Therefore, I wanted to try and locate a store closer to the
Crab Shack. You know, a quick car trip rather than an hour's drive. Twenty
minutes driving time or less was the
goal and Angry
(the king of all Social Media and Google-Fu) sent me a link for the Gaming Goat
stores in Elgin and Schaumburg .
IL:http://thegaminggoat.com.
I asked Mrs. Crabby to accompany me. Normally I try to
shield her from all things geeky since she willingly married me and truly
doesn't need any more exposure to nerdom. However, I thought that another
opinion might be a good idea since often times I let my inherent grumpiness
cloud my thinking and judgement
Thus we first visited their Schaumburg
location as it was a bit closer and would be on the way home from work. Upon
entering the strip mall storefront, there was a wall of games, many banquet
tables, and the usual glass cases filled with collectible gaming cards singles
and boxes. A small group of typical gamers were hunched over a table eating and
playing something. One of them acknowledged us and provided the obligatory
spiel. I stated we were just looking and as it was Mrs. Crabby's first time in
such a store she wanted to poke about and get her footing.
I could not find what I was looking for but she picked out a
fun looking card game called Gloom (that's why I love her). When we tried to check out we were ignored as
the customer service person had his back to us while he was eating and his
confederates who could see us standing by the register didn't deem it worthwhile
to alert him. Eventually they figured it out and once he was ringing us up I
inquired about the things I was looking for. Sadly, it was obvious he had no
idea what I was talking about although these were really common items (FFG
sleeves and Warhammer: Invasion expansions). After some explanation on my part
he did state their Elgin location
would probably have these.
Upon exiting the location, I asked my wife what she thought
of the place. Her one telling comment
was, "The place smelled like urine."
Okay, on to the Elgin
location.
Presumably traumatized, Mrs. Crabby decided to stay in the
car and not brave a second exposure. The good news was this location's interior
was visually more pleasant and the storefront made better use of space.
Multiple walls in the front of the store shelved a better selection of games
and card games including the expansion I was looking for. Unfortunately, the customer
service person was not particularly any more knowledgeable than his fellow as
he had no idea FFG offered card sleeves and kept trying to sell me more
expensive Magic the Gathering sleeves instead. But at least this guy wasn't
eating and did mention they would match Amazon.com on board game pricing (note
to self: this is good). Moreover, there were actually people other than the
owner's friends playing games in the dedicated gaming area and the joint had no
untoward odors.
I would love to see a game shop owned and operated by the Crabby Old Gamer. I'd be there so often that I'd probably end up putting his kids through college.
ReplyDeleteKids??? I never touched that woman, officer!"
ReplyDeleteJust go to GamesPlus in Mt. Prospect. They have a great selection and the guys are just hands off enough to be cool.
ReplyDeleteI'm suggesting this, and I work at Gamers World in Woodfield Mall. We have some board game stuff, and we are somewhat knowledgeable.
If you would like to visit the second best game store around, visit us.
Hey Mage,
ReplyDeleteGames Plus is the store I regulary go to when I am on my lunch break. I was hoping to find a store closer to the Bartlett area. I will check your store out the next time Mrs. Crabby drags me to Woodfield. Best regards!