Hob’s Hobbies migrating from longstanding downtown storefront

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Hob’s Hobbies, after eight years of operation in the downtown core of Strathmore, is migrating locations and will now be situated in Crystal Ridge. 

John Hilton-O’Brien, who co-owns Hob’s Hobbies, explained the new store will be a slightly larger space, and will offer more amenities going forward. 

“We have outgrown the space a little bit. There are things that are hard to do at the old space, the electrical does not work quite right for some of the things we want to do, and the old space got quite hot in the summer,” he said. 

Prior to Hob’s Hobbies, a comic bookstore, “We’ve Got Issues,” occupied the 2nd Avenue storefront. Hob’s assumed their lease as the previous business was aiming to cease operations. 

In its infancy, Hob’s began by offering games, books, coffee, and a variety of hobby supplies such as model railroading, generalist models, and RC cars. 

“We relatively quickly discovered that people were not buying a lot of model trains, RC cars, or models around here, or used books for that matter. We wound up focusing on what became our core market, which is the hobby games market,” explained Hilton-O’Brien. 

This included games such as Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, Warhammer, Magic the Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Pokémon, among others. 

Hilton-O’Brien explained though the space on the main floor of the new storefront will be slightly smaller, it is an upgrade in functionality and storage over their previous location. It also offers a developed basement area which will be utilized as a play space for hobbyists visiting the store, or for regularly scheduled events. 

“We were not able to use the basement of the old space because the building was built in the 1920s, and the basement still has the 1920s dirt floor, which is musty. Being in the basement, it will be less disturbing to the residents who are on the floor above the store which is of course, very handy,” he said. “The play space is very important to us. A big part of the reason for starting the store in the first place is that if you are not doing say, high school athletics, there is not a lot of things to do in town … and we set out to fix that problem.”

In addition to the upgraded store and play space, Hob’s Hobbies intends to host more workshops for hobbyists such as painting lessons. Information for such events will be released as they become scheduled.

Hob’s Hobbies will take possession of the new space Oct. 12, though will have their official re-opening on Nov. 1.