd hear every Wednesday, and it

512
00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:52.400
was so nice to have somebody that
I had no attachment to him, he

513
00:30:52.400 --> 00:30:55.200
had no attachment to me. And
we instantly were like, oh, yeah,

514
00:30:55.240 --> 00:30:56.119
I know where I'm good. You
do modern on Wednesdays. I know

515
00:30:56.160 --> 00:30:59.799
where I'm going to be on Wednesdays. And as a player, and as

516
00:30:59.839 --> 00:31:03.400
they uh uh, really, whatever
you game, your game is it's important

517
00:31:03.440 --> 00:31:07.200
to find this story that is like
that feels like home. Um. And

518
00:31:07.240 --> 00:31:08.079
I've had a few over the years, and like you know, and the

519
00:31:08.079 --> 00:31:11.799
only reason I really went from one
to the others because they kept closing.

520
00:31:11.240 --> 00:31:18.400
But right, um, but no
one one closed because the the the plaza

521
00:31:18.480 --> 00:31:22.240
that they were in had this massive
construction project that a lot of stores didn't

522
00:31:22.279 --> 00:31:26.920
survive through. Um. It just
destroyed their parking and destroyed their visibility.

523
00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:30.839
And just like you're at the Mercy
your landlord always yeah. And I remember,

524
00:31:30.920 --> 00:31:33.279
like you know, being one of
the last holdouts and being there and

525
00:31:33.319 --> 00:31:36.759
then last time, the last night
and helping them lock up for the last

526
00:31:36.839 --> 00:31:40.599
night. That was what that was
what ended my career as a retailer was

527
00:31:41.319 --> 00:31:45.079
um our lease was up and I
was looking down the barrel of do I

528
00:31:45.119 --> 00:31:48.799
want to do this another ten years? Because if I want a lease,

529
00:31:48.880 --> 00:31:51.119
that's what I got to commit to. Okay, Yeah, And I said

530
00:31:51.160 --> 00:31:52.160
no, I don't think so.
And that was that. That was what

531
00:31:52.200 --> 00:31:56.279
I think we're done here. Yeah, wound my wound my stores down,

532
00:31:56.759 --> 00:32:00.000
nice soft landings. That was I
was glad we did that. We mentioned

533
00:32:00.160 --> 00:32:02.440
taken some of your like your regulars
and Billy, hey, uh, you

534
00:32:02.480 --> 00:32:06.400
know something went down. You might
just jump behind the register for a minute.

535
00:32:06.400 --> 00:32:09.160
We trust you. I think there's
three separate game stores through where I've

536
00:32:09.200 --> 00:32:14.119
been that guy right where like they
they'll they'll hire me for a day,

537
00:32:14.240 --> 00:32:15.559
like hey, hey, ill three
X dollars cash, and just like yeah,

538
00:32:15.599 --> 00:32:17.640
I could name me a half a
dozen people right now that I would

539
00:32:17.680 --> 00:32:22.920
do that within a heartbeat, you
know, because Peter and Josh brothers same

540
00:32:22.960 --> 00:32:24.920
thing. If one of them is
in the store, my son and might

541
00:32:24.960 --> 00:32:28.640
do it all the time. Hey, Mikey's alone because John had to go

542
00:32:28.720 --> 00:32:30.240
home his mom and need head a
doctors or point whatever, and it'd be

543
00:32:30.279 --> 00:32:32.359
like Pete and Josh are in the
store. But okay, never mind,

544
00:32:32.559 --> 00:32:36.400
sure, yeah, we're fine,
don't worry about it because you know where

545
00:32:36.440 --> 00:32:37.200
he and I are, trum my
son and I are trying to figure out

546
00:32:37.240 --> 00:32:40.720
how to get from wherever we're We
are doing whatever we're doing to get to

547
00:32:40.759 --> 00:32:45.359
the store. And because it's Commander
Knight and it's busier, it's draft night

548
00:32:45.400 --> 00:32:49.680
on Friday, and it's busy,
whatever the case may be. And as

549
00:32:49.680 --> 00:32:52.319
soon as either I told him or
he told me, depending which one of

550
00:32:52.400 --> 00:32:53.240
us had stopped by here, I'd
been like, well, no, Josh

551
00:32:53.240 --> 00:32:55.839
and Peter there, it's like,
oh good. So if Maxney, you

552
00:32:55.839 --> 00:32:59.680
know, if Nick needs help,
he can just say hey, Pete,

553
00:32:59.720 --> 00:33:01.119
can you help me out for a
second? People yeah, sure, Like

554
00:33:01.160 --> 00:33:05.400
they won't think twice about it.
Uh, And that's that's a nice thing.

555
00:33:05.400 --> 00:33:07.319
But another thing back and in that
position, like sometimes you're like,

556
00:33:07.359 --> 00:33:09.599
oh, I get to help,
right, It's not I gotta help.

557
00:33:09.599 --> 00:33:15.079
I get to and like I get
to hook behind counter. Man, I'm

558
00:33:15.119 --> 00:33:16.720
going behind the counter. It's like
it's it's like you know, sitting at

559
00:33:16.720 --> 00:33:20.160
the sitting at the adults table.
So it's kind of I got that kind

560
00:33:20.160 --> 00:33:22.960
of feeling. And also, like
the phrasees before is like having a place

561
00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:25.480
kind of feel like home and like, um, yeah, on on this

562
00:33:25.599 --> 00:33:30.359
side of things, Uh, it
feels like the venue is providing so much

563
00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:35.440
for us and just having the opportunity
to just get back even just that little

564
00:33:35.480 --> 00:33:37.200
bit. Oh yeah. Um.
So many times I've had some of the

565
00:33:37.240 --> 00:33:38.880
guys that have been say, hey
man, thanks a lot from like,

566
00:33:39.119 --> 00:33:43.400
no, you helped me out,
Like that's the other way around, helping

567
00:33:43.400 --> 00:33:46.039
pick your helping pay my ranks.
So yeah, um, but but it

568
00:33:46.119 --> 00:33:50.599
is that important and uh and this
is why, like I don't think once

569
00:33:50.640 --> 00:33:52.839
in this whole podcast episode did we
say the phrase customer base or anything like

570
00:33:52.880 --> 00:33:58.319
that. It's it's culture and community
and friend group. Yeah, and there's

571
00:33:58.359 --> 00:34:05.640
there's there's not a lot of other
um businesses there business types or types of

572
00:34:05.680 --> 00:34:07.960
stores that I really can do that. I was about to say the music

573
00:34:07.960 --> 00:34:13.480
stores, but they were usually worse, especially when they put the sign up

574
00:34:13.519 --> 00:34:16.400
no stairway to Heaven. I stand
by that though. No smoke on the

575
00:34:16.400 --> 00:34:20.960
water either. Come on, let
everybody learned pay out on the Guitar Center

576
00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:23.840
for twenty minutes at one pm on
a Saturday in the summer when the kids

577
00:34:23.840 --> 00:34:27.440
are off at school, and you
tell me you ever want to hear stairway.

