On Thursday, June 17⋅6:00 – 10:00pm, Brian Watson will be in the store to showcase and demo the miniature war game “Marvel Crisis Protocol”. Brian will have the minis and terrain to show and teach this mini combat game.
Magic the Gathering
News! Magic the Gathering
We won’t be having a Friday Night Magic on 6/11 because we didn’t become an official WPN store in time for the pre-release of Modern 2
BUT we are official now! YAY!
On 6/18/21 – we will have a Strixhaven draft from 6pm to 8pm and a Commander event from 8pm to 10pm.WotC have made a new events feature for players to sign up for events through.
Go to wizards.com to create an account.
After you have an account with WotC, you need to go to eventlink.wizards and type in the following code to sign in for the Strixhaven draft: QYEMXV and/or type in RWVZPG for the commander event.
Starting Up!
Four 9′ x 13′ Game Rooms
We’ve put in sound dampening layers in all the game room walls, and solid core doors will be the finishing touch. Our hope is that the rooms will give gamers some privacy, and less distracting sound from the open gaming area.
The rooms will be available for reservations soon after we open. We have an extensive library of games for in-store play, as well as take home rentals. Dave is sorting out the details of how we will be tracking room and game rentals. We hope to have some updates in the next couple of weeks.
Starting Up!
“Opening Season” is upon us!
We are now definitively “Opening – Spring 2021”!
We’ve been in a holding pattern… waiting… frustrating ourselves, and our kind MainVestors.
Carrie has been posting progress photos on our Facebook page – thanks Carrie! This week our fit-out contractor, My Contractor, finished the framing and drywall scope of work. That means the construction work is more than half-way to being completed.
There are a few more weeks of scheduled construction. Then likely several weeks as we move and install our furnishings, fixtures and inventory from storage. This means we do not have a target date for opening, more of a target season.
As things stand, we still need to tread carefully with COVID-19 precautions. This means our plans for our open gaming area, private rooms, and game rental services are not yet polished. When we do open, we will be focusing on maintaining a safe and healthy environment. Our in store events and gaming policies will be rolled out slowly in accordance with guidelines set by public health officials.
Stay tuned for more details as we work out the specifics and roll out new services and offerings as the pandemic resolves.
We are keeping tabs on new products coming out in the next few months. We will be taking pre-orders and special orders for products you would like ordered for in-store pickup. If interested, please fill out the special orders form on our shop website.
Starting Up!
It’s been a year…
We’ve been on this journey for over a year now. We’ve been working hard, and have learned a lot.
At the dawn of 2020, our hopes were to have a location, and open our store by May, perhaps June. We signed a lease for a great space with potential for making a unique community gaming space in downtown Haverhill.
Then things got complicated. COVID struck, our landlords best laid plans did not survive the downturn. We hoped by then for a September opening, but that date slipped. As did the October, November, and December possibilities as well.
We made the hard decision to end the lease agreement, and find a new location. We are giving up a location in the heart of Haverhill, but found a location in the busy commercial corridor between Methuen and Salem, NH.
We are entering 2021 with plans for opening in February at our new location in The Village Mall, 436 Broadway, Methuen, MA.
Starting Up!
End of Summer Update August, 2020
We’ve been quiet, but very busy this month. As we announced in July, we purchased the store property and inventory of The Whiz store in Westborough, MA.
We also purchased the game library, as well as several tables, chairs, and bookcases from The Adventure Pub of Arlington, MA. They closed their doors on July 31. Thankfully, we are going to be able to re-home their games and add them to our own library of borrowable games.
We are close to finalizing the e-commerce store. We need to enable a few features, one core one is a loyalty program to keep in touch with our community members.
Dave has been feverishly entering in the inventory into our point of sale system. Carrie has been busy sorting and cataloging our very large Magic: the Gathering card collection. Russ has been spending money on inventory, storage space rental, finding out that the logo he likes is un-printable in basically every other format than a website, and trying to fix that.
We are actively looking at additional ways to serve the Haverhill community during the pandemic. We are fleshing out the details of a board game rental service. Athena at the Adventure Pub gave some great insights into how to handle game rentals, effective ‘quarantine’ of returns, and more. We hope to be able to get a similar service up and running soon after the store opens.
When is the store opening?
We do not know yet.
Our landlord and his work crew are working hard on the property. This month they have been focusing on internal drywall work in the upper floors. Their hope is to get the retail floor finished by the end of September. We will then need time to do our own interior work, as well as getting the required permits for opening the store. There have been delays in materials delivery due to COVID-19. Maintaining worker safety also requires smaller work crews, and keeps the number of sub-contractors on-site low. This, of course, slows the pace of work.
