After the closure of Hobbymasters in 2020, Red Bank found itself lacking a way to fill a niche the community had grown to love over a generation. But in 2023, a new game store opened, and just this past October, Shore Gamers grew so successful and beloved that it moved from a tiny storefront on Monmouth Street to a much larger space on Broad Street.
“This town has needed a game store since Hobbymasters closed,” said Jessica Monaco, one of the owners of Shore Gamers in Red Bank. “People come in and say ‘Oh, this town has always needed a game store; this is great!’ They have very fond memories of growing up and playing in that space, so everyone’s happy there’s a game store in town again.”
When the store first opened, owners Jessica and Gennaro Monaco didn’t yet know everything that would come with it. “Opening a game store and running a game store is something we had talked about for a long, long time,” Jessica said. “There were several in Brooklyn in the area we lived in, and we always thought it was such a fantastic idea. They had great kids’ programs, and that was predominantly board games. And that’s what my husband and I were opening, a board game store. Right away, when we opened, the first couple customers were like ‘Do you sell Magic?'”
Moving to a significantly larger storefront affords many more possibilities to the Monacos. “We couldn’t have just started in such a big space. We needed to shift and learn how sustainable the business was, learn what the business was,” Jessica said.
The secret to the store’s success? Focusing on community. As Jessica puts it, “I would say the people in this area are really the reason for our success. Everyone is super supportive. We built a really close community really quickly, and you could tell people were really craving a place to come and hang out. A lot of friendships have been built, a lot of people who didn’t know each other before the store. It’s really become a space where people come and make new friends, and that’s what we enjoy about it for sure.”
“We always had the plan, I knew retail alone was not where we’d focus on board games. We’d offer events; we’d always have the game library to come and play in-store. Our staff would help people learn new games and make them more comfortable with games, offering birthday parties. We knew events would always be a big part of it.”
In the summer, Red Bank turns a section of the borough into a car-free zone, to make the area more walkable and allow local businesses to focus on community events. “To be on Broadwalk in the summertime was something we didn’t want to miss the opportunity for. We’ve got fun programming planned for the summer already – taking our trivia nights outside. We’ll put out tables if people want to play game library games sitting outside. We’ll have a lot of fun things planned for the summer.”