578
00:34:27.480 --> 00:34:31.000
Ever again, I hear you.
But for example, when talking about

579
00:34:31.440 --> 00:34:36.280
as far as the difference between customer
base and community and friend group, etc.

580
00:34:36.840 --> 00:34:38.760
Is one of the people that stopped
by here on that pre released day

581
00:34:38.960 --> 00:34:43.920
after that Platinum I Clothes was one
of the two former owners of Platinum Dean

582
00:34:43.960 --> 00:34:45.639
came in here, Hey, thanks
for taking care of my guys. Not

583
00:34:45.760 --> 00:34:50.480
thanks for taking care of my customers, thanks for my guy. Yeah,

584
00:34:51.239 --> 00:34:52.559
and that was exactly the way he
felt. It was really not. I'd

585
00:34:52.599 --> 00:34:55.679
never met him before. Really nice
guy, and I just don't I have

586
00:34:55.800 --> 00:35:00.440
been to that store. I've done
a couple of Pokemon Go tournaments there when

587
00:35:00.519 --> 00:35:06.559
when PvP was a thing just before
pandemic fact I think got February twenty twenty,

588
00:35:06.639 --> 00:35:08.159
we had like our last in person
torn to me and they we hadn't

589
00:35:08.199 --> 00:35:13.760
started those up again until like two
months ago. Yeah, but yeah,

590
00:35:13.760 --> 00:35:15.960
I definitely wasn't side there and it
was a cool spot. Yeah. I

591
00:35:15.960 --> 00:35:19.360
never got to go in the store
because my wife works in an alpin so

592
00:35:19.400 --> 00:35:22.480
I had to drive past it on
Route nine on a fairly regular basis.

593
00:35:22.519 --> 00:35:24.000
I would go up there quite often. It was right off one ninety five

594
00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:27.639
Doctor that was her asthma doctor since
she was thirteen years old. She's now

595
00:35:27.679 --> 00:35:30.400
been the practice manager for for ten
years, so she got a little bit

596
00:35:30.440 --> 00:35:31.960
back from that doctor, at least
after a while. She Harmon refused go

597
00:35:32.039 --> 00:35:36.880
that she's been working for for over
a decade now, because every time I

598
00:35:36.960 --> 00:35:37.920
drove by it was like if I
had to bring her up something the morning,

599
00:35:38.000 --> 00:35:40.119
or you know, if she was
going for an appointment herself, whatever,

600
00:35:40.400 --> 00:35:43.440
and they were always close at that
time of day. So while I

601
00:35:43.519 --> 00:35:45.320
knew where the store was, I
was not familiar with the store beyond that.

602
00:35:46.320 --> 00:35:50.039
But it's been so cool, and
interestingly enough, one of the regulars

603
00:35:50.079 --> 00:35:52.760
that's there another Mike, So now, oh, Mike's in the store.

604
00:35:52.920 --> 00:35:58.239
Which one. There's a lot of
them about. But it's been really cool

605
00:35:58.280 --> 00:36:01.880
to see how the people from various
groups move. And of course, like

606
00:36:01.960 --> 00:36:06.119
with our fishing boats, everybody has
their favorite captain, everybody has their favorite

607
00:36:06.119 --> 00:36:07.880
boat. Everybody has their favorite Italian
restaurant. The one you think is the

608
00:36:07.880 --> 00:36:12.480
best Italian food in the world.
The next person I don't like that because

609
00:36:12.519 --> 00:36:15.880
they got you burnt toast one time
or something. Everybody has their thing,

610
00:36:16.320 --> 00:36:19.840
and I've been used to it in
my whole life with the fishing boats,

611
00:36:19.840 --> 00:36:22.239
where who's running the boat today for
me? And my cousin Francis is on

612
00:36:22.239 --> 00:36:25.599
the boat today, Okay, thanks
and they driveway And I know because he

613
00:36:25.639 --> 00:36:30.039
doesn't like the fish with Francis because
he went out one time twelve years ago

614
00:36:30.320 --> 00:36:32.440
and didn't have a good day.
So that of course it's the captain's fault.

615
00:36:32.480 --> 00:36:36.159
Well, it's no different with any
any type of retailer. You go

616
00:36:36.280 --> 00:36:39.559
one time, one bad experience can
wipe out a lifetime of good experiences from

617
00:36:39.559 --> 00:36:45.239
the customer's perspective. Absolutely, that's
just the way it is. The beauty

618
00:36:45.280 --> 00:36:47.960
with what I've found in the fifteen
ish months that we've been opened now with

619
00:36:49.039 --> 00:36:54.320
this store is one bad experience doesn't
necessarily taint your entire experience at the store

620
00:36:54.360 --> 00:37:00.119
because everybody is so far past that. Oh I'm just a customer that just

621
00:37:00.159 --> 00:37:02.880
like when you get in an argument
with your friend and a week later you'll

622
00:37:02.880 --> 00:37:06.039
be like, dude, really,
are we gonna Are we gonna hold a

623
00:37:06.079 --> 00:37:09.440
grudge against each other? And that
can happen obviously depends on what the circumstances.

624
00:37:09.440 --> 00:37:14.480
Well, yeah, but in general, there's a lot more of Hey,

625
00:37:14.679 --> 00:37:16.119
sorry about that, dude, don't
worry about it. I get it,

626
00:37:16.199 --> 00:37:20.400
you know, and you just don't
usually hear that in a retail store

627
00:37:20.519 --> 00:37:22.320
environment. But this is a game
store, not just a retail store,

628
00:37:22.360 --> 00:37:24.840
and there's a difference. And anybody
that tells you there isn't a difference doesn't

629
00:37:24.840 --> 00:37:29.320
know what they're talking about, because
there's absolutely difference, no question about it.

630
00:37:29.960 --> 00:37:31.960
Unless you were you know, don't
have gaming space, then you're just

631
00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:35.719
a retail store. But as soon
as you put these tables in that we're

632
00:37:35.719 --> 00:37:38.360
sitting at, and you have a
regular group of people that this has become

633
00:37:38.400 --> 00:37:43.280
a venue that they frequent first whatever
reason, maybe Pokemon, Magic, Dungeons

634
00:37:43.280 --> 00:37:49.039
and Dragons, that changes the dynamic. Absolutely automatically changes it in a good

635
00:37:49.119 --> 00:37:53.000
way. By the way, of
course, yeah, imaged the tables that

636
00:37:53.039 --> 00:37:55.079
we're at right now. I want
to talk at the shop itself. So

637
00:37:55.119 --> 00:37:59.599
we are in like you're like,
the store is almost divided into like two

638
00:37:59.639 --> 00:38:01.760
separate sections. Here. You got
a little corridor with at least your RPG

639
00:38:02.679 --> 00:38:06.760
book room, right, Um,
I should kind of four sections. We'll

640
00:38:06.800 --> 00:38:07.599
get to that. We'll get to
the fun fourth one a little bit,

641
00:38:07.719 --> 00:38:10.880
but we're kind of in your back
here. Um, and you gotta one,

642
00:38:10.920 --> 00:38:15.400
two, three, four tables over
here that can see from what I

643
00:38:15.440 --> 00:38:19.039
can see, about twenty four people
or so. Yeah, it's usually it's

644
00:38:19.079 --> 00:38:22.840
it's a max six per table.
Yeah. Um. And this is where

645
00:38:22.880 --> 00:38:25.239
I run the one shots that I
do here. You have tournaments here,

646
00:38:25.320 --> 00:38:30.039
Pokemon tournaments here. Um. You
have other dms that are running one shots

647
00:38:30.159 --> 00:38:32.000
any ongoing games right now. Um. No, that's the kind of things

648
00:38:32.039 --> 00:38:36.320
we're hoping to do too, because
I would love to see where the people

649
00:38:36.320 --> 00:38:37.440
are coming back, whether it's once
a month, twice a month, whatever,

650
00:38:37.440 --> 00:38:39.079
and say hey, where are you
at now? Yeah, hey,

651
00:38:39.079 --> 00:38:42.719
how far have you made it?
You know, get some campaigns running yet?

