14108 Firestone Blvd., Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670
562-926-2922 or 714-669-1456
A new trend in Orange County has created the need for a new retail concept – and three local entrepreneurs are on top of it, to the delight of O.C. parents, kids and grandparents.
“Many new homes are being built with game rooms and a lot of people are converting formal living rooms and garages into game rooms,” said Rebecca Werner, who opened Game Room City in Tustin in November with her partners Dennis Rottino and Jim Kimbrell.
Kimbrell, the parent of two grown sons and one teenager, is a firm believer in the value of game rooms for homes with kids because they’re places where age doesn’t get in the way of fun.
Grandfathers and grandsons, dads and daughters, mothers and sons, siblings and friends can share hours of good times over cards, Pac Man, pool, air hockey, Space Invaders, pinball and more.
In the past, Werner and Rottino, another longtime game room enthusiast, always came up against the same problem in putting their own game rooms together.
“If you wanted a pool table, you had to go to a pool-table store, an arcade store for the arcade games, a poker store for poker tables, and a lighting store for the cool neon lighting,” she said. “You could never just go to one place and find everything you wanted. So we brought it all together and grew it from there.”
Werner and Rottino opened their first Game Room City in Santa Fe Springs in 2004. The Tustin store, with new partner Kimbrell, is their second venture. The 5,500-square-foot showroom has jukeboxes, pool tables, accessories and decorative memorabilia to go with them.
Poker and pool are enormously popular with young people right now, in spite of – or perhaps because of their low tech, old fashioned essentials that have remained unchanged for centuries. Also popular are nostalgic games like Pac Man, Asteroids, Galaga and Space Invaders, Werner said.
“A lot of people grew up with a favorite arcade or pinball game and want to play it again or share it with their kids or grandkids,” she said. “Now they can come into Game Room City and if we don’t have that game in stock, maybe we can find it because we deal in used as well as new equipment.”
Occasionally, Werner hears from a parent who is worried about the gambling aspects of poker, which has gained huge national popularity lately, or who is skeptical about the value of shooting pool or playing Pac Man.
“But all of these games require focus and most require practiced mental acuity. The players have to use their brains, plan ahead and calculate. It’s a healthy way for kids to be with their friends and it’s much better than hanging around in a parking lot or who knows where,” she said.
“These game rooms are not baby-sitters. They are great ways to set up a safe environment where your kids and their friends can have fun on your terms, rather than depending on outside forces over which you have no control.”
Game Room City is at 14061 Newport Ave., Tustin. For more information visit www.gameroomcity.com or call
714-669-1456.
By J. Anderson - For Game Room City
March 31, 2007
Welcome to Game Room City
Since 2004 the Southern California area has known Game Room City as the place for Gaming Tables, Arcade Games, Jukeboxes, Pinball Machines, Lighting decorative memorabilia and more. Our expert staff, unmatched selection and reasonable prices have helped Game Room City earn our reputation for convenience, quality and value.
Please take a moment to browse through our site to learn more
about us. If you have any questions or comments, please feel
free to contact us. We look forward to hearing from you soon.
Visit us at the Orange County Market Place, weekends in Costa Mesa on Fair Drive.
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