Nostalgia Hit...

Hutch

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Trying to find the names of two wargaming/hobby stores that have closed their doors... Don't ask me why this question came up, but now it is haunting me.

1. Store in downtown Walnut Creek, CA in the 1978-1983 range, (Time period was when I was at Naval Hospital Oakland-Oak Knoll)

2. Store in the Orlando, FL Area early 2000's. (Well known at the time, but closed now). Not closed, renamed FLGS in Feb. 2022.

Thanks for any input you can provide.
 
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Actionjick

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Trying to find the names of two wargaming/hobby stores that have closed their doors... Don't ask me why this question came up, but now it is haunting me.

1. Store in downtown Walnut Creek, CA in the 1978-1983 range, (Time period was when I was at Naval Hospital Oakland-Oak Knoll)

2. Store in the Orlando, FL Area early 2000's. (Well known at the time, but closed now)

Thanks for any input you can provide.
Sort of annoying when I can't recall similar information. People's names I am really bad at remembering but places I usually don't have a problem with. 🤔
 

ScottRomanowski

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It's funny, yesterday I was thinking of all the hobby shops I'd gone to, and have closed over the years. Some of which were
  • Excalibur Hobbies, Arlington then Malden, MA
  • a hobby shop in the Woburn Mall, MA
  • a hobby shop in the Methuen Mall, MA
  • Games People Play, Cambridge, MA
  • Eric Fuchs, in the Burlington Mall, MA
  • a hobby shop in the Mall of New Hampshire, Manchester, NH
  • a hobby shop in Melrose, MA
Plus Toys 'R Us, which stocked some SPI games at one time, and KB Toys, which stocked some AH games at one time.
 

Hutch

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It's maddening, isn't!!!
 

Hutch

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I believe it was Enterprise. That may not be the entire name.
That sounds familiar....:)

Just looked it up, moved in 1998, renamed Sci-Fi City. Renamed again in 2022 to FLGS (Friendly Local Game Store.)
I think when I visited it was Sci-Fi City.

So one down...one to go...
 
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louis743

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The store in Orlando was Enterprise 1701. Originally over on Mills Ave, then they moved over to Corrine Drive by the old Navy Base (where I came to know and love the store). In the 1995-1996 (maybe 97) time frame, they moved over to the Home Depot plaza at Colonial and 436 where they changed their name to Sci-Fi City. About 10 (maybe more) years ago they moved to a smaller place across the plaza and just this year they changed their name to FLGS-Orlando even though the sign outside still says Sci-Fi City.
 

Carln0130

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Not for nothing, The Citadel Game Cellar has been going in the Groton CT area since 1977 and continues to sell "our kind of games". Not just one or two in a corner either, a whole section dedicated to them, including ASL up on the shelves.

In my retirement, I have begun to work there part-time and have been there for about 8 months now. Very different take on commuting to work these days. The place continues to do well and had profitable years even during the height of the pandemic. All is not lost!!! Severely compromised maybe, but technically, not lost :).
 

Hutch

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I was stationed at SUBASE in 1992-1994, retired in 1994. I continued working as a civilian contractor until 1997, when I moved to FL. Used to haunt The Citadel quite often. Pat was one whom you could engage talking for hours. When I first met him, he had just finished playtesting CdG.
 
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louis743

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I also loved The Citadel. I frequented the store in the early 90s over in New London, then in the late 90s in Groton. I was saddened to learn of Pat's recent passing.
 

Gunner Scott

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I remember a place called Hobby Models back in the early 80's where I would buy my 135th scale model kits (I mowed alot of lawns before the mexicans took over and worked a paper route to pay for the kits I bought). Now the place is a pakistani luggage store, the woolworths where my buddies and I would go for ice cream is now a middleastern kobob place. I also remember their D&D rack of books and modules.
 

Vic Provost

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Not for nothing, The Citadel Game Cellar has been going in the Groton CT area since 1977 and continues to sell "our kind of games". Not just one or two in a corner either, a whole section dedicated to them, including ASL up on the shelves.