652
00:38:42.920 --> 00:38:45.880
That's exactly cool. Yeah. So
so now that Jim knows is not

653
00:38:45.920 --> 00:38:49.280
too too bad of a drive,
maybe it was not bad like like a

654
00:38:49.320 --> 00:38:51.599
one shot every now and then I
could come down to that shore you.

655
00:38:51.920 --> 00:38:54.840
Um, I'm I'm considering something.
I don't want to like announce something that

656
00:38:54.840 --> 00:38:58.760
I can't promise on the show.
But we'll figure something out because I do.

657
00:38:58.800 --> 00:39:01.159
I do enjoy running games here and
the crowd, the regulars that I've

658
00:39:01.159 --> 00:39:04.239
been signing up for a game after
game at the game again. I got

659
00:39:04.280 --> 00:39:07.280
some of them that, like I've
run what five or six? Now,

660
00:39:07.599 --> 00:39:12.199
uh, maybe maybe you release that, Yeah if we include well, because

661
00:39:12.199 --> 00:39:14.880
I was doing two a month for
a bit there, so it's probably closer

662
00:39:14.920 --> 00:39:17.039
to ten. Yeah, probably about
that. Um. And if I'm running

663
00:39:17.039 --> 00:39:22.559
two in a day, it's actually
the same scenario so but not necessarily the

664
00:39:22.559 --> 00:39:24.280
same people. So well, if
it's the same people, then we then

665
00:39:24.280 --> 00:39:28.519
we run a different scenario. But
yeah, so I'm probably about ten or

666
00:39:28.519 --> 00:39:31.719
twelve. And then plus the the
absolute beginner's UM workshop that I put together.

667
00:39:32.239 --> 00:39:36.719
Um, so you know I've run
a good amount here, and like

668
00:39:36.760 --> 00:39:38.119
some people have been coming back for
more than half of them. Sure,

669
00:39:38.320 --> 00:39:43.119
um uh, you know, will
shout out Shannon, We'll shout out Austin

670
00:39:43.159 --> 00:39:45.519
who's been coming back. Matt and
his family, all three of them have

671
00:39:45.639 --> 00:39:50.559
been have been fantastic UM and they
literally started like from the ground. Oh

672
00:39:50.599 --> 00:39:53.400
I was different, mats I was
Matt's first game, right, So having

673
00:39:53.440 --> 00:39:57.199
the whole family come back over and
over and over again and watching them like

674
00:39:57.440 --> 00:40:00.880
coming back with like more gear and
more dice, knowing more of the rules,

675
00:40:00.920 --> 00:40:04.960
and like knowing their their character,
their their class features, more and

676
00:40:05.039 --> 00:40:09.119
more and like really getting into the
role play definitely, Um, without knowing

677
00:40:09.320 --> 00:40:14.039
the trope or the joke or why
it was so wonderful for me, we

678
00:40:14.119 --> 00:40:20.079
had an actual literal bobblin the goblin
moment where they kidnapped, slashed, adopted

679
00:40:20.599 --> 00:40:22.760
a goblin that I threw at them
and made it their best friend. And

680
00:40:23.480 --> 00:40:28.519
without knowing why that was so like
that it's like just a thing in the

681
00:40:28.599 --> 00:40:30.639
game, right, Um, just
like accidentally like threw that one to me.

682
00:40:30.679 --> 00:40:32.440
That was one of my favorite moments
of the last game. But there

683
00:40:32.440 --> 00:40:37.559
the players have been fantastic. Um. But so so that's where we run

684
00:40:37.559 --> 00:40:38.639
this. Back here in the front
of the store. You've got most of

685
00:40:38.679 --> 00:40:42.119
your retail. Uh, you walk
in, your your phone goes on the

686
00:40:42.199 --> 00:40:45.320
right, you got your your accounter
on the left. There your accessories a

687
00:40:45.320 --> 00:40:46.800
little bit hast to that. You
have more gaming tables up front. Yeah,

688
00:40:46.840 --> 00:40:52.480
the total seating we could do like
forty two people could be playing simultaneously

689
00:40:52.519 --> 00:40:53.960
between the front and the back of
the store. So one of the things

690
00:40:53.960 --> 00:40:58.559
we decided when we when Mike and
I say we, it was primarily my

691
00:40:58.599 --> 00:41:00.360
son and I that that started everything
at least and we had friends come in

692
00:41:00.400 --> 00:41:05.960
and et cetera that have helped us
build this into what it is. Is

693
00:41:06.119 --> 00:41:08.159
we didn't want any product from the
whole way back. As you said,

694
00:41:08.199 --> 00:41:12.960
it's the vault in the RPG room
that make that kind of separate the front

695
00:41:12.960 --> 00:41:16.400
from the back. The idea was, this is just to hang out.

696
00:41:16.639 --> 00:41:20.079
This is just to play, not
that people don't play up front. If

697
00:41:20.079 --> 00:41:22.320
there's not a need for all the
extra space back here. Everybody hangs out

698
00:41:22.400 --> 00:41:24.679
up front because you're up front,
why I walk all the way to the

699
00:41:24.719 --> 00:41:29.119
back. But the idea this was
we wanted to have a space that was

700
00:41:29.360 --> 00:41:32.039
just for people to hang. Yeah, nothing to do with you know,

701
00:41:32.079 --> 00:41:37.039
they're not going to be staring at
product on the wall, right, Yes,

702
00:41:37.159 --> 00:41:39.440
so that's why there's no product back
here. Well, and there won't

703
00:41:39.440 --> 00:41:44.920
be product back here. I might
eventually move the stocks and drinks. That's

704
00:41:44.960 --> 00:41:49.119
just the backstock. That's why I
might. Even if you watch YouTube,

705
00:41:49.119 --> 00:41:52.239
you'll see in the back of Jim's
camera over there. So that was one

706
00:41:52.280 --> 00:41:55.199
of the things. But one of
the other goals that we had for the

707
00:41:55.239 --> 00:41:58.639
store, as I had mentioned earlier, was we wanted it to be our

708
00:41:58.719 --> 00:42:01.039
hangout, not just like it's great
other people come and hang at the store.

