GameKnight levels up

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This article was published 16/02/2018 (3021 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Scott Tackaberry is embarking on a new campaign that will set in motion a shift in the retail landscape of South Osborne.

Tackaberry, the owner of GameKnight Games and Cool Stuff and Grape & Grain, announced the relocation and expansion of the popular table game store on Feb. 6.

GameKnight, which specializes in Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering and other popular role playing, card and board games, will move from 726 Osborne St. to 519 Osborne St. this April.

The new location — formerly home to a pottery studio and gym — will double the store’s footprint to about 2,000-square-feet and offers customers who come to the shop for tournaments and weeknight adventures an enhanced gaming experience, Tackaberry said.

“We’ve got some crazy ideas here,” he said. “We’d like to dress up the front of the store to look like a medieval castle. We’ll put crenelations on the front, some little towers, just to dress it up… and with the castle motif on the outside we were thinking of doing a fake medieval village in here.”

Tackaberry said the space also holds the potential for an expanded retail space with larger card cases, private gaming rooms, a canteen area, and even a virtual reality room designed after one of the store’s most popular games.

“We sell a lot of Dungeons and Dragons,” Tackaberry said.

GameKnight first opened in 2003 as a side business to Tackaberry’s home brewing enterprise, Grape & Grain, when it was located on St. Mary’s Road.

“It was two four-foot shelves, a four-foot peg board, another four-foot shelf all in the corner in the back of the store,” Tackaberry said. “It started out as word of mouth, just friends selling to friends.”

Year after year, GameKnight grew and soon overtook the retail space at Grape & Grain. In 2009 the two businesses relocated to Osborne Street and eventually the demand for floor space from GameKnight’s customers forced Grape & Grain across the road.

What started out as a passion project between friends took off in an unexpected way, Tackaberry said. With another expansion imminent — the seventh in 14 years by his estimation — Tackaberry said the demand for compelling board games and a space to meet with like minded people isn’t waning.

“It’s a little scary and overwhelming, but it’s great to think that this is the next step,” he said about the move. “I think the possibility was always there. We always thought Winnipeg needed one big really good gaming store that covered all the genres.

“We’re very much a clubhouse,” Tackaberry added. “So if you have a passion for a particular game you’re going to come out and play that game with other people who have the same love of that game. A lot of people making lasting friendships over these gaming tables.”

Tackaberry said he’s purchased the strip of retail space that GameKnight will be moving into and the shared parking lot in the back will be a new amenity for people coming by the store. The current home of GameKnight will once again become home to Grape & Grain in the spring, he added, with the second floor likely becoming available for rent.