Warpstorm Games & Lounge With Co-Owner, Antonio

In episode 16 of The Match Slip podcast, we're talking with Co-Owner, Antonio, of Warpstorm Games & Lounge. Antonio is one of the five owners of the business which is located in Greenfield, Wisconsin. All owners of the store are friends who each bring a specialty background to the store where they operate their departments individually.

Before being a store owner, Antonio had worked in retail for six years followed by three additional years working at Games Workshop. Given his background, Antonio specializes in the retail side of the business along with his experience in painting miniatures. He's parlayed this experience by offering free one-on-one classes to customers through the Warpstorm Gaming Academy.

With 5,200 sq ft. of space, the store also sports the Boba Cafe which is the lounge portion of the business run by Liz. On the gaming side, Quinn handles the carding gaming which involves buying, selling, and trading. Alex Muhich and Alex Karr deal with inventory and systems management.

When all five friends joined forces, Antonio, with a background in graphic design worked with a designer to have a new logo created and update the color palette for the store's branding. While the store doesn't have any employees outside of the five owners at this time, Antonio looks forward to the day when this can be a possibility.

With a focus on offering a premium experience to customers, Antonio notes that he feels the current retail front location concept is antiquated. Instead, both he and his partners believe in experiential retail. An example of this is a centrally placed 55-inch screen TV for Dungeons & Dragons nights.

The store has an active community for those into Role Playing Games, Miniatures, and Card Games. Antonio had always wanted to be a tabletop game designer and so a goal of the store is to create games to sell to customers.