709
00:42:01.360 --> 00:42:04.960
I want to come and hang at
the store. That's why I did

710
00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:07.719
this. So we wanted to make
it like our whole, like our home

711
00:42:07.880 --> 00:42:12.840
is um As I had mentioned to
Jim, you know all of the book

712
00:42:12.920 --> 00:42:14.679
ends that are on the books shelves, Yeah, they all came from my

713
00:42:14.719 --> 00:42:17.079
house. Yeah. Some of the
posters and stuff that came from my house.

714
00:42:17.239 --> 00:42:20.480
Of course I had to replace them
now so I didn't have another one

715
00:42:21.360 --> 00:42:23.159
is my wife. My wife was
thinking that there were going to be less

716
00:42:23.239 --> 00:42:29.800
gargoyles in that room. Now think
that. But it all started with the

717
00:42:29.800 --> 00:42:34.519
the which you can't see on camera
right now, but the patent for Boba

718
00:42:34.519 --> 00:42:38.400
Fett was the first thing I bought
for the store because it's the fat you

719
00:42:38.400 --> 00:42:43.199
know, say no more. And
then once I got that and I was

720
00:42:43.239 --> 00:42:44.880
looking at I was like, well, she's like, where are you gonna

721
00:42:44.880 --> 00:42:46.119
put us? I know exactly where
it's going to go, be some front

722
00:42:46.119 --> 00:42:49.480
and center right in between the tables
there. And what we're doing that we

723
00:42:49.559 --> 00:42:52.079
might as well do a whole Star
Wars wall. Or if we're gonna do

724
00:42:52.119 --> 00:42:53.039
a wall of Star Wars, well
let's do something for Magic. Well,

725
00:42:53.039 --> 00:42:55.079
we're gonna do that. Let's do
something and the next thing, you know,

726
00:42:55.119 --> 00:42:58.920
the entire store was we had way
more fun decorating the store than we

727
00:42:59.039 --> 00:43:02.599
did anything else. Um. That's
why I put Team At up behind him

728
00:43:02.679 --> 00:43:06.840
right now, because the alternative was
to see the it's time for Dungeons and

729
00:43:06.880 --> 00:43:09.639
Duties sign that's on the bathroom wall. I think I think the way the

730
00:43:09.639 --> 00:43:13.440
camera's position was, say, Team
At is eating the back of Jim's head,

731
00:43:13.480 --> 00:43:15.519
So that's kind of cool about right. Yeah, that behind me is

732
00:43:15.800 --> 00:43:21.239
Zatics patterns behind me. That is
how that story would end. The Magic

733
00:43:21.280 --> 00:43:24.159
frame up behind me, okay,
Um, but it is the hangout.

734
00:43:24.199 --> 00:43:27.800
But at the same token it we
needed to keep it a retail space.

735
00:43:27.840 --> 00:43:30.760
Obviously needed as much square footage as
possible to put the product in. So

736
00:43:30.840 --> 00:43:36.760
it's it's been a balancing act between
the two. The beauty of it is

737
00:43:36.840 --> 00:43:39.599
that the clientele will immediately let you
know what's not going to sell, so

738
00:43:39.639 --> 00:43:43.679
then we can move that over to
the clearance table and make room for something

739
00:43:43.719 --> 00:43:45.320
else. Yeah, and we've changed
a few things since we started. You

740
00:43:45.360 --> 00:43:47.239
know, we had comics in the
Store's going to say, like, I

741
00:43:47.280 --> 00:43:50.119
don't know, if you want to
even want to like draw attention to it.

742
00:43:50.119 --> 00:43:52.679
But you said, sure, you
mentioned your your four core products when

743
00:43:52.719 --> 00:43:53.960
I met you, if there were
five, there were five core products,

744
00:43:54.000 --> 00:43:58.119
right, And this was a comic
bookstore as well, and uh, and

745
00:43:58.199 --> 00:44:00.199
it never was more than a fifth
of the store though. Uh. And

746
00:44:00.440 --> 00:44:05.840
once we realized what was going to
be involved at out and laying laing of

747
00:44:05.920 --> 00:44:12.599
money for weekly comics for new stock
between both the DC Comic distributor and the

748
00:44:12.599 --> 00:44:16.400
Marvel distributor, you were talking over
twelve hundred dollars a month minimum order just

749
00:44:16.440 --> 00:44:21.800
to carry weekly comics. And they're
crazy labor intensive to getting them in and

750
00:44:21.880 --> 00:44:24.199
shelving him. And there's that big
time pressure to make sure everything gets out

751
00:44:24.239 --> 00:44:28.519
on time. There. Unless you're
really passionate about it, they're a huge

752
00:44:28.559 --> 00:44:30.079
paint in the ask to sell.
Yeah, and there's other stories that are

753
00:44:30.599 --> 00:44:35.639
common about it, but sure it
is well. Yeah, I have a

754
00:44:35.639 --> 00:44:37.480
few friends that are former comic bookstore
owner. It's not so much gaming,

755
00:44:37.519 --> 00:44:42.320
but like like strictly comics and and
like you know, the their favorite thing

756
00:44:42.360 --> 00:44:44.760
in the world was when they had
enough stuff to to start the comic book

757
00:44:44.760 --> 00:44:46.480
store, and their second favorite day
was when they closed up shopping. Yeah,

758
00:44:46.639 --> 00:44:51.320
pretty much. That's That's what like. Having been a comic bookstore owner

759
00:44:51.440 --> 00:44:53.760
is why I don't read comics anymore. Yeah, and you know there are

760
00:44:53.760 --> 00:44:58.079
other stories around that that specialize in
common. You know, if my entire

761
00:44:58.119 --> 00:45:00.559
store was nothing but comics, that
would be a different story. Yeah,

762
00:45:00.599 --> 00:45:05.360
how about Mooster Red Bank? Are
you guys here is Kevin? Yeah,

763
00:45:05.800 --> 00:45:07.639
it's okay, Yeah, yeah,
twenty five, we're gonna drop as many

764
00:45:07.840 --> 00:45:12.760
new Jersey centric references as are possible
by cancer. But I mean, like,

765
00:45:12.760 --> 00:45:15.119
like, if you can go chop
at Kevin Smith's comic bookstore, it's

766
00:45:15.320 --> 00:45:20.480
a powerful incentives. He's got a
blast radius around that store. I'm sure

767
00:45:20.519 --> 00:45:22.559
that makes it tough to do anything
else. You know, Like I mentioned,

768
00:45:22.599 --> 00:45:25.079
Dean from Platinum came here on the
day that we had that pre release

769
00:45:25.159 --> 00:45:28.119
to say, hey, thanks for
taking care of my guys. There's a

770
00:45:28.599 --> 00:45:30.800
to give a shout out. There's
a store literally around the corner from us,

771
00:45:30.840 --> 00:45:35.199
It's three tenths of a mile from
where we're sitting right now, called

772
00:45:35.199 --> 00:45:39.000
the Comic Stop, the Gentleman Kevin. That that started. He opened right

773
00:45:39.039 --> 00:45:43.079
around the first of April. Within
a week or so in either direction,

