EATON — A new tabletop game store held it’s grand opening this past weekend. Located on North Barron Street, Darkhold Games specializes in board games, tabletop games, traditional and collectible card games, role play games, miniature war gaming, and supplies such as paints, dice, and more. The store has been open for a month, but on Friday, July 14 they held their official grand opening and ribbon cutting.
The store is co-owned by Stephanie Harvey, Steven Harvey, Roger Campbell, Thomas Campbell, and April Campbell, who are all gamers themselves.
“We are basically a gaming store. We sell tabletop, role playing games, card games, magic the gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokemon, regular card games, board games, and puzzles,” she said. “We have space for people to come in and play games. We hold gaming events.”
The social aspect of tabletop gaming is very important to the company, which is why they offer free games to play, used games, and space to play games. This allows customers to try new games before they buy. It also gives people somewhere to gather socially.
“Besides the coffee shops, that’s what we’ve been hearing, that this is the only place to play games socially. There’s nothing like this in Eaton. There’s no other gaming shops of this type, there are other places they can buy the cards or buy the games, but nothing this style,” she said.
According to April Campbell, all of the owners are gamers and they had an opportunity to buy out a shop in Englewood. She added, “Since running a shop is something we’ve always wanted to do and talked about doing, we kinda jumped on the chance. When we bought [the store in Englewood] we lived out this way, so rather than having something out there, we decided something closer to home.”
Also important to Darkhold Games is recognizing those who put their lives at risk. The company offers a discount to members of the military, police, and fire and EMS.
The grand opening events continued all weekend, with raffles and door prizes starting at noon on Saturday. There were also board game demos, free welcome decks, a sealed deck event and draft on Sunday, and team events on both days.
According to Campbell, the reception to the store has been good and they’ve already gotten many customers. Currently the store is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but they hope to eventually open every day.
“Our goal is to be here for a long time,” she said. “We don’t want to go anywhere.”