Right now, we are planning on having access to the space on October 1, 2020. We’ll then be painting, decorating, setting up furnishings and fixtures, and moving the inventory we’ve purchased from the Whiz and the Adventure Pub on site. It is a lot of work, but we will get it done. Tentative plans now are for a soft opening at the beginning of November.
Mayor Fiorentini, has expressed interest in attending the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Prescott Building. So, we better get ourselves dressed for the occasion!
Starting Up!
Mixed Feelings
I am sad to say, that the gaming community lost a long time favorite friendly local game store this year. The Whiz, of Westborough, closed up shop in March. I am sitting in the storefront now, and you can feel the communities love of their second home here.
Queen’s Gambit had been in contact to discuss options between us and The Whiz. Frank discussions were had, and unfortunately, the timing and the logistics for many options did not work out. Fast forward a couple of months and we were approached by the Bankruptcy Trustee for the Whizco, Inc., and we placed a bid for their inventory, furnishings and fixtures.
We’ve been quiet about the details, to maintain the arms-length requirements of the bankruptcy proceedings, but also to let the Whizco handle their community communications as they wished.
Now that the sale has been completed, we are comfortable discussing the details. Queen’s Gambit now has a jump start on inventory to supplement our initial line up for our new store. The glass displays, cash wrap, computers and furnishings are also a real boon for us in getting the essentials in place for our opening in a couple months.
We’ve been in contact with members of the Whiz community. Russ is friends with Adam Scaramella who helped organize the Dungeons and Dragons Adventurer’s League events at the Whiz. Dave and Carrie know Josh Bryant, the former owner, from their years in The Realms Live Action Role Playing community.
Patrick Nelson, who helped support and organize the wargaming community at The Whiz has reached out, and we are working with him to help re-home some of the material here at the Whiz that community members hold dear. In particular, the ceiling tiles.
While it is highly unlikely that we’ll be regular hosts to members of the Whiz community at Queen’s Gambit events – Haverhill to Westborough is a mighty long commute. We are hoping to host regular tournaments and other special events where they are welcome to join and help create more lasting memories.
Mainvest
Success! Thank you!
We are deeply encouraged by your support for our MainVest campaign. 46 investors raised over $25,000 to fund improvements to the interior space, and get assistance with a website design and marketing.
We can not deny that we have some significant challenges ahead with the overall economy, and the realities of social distancing over the next few months.
We are somewhat blessed, in that the earliest we expect to open is in September. This gives us time to adjust any procedures, orders, and staffing to meet the needs of our customers.
If you have not already, feel free to join our Facebook groups to follow the conversations. We’re encouraged by the support of the folks in Haverhill. There are requests for different product lines and events. Folks are also celebrating the renovation of a landmark building in Washington Square.
Lee Properties have a lot of work to be done this summer. We’ve been working closely with them to get our plans for the interior space realized.
The exterior work has begun. The bricked up windows are cleared, and their replacement windows are ready for installation.
The interior is fully gutted. It will be a few months before finishing work can be completed.
We’ll keep posting updates, of course.
Thank you, everyone for your support. We have a lot of work to do, to prove the faith and trust you’ve placed in us. We couldn’t be more excited!
Mainvest
7 Days and Counting…
We are so close… 74% funded! We have one week left to meet our goal of $20,000 in our MainVest campaign.
This funding will allow us to add some additional customizations to the space. We have a mezzanine space already set aside for a semi-private gaming experience. We want to add one more large private reservable room as well.
Dave and I are hoping to populate the room with miniatures and terrain from our collections of Wizkids, Reapers, WarHammer, and Dwarven forge.
We’ll also be using these funds to get a professional website and social media presence and get our on-line store up and running for merchandise requests and pre-orders.
A deephearted thank you to the 23 investors who have contributed toward our crowdfunding campaign. Please like and share. Reach out to people who may be interested in supporting the gaming community in Haverhill.
Starting Up!
We have a location!
We’ve come to terms on a lease for the commercial space in the Prescott Building, 2 Washington Street, Haverhill, MA
The building is currently undergoing historical renovations. We will be sharing more information and photos as work progresses.
Work on the building, and our build out will progress over the next several months. We are looking at a proposed September 01, 2020 opening.
We still have a number of details to work out. Our finishing touches, reservable tables and rooms, and service offerings will be entirely dependent on a number of cost factors.
If you would like to help with making this new gaming space a success (and get a decent return for your investment), please visit our MainVest (https://mainvest.com/b/queens-gambit-haverhill) page and make an investment of as little as $50.00.
And please, let us know what you are looking for in a game store / gaming parlor… We’d love to hear your ideas, and hopefully make some a reality.
Thank you.
P.S.
Please…
stay home, cover your cough, wash your hands
and support your local small businesses during this trying time
let’s hope by September we are all ready to gather around some tables and play some games!