774
00:45:43.639 --> 00:45:45.960
and there's a little overlap between his
store and our store, but really the

775
00:45:45.960 --> 00:45:52.840
only overlap is Funkos. Yeah,
he is comics. Funkos and action figures

776
00:45:52.199 --> 00:45:55.000
are the three primary. But he's
got a little bit of Pokemon, you

777
00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:58.760
know. He's got two booster boxes
is something that he happened to pick up

778
00:45:58.760 --> 00:46:02.880
in a cabinet. But he doesn't
do the magic events, he doesn't do

779
00:46:02.920 --> 00:46:07.400
the dungeons and drection, you know. So there's very little overlap, and

780
00:46:07.480 --> 00:46:09.440
fun Coos doesn't really an overlap.
Every place sells fun cos. You can

781
00:46:09.480 --> 00:46:14.039
find fun Co pops all over the
place. I was at Target yesterday,

782
00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:16.519
all over the place. Everybody that
comes in as soon as they ask about

783
00:46:16.519 --> 00:46:21.039
comics is yet right around the corner
you want slabs and sign stuff. Yeah,

784
00:46:21.079 --> 00:46:23.039
he's got really cool that's so.
Yeah, I mean right around the

785
00:46:23.039 --> 00:46:27.719
corner. And that's been a great
part of doing this too. The fishing

786
00:46:27.760 --> 00:46:32.239
boat business, it's very competitive because
you're you're competing for a finite resource that

787
00:46:32.400 --> 00:46:37.159
is only available within a certain distance
in a certain areas. So there's only

788
00:46:37.199 --> 00:46:39.440
so many wrecks that a boat can
anchor on to catch sea bass in a

789
00:46:39.519 --> 00:46:43.559
given season and again, yeah,
and seasonal. That's the other thing I

790
00:46:43.639 --> 00:46:45.519
was going to say. You can
only do it a certain number of months

791
00:46:45.519 --> 00:46:49.199
out of the year. So there's
a lot of competitiveness beyond just the you

792
00:46:49.239 --> 00:46:51.719
know, well I got there first. You know, you're you're fighting for

793
00:46:51.719 --> 00:46:53.079
customers. Who's got the bigger boat, the fast boat, the better captain,

794
00:46:53.119 --> 00:46:55.840
whatever, blah blah blah. With
the game stores, at least in

795
00:46:55.920 --> 00:47:00.039
our neck of the woods, generally
speaking, it has been the exact opposite,

796
00:47:00.159 --> 00:47:02.280
or you want, I couldn't if
I had a dime. For all

797
00:47:02.280 --> 00:47:06.440
of the people that were sent to
us from a couple of places just south

798
00:47:06.480 --> 00:47:09.639
of us for Pokemon, I can't
even count them. Oh yeah, we

799
00:47:09.639 --> 00:47:13.280
were down at X y Z place. And I'm saying that because I can't

800
00:47:13.280 --> 00:47:15.440
remember the name of the ones to
my son is the one that deals with

801
00:47:15.440 --> 00:47:16.719
it. They're right in Toms River, and I just can't think of the

802
00:47:16.800 --> 00:47:22.079
damn name. I'm like, I
imagine to us, thank you, Yeah,

803
00:47:22.119 --> 00:47:23.480
I know those guys. Imagine if
someone can be blanked on the name,

804
00:47:23.559 --> 00:47:27.320
comes in and ask you for ugo
or something like that, there's a

805
00:47:27.320 --> 00:47:30.920
place you can send in the same
thing with comics and yeah, of course,

806
00:47:30.239 --> 00:47:34.800
you know if it's something we sell. We carried a little bit of

807
00:47:34.840 --> 00:47:37.960
ugo, but it was only singles, um and that, and we would

808
00:47:37.960 --> 00:47:38.840
immediately be like, hey, if
you want current stuff, you know,

809
00:47:39.000 --> 00:47:42.800
we're not the place for that.
Yeah. That that store. I've been

810
00:47:42.840 --> 00:47:45.239
there a handful of times. They
just they don't specialize in the things that

811
00:47:45.320 --> 00:47:47.320
I play. They're big Warhammer place, right. Um. Oh yeah,

812
00:47:47.360 --> 00:47:51.159
GW that's the other thing. That
was the thing we did at my store.

813
00:47:51.199 --> 00:47:52.880
Yeah, it was GW was the
Lion's share of our revenue more than

814
00:47:52.920 --> 00:47:57.880
Magic sow than Magic. It's and
it's it's kind of I find it's almost

815
00:47:57.920 --> 00:48:00.880
regional like and I can go block
to lock red where like if you're if

816
00:48:00.920 --> 00:48:06.360
your player base is they're either Magic
player or Warhammer people, and one of

817
00:48:06.360 --> 00:48:08.920
those two things is paying your rent. Yeah, um and uh and if

818
00:48:08.920 --> 00:48:14.199
it's Pokemon here, that's uh.
I love seeing a three faction wars.

819
00:48:14.960 --> 00:48:17.960
Yeah. Well, you know it's
enough with games Workshop to I don't know

820
00:48:19.000 --> 00:48:22.519
how interested your viewers are going to
be in the nitty gritties of you know,

821
00:48:22.639 --> 00:48:25.440
retail game store. But games Workshop
is another one I have I set

822
00:48:25.480 --> 00:48:30.320
up an account with Games Workshop,
and I have not a single product of

823
00:48:30.440 --> 00:48:35.840
Games Workshop in my store at the
moment because their their minimums are so huge.

824
00:48:36.400 --> 00:48:38.239
You know, first of all,
I'm not a Warhammer guy where That's

825
00:48:38.320 --> 00:48:40.519
not what I do here. Yeah, people want to come in and play

826
00:48:40.559 --> 00:48:44.320
Warhammer would be perfectly fine. My
point is it's not a product that we

827
00:48:44.360 --> 00:48:47.320
currently carry. I'll never say never, of course, but it's not a

828
00:48:47.320 --> 00:48:51.840
product we currently carry. But if
I'm not part of their stock is program.

829
00:48:52.039 --> 00:48:53.519
Yeah, they want you to commit
if you're going to carry it,

830
00:48:53.599 --> 00:48:58.880
and which which feels pretty reasonable to
me because then then it means if you

831
00:48:58.960 --> 00:49:00.960
walk into a shop that has it, you know that they're in it.

832
00:49:01.320 --> 00:49:05.800
You know. The hard part.
I one of the things we're going to

833
00:49:05.880 --> 00:49:09.480
expand to here into the into here
in the store is minis miniatures and paints.

834
00:49:09.760 --> 00:49:14.760
Yes, and I wanted one of
the things I wanted to carry with

835
00:49:14.760 --> 00:49:19.719
Citadel Paints. I've been using them
on and off my entire life. Um,

836
00:49:19.760 --> 00:49:22.039
there are lots of other brands out
there. I mean, we're gonna

837
00:49:22.079 --> 00:49:25.360
have um with kids stuff, We're
gonna have Army Painter, I'm gonna have

838
00:49:27.320 --> 00:49:31.719
the Turbo Dorc paints from Reaper,
but I wanted to have Citadel paints.

