Family Owned Since 1986
You don’t stop gaming because you get old, you get old because you stop gaming.
Gators has been in Leavenworth, Kansas for decades meeting the ever-changing hobby needs of our community.
The Journey
The Beginning
It all started in 1986, when Lou and Mary retired from the US Army in Leavenworth, Kansas and decided to buy the building at 720 Shawnee St to open Gators Video. In the early days, Gators Video was one of those hole-in-the-wall video rental places where you could rent films to take home and share with your friends and family. At the time of opening, we had a mix of beta tapes and VHS tapes, and as time went on, we moved into DVDs and Blu-Ray films. In the early 90’s, Lou and Mary had two of their four children working with them at the shop after they left their own military careers, Duane and Doug. The rental business was doing well, so while Duane and Doug helped out their parents with the shop, they also decided to start dabbling in the car stereo world. Before they knew it, they were building and fixing car stereo systems alongside renting videos! They even attended and won national car stereo competitions! .
Surviving the Digital Revolution
After a while though, Doug moved on, and that part of the business came to a close. However, Duane stayed on board and had his own aspirations… tabletop gaming. For a long time, video rentals and gaming coexisted in a shared space, but there was room for everyone! By the late 2000’s, tabletop gaming made a permanent foothold at Gators Video. It started with Magic: The Gathering, and slowly it expanded to Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokémon, and added more tabletop games over time. Throughout the 2010’s, digital streaming started to threaten the video rental industry. Fortunately, what started as Duane’s hobby project he brought to the shop, turned out to be the cushion that Gators Video needed to survive the fall of physical media that decimated the video rental industry. By 2013, the rows of shelves and videos throughout the store had been fully replaced with tables for tournaments. The rows of new film releases had been replaced with rows of new board games, card game accessories, and hobby supplies. Quietly, the videos vanished completely, and the transformation was complete.
Partners In Crime
In 2013, Duane married Jessie, his new partner in crime. Together, they got to work redesigning Gators from the ground up. The changes started slowly with first simply giving up that old analog cash register, but expanded quickly into tasks such as counting ALL the card singles for inventory. You can thank Jessie for the endless hours that initial summer she dedicated to counting every single one. That count was our first big step into fully transitioning into the tabletop game industry.
The Next Generation
By 2017, Lou and Mary have long since retired, so Duane and Jessie have been managing and running the business for quite some time. The business is now widely referred to as “Gators Games”, the video rentals resting softly in the community’s memory. Gators Video was officially closed overnight, and the (not so) newly formed Gators Games and Hobby opened the very next day. Duane and Jessie were now the new owners, and they quickly got to work building the business up. The building was completely renovated to meet the needs of our customers and our community.
Your Gaming Destination
You can find so much at Gators Games and Hobby now, from traditional gaming to the latest tabletop gaming releases. Gators is an official store for so many games, including manufacturers like Wizards of the Coast, Konami, Pokemon, Games Workshop, and more. But even though we have grown and changed tremendously, we will never stop adapting to the needs of our customers and our community. So that, my friends, is why Gators feeds your needs! 😉
Inside Our Store
Be Part of Our Story
From 1986 to today, we've been more than a store, we're a community. Join us for tournaments, game nights, and discover why Gators feeds your needs.
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