James Croizier is the owner of the Ogre’s Lair family game shop in Yellowknife and at the start of our, chat James said while he might not have been the only hobby and game store in town when he opened, he definitely had the smallest location.
I was working full time and then I had I’ve rented a small space and the downstairs mall in the YK Center, like it was literally 20 square feet. When I started, and there wasn’t really a whole lot of stuff in there to look at, but it was a start.
James has now been the owner of the Ogre’s Lair for a few decades and says the key to having a great game store is not treating it like a store.
A good game store is more like a club house more than anything, if it’s run correctly and that’s the way I see it. a good day is when people come in and actually you know, spend some time, have fun, I mean I’m never really sitting there worried about, like, Oh, I’ve got to sell stuff
To help foster that unique clubhouse experience James leaves out free board games so people can try them out and play them in the store.
Humans are very visual and tactile and then I mean being able to see the products and go from there and see other people like having fun because the it’s one of the few stores, actaully the only store in the mall that actually has seating in it.
To end off this True North Tale James talks about one of his favorite parts about owning the Ogre’s Lair and the benefits of having the store in a bigger space.
Kids coming in and they’re looking around, they’re kinda excited at some of the other like just purely display items I have in the store because I’ve got some dragon heads and other accoutrements hanging around the store to be interesting, that, you know, with more display space you get to actually have some other stuff like that like art, that really adds the atmosphere of the actual store.