839
00:49:31.760 --> 00:49:36.119
Well, if I don't do the
stockst program, which is a great program

840
00:49:36.159 --> 00:49:37.840
by the way, for Games Workshop, they applied you with the with the

841
00:49:37.960 --> 00:49:40.199
rack, they give you the stuff
to supply it. You have a little

842
00:49:40.199 --> 00:49:45.199
freedom of choice to pick what you
may or may not want to accentuate in

843
00:49:45.239 --> 00:49:49.960
the in the actual rack itself.
But if I don't do that and I

844
00:49:50.039 --> 00:49:53.280
just want to carry paints, my
minimum order doubles I have just I have

845
00:49:53.320 --> 00:49:59.480
to start with at least four thousand
dollars worth of paints. That's my cost.

846
00:50:00.119 --> 00:50:01.599
Well, I don't need to fill
the store with pain I just need

847
00:50:01.679 --> 00:50:06.760
enough paints for many And that's one
end Games Workshop is just it's not in

848
00:50:06.760 --> 00:50:08.800
our price range right A week,
a month, a year from now,

849
00:50:09.119 --> 00:50:12.440
I hope. So I want everything
to be in our price range. I

850
00:50:12.480 --> 00:50:14.840
want to be able to do as
much stuff as possible. If we think

851
00:50:14.880 --> 00:50:19.639
it's cool, we want to sell
it. So I will talk of the

852
00:50:19.679 --> 00:50:22.360
future as well. But just just
to wrap up, while I started with

853
00:50:22.360 --> 00:50:24.880
with with how stores laid out,
so we know, okay, so the

854
00:50:25.079 --> 00:50:28.920
back gaming room cool, that's fun. The front retail room we kind of

855
00:50:28.920 --> 00:50:31.079
expect that. Let's talk about your
vault. Yeah, the Vault of Wondrous

856
00:50:31.079 --> 00:50:35.679
Treasures. I was telling Jim before
when I was getting in the tour of

857
00:50:35.719 --> 00:50:38.239
the store, I had to sign
the Vault of Wondrous Treasures made. It's

858
00:50:38.239 --> 00:50:43.719
one of those nice big Etsy made
wooden stores wooden signs. Rather, I

859
00:50:43.760 --> 00:50:46.079
had to sign before I had to
sign lease, okay, because we knew

860
00:50:46.079 --> 00:50:50.519
this was what we wanted to do. When when I started looking at spaces,

861
00:50:50.559 --> 00:50:54.360
which was back in September of twenty
twenty one, one of the requirements,

862
00:50:54.440 --> 00:50:58.000
as I had mentioned earlier, is
it needed to be close to home.

863
00:50:58.239 --> 00:51:01.199
Because since this is a side gig
for me, my primary business is

864
00:51:01.280 --> 00:51:06.159
running boats for a living. I
wasn't going to commute a half hour forty

865
00:51:06.159 --> 00:51:08.800
minutes to a side gig when my
real job is fifteen minutes from home and

866
00:51:08.880 --> 00:51:14.079
has been my whole life. So
I was looking locally anything within twenty minutes

867
00:51:14.079 --> 00:51:16.760
of a twenty minute radius of my
house. And when the real estate agent

868
00:51:16.840 --> 00:51:22.000
called called me up about another spot
that he was looking at that fit within

869
00:51:22.119 --> 00:51:24.679
my size, location, et cetera, that I had the parameters I had

870
00:51:24.679 --> 00:51:29.320
set for him, he said The
only downside to this space is it has

871
00:51:29.400 --> 00:51:32.280
this safe in it that you can't
move. So I'm sitting there and this

872
00:51:32.320 --> 00:51:35.559
is on the phone. I'm like
safe. You mean like a like a

873
00:51:35.599 --> 00:51:37.320
floor safe that it was in the
concrete. No. No, no,

874
00:51:37.320 --> 00:51:38.960
like I said, you know,
like with the door that you walk in.

875
00:51:39.199 --> 00:51:43.360
You mean a fault. The coolest
thing you'll ever see is it?

876
00:51:43.400 --> 00:51:46.639
You mean a vault? I'm like, yeah, okay. So I called

877
00:51:46.639 --> 00:51:50.360
my son up and he was at
work and I was at home, and

878
00:51:50.400 --> 00:51:52.280
we met here in the middle and
we're looking at it, you know,

879
00:51:52.519 --> 00:51:55.280
through the window because we don't have
a key or anything to get in yet.

880
00:51:55.639 --> 00:51:59.199
And we see the vault with the
door open, and I were like,

881
00:51:59.400 --> 00:52:00.960
oh, yeah, we ranged a
day for the met have the realtor

882
00:52:01.000 --> 00:52:05.159
come here and you know, gets
the key and from the lock box and

883
00:52:05.199 --> 00:52:07.280
brings you in. And we're looking
at each other. Oh yeah, we're

884
00:52:07.280 --> 00:52:09.920
doing this. Yeah. So I'm
on the phone with them and uh,

885
00:52:09.960 --> 00:52:13.639
I probably shouldn't say this, but
I'll say it anyway, um, just

886
00:52:13.679 --> 00:52:15.320
because he can cut it out if
it turns out to say something we're not

887
00:52:15.360 --> 00:52:17.559
supposed to say. No, I
don't mean that it's not that kind.

888
00:52:17.639 --> 00:52:21.760
It's just not for me. It
was the vault became a negotiating point.

889
00:52:22.400 --> 00:52:23.559
Well, you know it's one hundred
and ten square feet of space that I

890
00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:27.280
can't move it, I can't use
it, I can't do anything. Oh

891
00:52:27.320 --> 00:52:34.239
we'll deduct it me. We're like, yeah, right, so take your

892
00:52:34.280 --> 00:52:37.519
vault away. So that and that
was that was really so we really kind

893
00:52:37.519 --> 00:52:39.079
of built the store around it.
Um, you know, we made the

894
00:52:39.159 --> 00:52:43.119
vault a show piece of the store. Yeah, and I was like the

895
00:52:43.119 --> 00:52:45.079
first day that came in, like
I was just like just looking around that.

