As a longtime collector of classic video games and trading cards, Eddie Ecklund has always enjoyed these pastimes, taking him back to another era.
Within months of launching his new business Retro Games KC at 815 S. Claiborne Road in Olathe, it became clear that he wasn’t the only one. As he began pulling video games out of storage and stocking the shelves with them, it didn’t take much fanfare to draw fellow gamers out of the woodwork.
“I didn’t even do any kind of grand opening, I just started posting to Instagram and opened the doors,” he said. “It was successful enough that after about six months, I decided that we needed either a bigger or a second location.”
This summer, that decision ultimately brought Retro Games KC further east. The video game store reopened in its new southern Overland Park digs earlier this summer, in a space that’s three to four times larger than its previous one.
Retro Games has reopened at 14525 Metcalf Ave.
- The store moved into a space just off 146th Street and Metcalf Avenue, near Indian restaurant Shagan’s.
- The space has been vacant for several years, but it was previously occupied by a jewelry store.
- Retro Games KC is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday.
The shop offers video games of a former era
On the shelves of Retro Games, customers can generally buy, sell or trade games and consoles that originally came out between 1985 and 2002.
The store offers games for a wide variety of consoles of another era, including Nintendos (including the original NES and Super Nintendo), Playstations, Wiis, Segas and GameBoys.
Customers can expect to see plenty of beloved game franchise names like Mario, Zelda, Rockband, Pokémon and Just Dance.
The store also offers disc resurfacing for games in need of scratch removal.
Part of the appeal of a store like Retro Games KC, Ecklund said, is the reliability factor. Instead of chancing it with an online purchase, he said, customers know exactly what they’re walking away with.
“That’s a big reason why people are willing to spend more at these types of stores than they would on eBay,” he said. “We offer a 30-day functionality guarantee, and we offer authenticity.”
More expansion may be on the horizon for Retro Games KC
If the store’s inventory and following continue to grow, Ecklund said customers might soon see more Retro Games shops in northeast Johnson County, or across the state line in Missouri.
“We get a lot of customers driving from Kansas City and from Independence,” he said. “Since the inventory is constantly changing, people might want to come back once a week. With being so far, it’s just hard for them to keep doing that.”
As for moving Retro Games to southern Overland Park, Ecklund said the choice had a number of appeals. For one, it’s where he lives.
But he also said he sensed a demand in the area for a place with a focus specifically on the retro side of things, and with the range of options that Retro Games has.
Since reopening in its new Overland Park spot, Ecklund said the decision to relocate has been affirmed by a steady buzz of activity.
“We’ve only seen growth so far, and it just keeps getting busier and busier,” he said. “This month was by far our biggest month, even compared to what we had in Olathe.”
Ultimately, he said, the draw of a store like his for customers is simple: nostalgia. That’s his favorite part of owning the store too, after all — in addition to getting to spend time connecting there with like-minded people.
“It just takes them back to being a kid,” he said. “And it’s fun when people bring up an old game that I also played, and we get to talk about it.”
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