In my retirement, I have begun to work there part-time and have been there for about 8 months now. Very different take on commuting to work these days. The place continues to do well and had profitable years even during the height of the pandemic. All is not lost!!! Severely compromised maybe, but technically, not lost :).
The Citadel was awesome when I was last there a couple decades ago and I'm sure is still a going concern with Carl helping out. If it was not so far from me I would be there on a regular basis! They hold regular game days and events there and had quite an inventory of all kinds of war games last I was there. I wish it well going forward.
 

BigAl737

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I started with Little Tin Soldier Shop, on West Lake St. in Minneapolis. That was early 70s. Best game store name ever. They changed their name to Phoenix Games (gag) in the 80s. How do you go from the best name ever, to the worst?
Used to ride the city bus with my best friend from Burnsville to go there in the mid- seventies. I was in my early teens at the time. Played a lot of FitS (Fight in the Skies). What great memories!
 

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1972, the family moved to Woodbridge/Dale City in VA. We schlepped up to some store on the MD side of beltway. My brother had a coupon for some models. He ended up getting Midway and I bought Panzer Leader. Later we found a toy store in Springfield Mall and I started collecting games with my paper route money. Ended up with circa 80 games, have not counted but I still have them. The only one that I never played was Struggle of Nations. I can't remember the names of the stores.
 

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Thread inspired me to look up the game shop I bought the original Squad Leader in. Game Towne in San Diego. Actually right in Old Town. My friend and I could get his mother to drive us there as kids if we exchanged something like five minutes of her shopping in Marshalls for every one minute we spent in Game Towne. We got good at dashing in to get what we needed quickly!

Looks like Game Towne closed down in 2014 after 35 years of operation.
 

TopT

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Thread inspired me to look up the game shop I bought the original Squad Leader in. Game Towne in San Diego. Actually right in Old Town. My friend and I could get his mother to drive us there as kids if we exchanged something like five minutes of her shopping in Marshalls for every one minute we spent in Game Towne. We got good at dashing in to get what we needed quickly!

Looks like Game Towne closed down in 2014 after 35 years of operation.
I am pretty sure that I picked up the ASLRB & BV from there back in 1986/ 87. I am certain that it was a game store in Old Town. I just stumbled upon it while on a daycation with my wife.
 

Michael R

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In Montréal, International Hobbies was the place to go for war games, models, and scale train equipment. I purchased a lot of my ASL stuff there until they closed. Now Le Valet de Cœur is the place to buy all sorts of games. They also have an internet store.
 

Martin Mayers

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Games Workshop in Manchester (UK) for me. Back when they sold really great stuff such as Role Playing Games, Avalon Hill Boardgames and a bit of Warhammer here and there. Then into Beatties for our Airfix models, Call of Cthulhu figurines, and so forth.

Me and my mate, at 15 decided we wanted to visit Germany (we both studied it) as we'd enjoyed a school trip there. So we started saving, got to about two hundred quid each, then decided it would make far more sense to trek down-town and spaff the whole lot in GW and Beatties.

Interestingly I did not find ASL/BV in either of those two shops. Me and said friend were browsing in Virgin Megastore. We were already mad into SL. So we divvied up, bought the rule book. Got home, opened it wondering "where the fook are the counters", read on, got back on the train to town, to buy BV :eek:

Great memories. I miss school so much. Not just the fact of being young and uncynical, but the fact RPGs and Wargames were a massive, intrinsic part of my life. We lived and breathed them. And we were a group of about a dozen really close friends who played three, four and sometimes more nights per week and then Saturday and Sunday. Our history teacher introduced us to AH Bookcase Games...he ran wargames club every Wednesday night. THE best teacher ever.

Sadly, at 52 now I've completely lost contact with all those friends. We all moved onto other things. I'm the only remaining one who plays ASL as far as I know. A friend of mine a while back, when we were talking about similar things made a very poignant remark I thought. "Think back to when you used to play football, or wargames, or just clown around with your friends...and there was a point, one-day, where it was the last time you'd ever do so".
 
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