896
00:52:45.239 --> 00:52:46.760
Yeah, and like not only like
uh so, it was what do

897
00:52:46.760 --> 00:52:49.199
you have in there? You've got
it. You've got a lot of like

898
00:52:49.719 --> 00:52:52.599
it was a lot of like older
and collectible stuff like the first edition prints

899
00:52:52.639 --> 00:52:57.039
any Pops funcos that are forty dollars
and up going the vault because as you

900
00:52:57.079 --> 00:53:00.280
mentioned, box condition makes it difference. So if it's worth that much,

901
00:53:00.280 --> 00:53:02.000
we really need to protect the box
because some of them are eighty one hundred

902
00:53:02.039 --> 00:53:07.239
dollars where we have signed ones.
Um, there's graded Pokemon and Yugo cards

903
00:53:07.239 --> 00:53:10.000
still some in there too that are
valuable cards. Some of them slab some

904
00:53:10.039 --> 00:53:13.880
of them still raw. I saw
some st after comics in there. Yep,

905
00:53:14.039 --> 00:53:16.599
not anymore. We finally got rid
of the last of them. Had

906
00:53:16.639 --> 00:53:21.719
I had signed comics stan Lee and
all that kind of stuff that we've eventually

907
00:53:21.719 --> 00:53:24.159
moved those all out for a while. You had your your Alternate Art DND

908
00:53:24.239 --> 00:53:28.480
books there. There's there's still a
bunch of first editions. There's still a

909
00:53:28.480 --> 00:53:31.400
whole bunch of first edition first printing
stuff in there. I have first edition

910
00:53:31.440 --> 00:53:36.119
and second edition stuff in the RPG
room, um that anybody can just walk

911
00:53:36.199 --> 00:53:38.039
up and take off the shelf and
buy, because there are fifth prints,

912
00:53:38.079 --> 00:53:42.440
twelfth prints, that kind of stuff. But the first edition first printing staff

913
00:53:42.920 --> 00:53:45.880
valable. Well. The fact the
fact that you have the Vault of the

914
00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:50.199
Drought displayed in the right I thought
it was appropriate. Perfect. Yeah,

915
00:53:50.280 --> 00:53:52.599
well that was you know, like
that was where I had the name of

916
00:53:52.599 --> 00:53:53.880
the store before anything, because I
was I was trying to think of what

917
00:53:53.920 --> 00:53:57.559
it was, and of course I
immediately flashed back to my childhood of you

918
00:53:57.599 --> 00:54:00.400
know, the Dark Tower and all
that kind of stuff. I thought,

919
00:54:00.440 --> 00:54:02.280
you know, the keep would be
cool. I want I want it like

920
00:54:02.320 --> 00:54:06.119
I want a stronghold. But stronghold
just didn't fIF so keep. I mean,

921
00:54:06.119 --> 00:54:07.400
that's what the keep is. You
know, there's the castle and then

922
00:54:07.400 --> 00:54:12.480
the keep is the stronghold you retreat
to if the castle walls are breached.

923
00:54:12.519 --> 00:54:15.760
Yes, so I made up the
whole, this whole logo and everything with

924
00:54:15.159 --> 00:54:23.159
it's actually a combination of Edinburgh Castle
and Edinburgh and another one in Scotland that

925
00:54:23.280 --> 00:54:28.519
I took pieces of all different real
castles and keeps and made the logo.

926
00:54:29.360 --> 00:54:31.599
I had a pewter dragon that my
mom had bought for me like thirty years

927
00:54:31.639 --> 00:54:35.480
ago. That was like a little
pendant that I scanned in and colored and

928
00:54:35.519 --> 00:54:37.880
made the dragon behind it and that
kind of stuff. Picked out the fonts

929
00:54:37.920 --> 00:54:42.519
that I wanted for everything for the
logo, and that was the thought process

930
00:54:42.639 --> 00:54:45.000
was I'm going to start with this
and it's going to be the Keep.

931
00:54:45.360 --> 00:54:47.840
It's a D and D type theme
thing. And also the goal was so

932
00:54:47.880 --> 00:54:52.119
eventually when we moved to a larger
space, I always wanted to have the

933
00:54:52.199 --> 00:54:57.480
Keep and the fortress. The fortress
would be the big one. The Keep

934
00:54:57.480 --> 00:55:00.400
will stay the way it is.
But so that was whe think came from

935
00:55:00.480 --> 00:55:05.239
Keep. I love the thirty minutes
on the business plan thirty hours on the

936
00:55:05.280 --> 00:55:07.639
logo. Yeah, that was the
Yeah, obviously, that's that's the right

937
00:55:07.679 --> 00:55:15.559
part. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so I want to start bringing us

938
00:55:15.599 --> 00:55:17.800
home here. Um, what is
what's in the future for the Keep?

939
00:55:19.840 --> 00:55:23.440
In the future, um, probably
one of the soonest things we're going to

940
00:55:23.519 --> 00:55:28.239
have. I was just showing him
the logo while sure that was that was

941
00:55:28.320 --> 00:55:31.000
what the original logo I had made
up. We'll have links to not only

942
00:55:31.039 --> 00:55:34.599
the Keep and everything like that,
their Facebook page, all their socials and

943
00:55:34.840 --> 00:55:37.639
h linked to the actual store.
We'll put all of the show notes.

944
00:55:37.159 --> 00:55:40.440
Um, and uh, if you
send us that send us that image,

945
00:55:40.960 --> 00:55:43.800
we'll have a link to the image. You can go check that out too.

946
00:55:44.000 --> 00:55:47.559
The in the immediate future will be
probably what will come first before anything

947
00:55:47.639 --> 00:55:52.880
will be uh the new Disney Disney
Lord Kana was there. Disney's coming out

948
00:55:52.920 --> 00:55:57.199
with a TCG with their own card
game. Okay, I heard. So

949
00:55:57.199 --> 00:56:00.719
we're here literally going to be able
to have you know, your favorite character

950
00:56:00.880 --> 00:56:07.079
fight against your favorite Disney princess or
vice versa. That's on the horizon.

951
00:56:07.119 --> 00:56:13.480
It's an August release. I believe
we just recently signed up with There's only

952
00:56:13.480 --> 00:56:16.559
two distributors in the United States,
that carry one Piece, which if you're

953
00:56:16.599 --> 00:56:20.760
not familiar with it, it started
i want to say, over twenty years

954
00:56:20.800 --> 00:56:25.159
ago as a thousands of issues as
a mana and then a anime, and

955
00:56:25.199 --> 00:56:30.199
I mean now that's what like over
a thousand episodes of the anime itself,

956
00:56:30.960 --> 00:56:35.360
and it's now a card game as
well. But there's only two distributors that

957
00:56:35.440 --> 00:56:39.280
carry it because it's Bandai Namco that
that actually produces it, which I've been

958
00:56:39.320 --> 00:56:44.840
playing their video games since like pac
Man stuff back in the eighties, So

959
00:56:44.920 --> 00:56:46.199
we just recently signed up with them, just got an account. With this,

960
00:56:46.239 --> 00:56:49.880
we're gonna be able to run tournaments
in the whole nine yards for one

961
00:56:49.920 --> 00:56:52.360
piece. That'll be coming up in
another few months. On the D and

962
00:56:52.440 --> 00:56:57.320
D front, the next major step
is going to be paints and minis cool.

963
00:56:57.960 --> 00:57:00.719
I don't know if we're weeks or
months away from that yet, because

964
00:57:00.760 --> 00:57:02.760
with so many other things going on
and we can only devote so many resources

965
00:57:02.760 --> 00:57:07.159
to I can't as much as I
might want paints and minis. I know,

966
00:57:07.199 --> 00:57:12.159
I've got two more sets of Magic
and two new TCGs that are coming

967
00:57:12.159 --> 00:57:15.440
out over the next four months.
I've got to devote you know, our

968
00:57:15.480 --> 00:57:20.000
primary resources to getting as Reapers great
though. Man Reaper is super easy to

969
00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:22.920
deal with directly. They'll send your
racks, they'll do the whole nine yards.

970
00:57:22.960 --> 00:57:25.199
They're they're just a great company.
And I like the Turbo Dark paints.

971
00:57:25.920 --> 00:57:29.400
I do like them. It's just
like we're just we've got all the

972
00:57:29.400 --> 00:57:31.559
accounts set up and everything. We're
just not pulling the trigger yet, because

973
00:57:31.599 --> 00:57:34.920
every time I go to pull the
trigger on it's like, you know what

974
00:57:35.079 --> 00:57:38.039
just came out? Oh you know
what's so Yeah. Literally, if I

975
00:57:38.079 --> 00:57:43.639
had the funds, we would have
everything. You know. It's not a

976
00:57:43.719 --> 00:57:46.000
question of oh, we don't like
that. No, there's so much cool

977
00:57:46.039 --> 00:57:51.920
stuff out there, and you know, new card games just like new RPGs

978
00:57:51.920 --> 00:57:54.199
and everything else. That's how that's
how it grows. You know. Not

979
00:57:54.280 --> 00:57:58.960
everybody's gonna like the same thing.
You have to have some level of variety.

980
00:57:59.119 --> 00:58:01.119
Sometimes the market it's saturated with stuff
and there might be too many of

981
00:58:01.480 --> 00:58:05.199
Oh there's so many different card games
out now, so just pick the one

982
00:58:05.199 --> 00:58:07.800
you like and stick with it.
And you don't have to That's one of

983
00:58:07.800 --> 00:58:10.360
the beauties of Dungeons and Dragons.
You know, I love Fifth Edition,

984
00:58:10.679 --> 00:58:15.280
but I still play first edition,
true, because it's not only what I

985
00:58:15.320 --> 00:58:17.159
started with, it's what I like
the most. But I like it the

986
00:58:17.159 --> 00:58:21.360
most for the reasons that I like
it. Other people I know have gotten

987
00:58:21.400 --> 00:58:23.760
into it and have gone backwards.
They started with five and worked their way

988
00:58:23.800 --> 00:58:28.800
back and eventually settled on three point
I can't believe how popular three point five

989
00:58:28.880 --> 00:58:30.679
still is. Oh yeah, um
oh yeah. Not because there was anything

990
00:58:30.719 --> 00:58:34.360
wrong with it. I'm just shocked
that in an edition that hasn't been around,

991
00:58:34.360 --> 00:58:37.039
you know, hasn't been any new
product produced for it and so long,

992
00:58:37.400 --> 00:58:40.280
it's hugely popular things that that's one
of the nice things about that.

993
00:58:40.360 --> 00:58:44.760
So yeah, those are the three
major things we see on the horizon right

994
00:58:44.800 --> 00:58:47.880
now. One piece Disney, Lorcana
and Paints and Minis look forward to him

995
00:58:47.920 --> 00:58:51.519
in I wanna keep coming. I'm
gonna keep runing one shots here. I

996
00:58:51.519 --> 00:58:53.280
got one coming up. This episode's
actually to come out pretty quick. So

997
00:58:53.559 --> 00:59:00.400
it was ten PM, but you've
got you've got one shots here. Looks

998
00:59:00.400 --> 00:59:01.480
like it looks like every week with
a couple of different dms. Yeah,

999
00:59:01.480 --> 00:59:07.199
I've got four scheduled right now for
the month this month. There's one next

1000
00:59:07.239 --> 00:59:10.239
Sunday, the fourteenth, then we've
got the fourteenth right, then two on

1001
00:59:10.280 --> 00:59:13.400
the twentieth, one during the daytime, and then years in the evening,

1002
00:59:13.920 --> 00:59:17.719
and then one on the twenty eighth, which is our new DM. Brian.

1003
00:59:19.039 --> 00:59:22.159
He's new to us, not new
to DM UM. Brian's got a

1004
00:59:22.159 --> 00:59:24.360
little old school in him too too, so he and I hit it off

1005
00:59:24.440 --> 00:59:29.480
right away. We started talking,
and Will is working on a Wednesday evening

1006
00:59:29.480 --> 00:59:30.719
too, so we can do a
weekday night one for people who can't come

1007
00:59:30.760 --> 00:59:35.639
on the weekends. We've tried to
do at least one Wednesday or Thursday every

1008
00:59:35.679 --> 00:59:37.480
month, so somebody that just doesn't
have the ability. Hey, I work

1009
00:59:37.519 --> 00:59:40.400
weekends, yeah, like and I
do. And I've learned a few Monday

1010
00:59:40.480 --> 00:59:43.840
ones here. UM yea, I
what your last last one got canceled?

1011
00:59:43.840 --> 00:59:46.079
It's I got a little gun shy
schedule the next one, but I'll try

1012
00:59:46.119 --> 00:59:51.880
it again. UM so links to
UM not only the keeps uh you know,

1013
00:59:51.880 --> 00:59:55.519
a website and UM socials and all
that, but linked to their calendar

1014
00:59:55.559 --> 01:00:00.920
of events and events calendar that's the
important thing. D D one shots and

1015
01:00:00.920 --> 01:00:04.079
magic events if you're if you play
other games as well, uh and including

1016
01:00:04.079 --> 01:00:06.039
avans that I'm going to run.
I want to come and come and play

1017
01:00:06.039 --> 01:00:07.039
a game with me. All that's
gonna be in the show notes to go.

1018
01:00:07.400 --> 01:00:12.000
Make sure you check all that out. Uh. Tony bilgan Um,

1019
01:00:12.159 --> 01:00:14.960
owner operator of the Keep in Brick, New Jersey, thank you so much

1020
01:00:15.000 --> 01:00:16.480
for hanging out with us. Thanks
for having me on. He's not going

1021
01:00:16.519 --> 01:00:21.039
anywhere just yet. We're gonna have
him stick around for for next week's episode

1022
01:00:21.119 --> 01:00:24.599
as well. We're gonna get his
favorite gaming story. So that's gonna wrap

1023
01:00:24.599 --> 01:00:28.239
it up for today. Jim,
thanks for hanging out with me in person.

1024
01:00:28.519 --> 01:00:30.159
Yeah, it was so cool.
Cool. We did bring people together,

1025
01:00:30.239 --> 01:00:32.599
right, I mean that was It's
cliche, but it's not. I

1026
01:00:32.599 --> 01:00:37.480
mean it actually worked. Community of
three. Yeah, I think we'll get

1027
01:00:37.599 --> 01:00:42.400
We'll get Josie in uh live via
internet and for the next episode as well.

1028
01:00:42.440 --> 01:00:45.280
But uh, Jim, Tony,
thanks so much, Thank you,

1029
01:00:45.320 --> 01:00:52.239
Thank you Adventures. Thank you for
listening to com Mudgeons and Jackins. Please

1030
01:00:52.280 --> 01:00:57.519
share this with your favorite adventures,
leave a review on Apple and follow us

1031
01:00:57.559 --> 01:01:01.599
on social media. Oh thanks to
me sound at Comudgeons on dragons dot com.

1032
01:01:01.599 --> 01:01:07.639
Practice safe for venturing. My friendsh