As we ring in the crisp new year of 2025, we at Scalliwag Toys have an announcement to share.
Our lease for our store’s location at 302 Front St will end on January 31, 2025, and we have decided that we will not be renewing the lease.
In addition, we will not be relocating the store, but instead will be closing our doors for good.
This hasn’t been an easy decision for us, but the last year has made it clear that it is the right decision to make. There are a lot of challenges when running a small business, and when all of those challenges get thrown at you at once with only half of them being in your power to change or overcome, it chips away at you in every way imaginable. To those of our community who have supported us through the seemingly relentless march of life pelting us with lemons, THANK YOU. Truly, we wouldn’t have been able to make it even this far without you, and your equally unrelenting drive to keep our “Friendly Local Game Store”, and by extension, the two of us, afloat, in more ways than one.
Scalliwag Toys has changed a lot over its 40-year history. We’ve only been stewards of its journey for the past five years, but we hear frequently from customers who have visited the store throughout their lives about their memories of shopping or playing games at the store as kids, and then being able to bring their own kids to shop after becoming parents. We tried to keep this joy alive where we could, with the knowledge that play and joy are our best tools for imagining a better world in the face of rapid and dramatic change across the globe. The pandemic and its subsequent social, economic, and political fallout, will continue to have profound impacts upon our collective wellbeing. No matter what anyone tells you, supply chains for the types of things we sold at Scalliwags are still a raging dumpster fire, and are poised to become even worse. An economic model that relies on constant consumption of new things that are made more and more cheaply through exploitation of underpaid workers is not sustainable, even on the scale of a small business. This has reinforced our trust in the decision to close the store, as we feel we can put our energy to work in a more meaningful way, with some increased stability for ourselves too for our own wellbeing. In our tenure of ownership, Scalliwag Toys continued to be a gathering place where folks could sit down, play a game, and maybe forget about their troubles for a while, or at least discuss those troubles with a group of people who were willing to listen and provide a feeling of solidarity and a shoulder to cry on if needed. Ultimately we are happy to have made lasting relationships since we moved to Belleville and took on the store, and are grateful to the people we used to call customers and now call our friends.
“No man is an island”, and neither are small businesses, despite what some people might believe. Plus, you can do everything right and still fail or struggle. In this time of growing inequality and division around the world, the best thing you can do to resist the creeping shadow is to work together for the common good, and to support each other. Anyone who has spent more than a few minutes in the store with us knows that we passionately believe that a better world is possible for everyone, and our future work in the Bay of Quinte region will lean even harder into this goal. Over the coming weeks and months, while our brick and mortar presence will be winding down, we plan to maintain elements of our online and community activities, and some new ones we’re excited about sharing with you. We will make announcements and share links as we go through our social media channels and website regarding these future plans and the logistics for January 2025, including the sale of our remaining inventory. Scalliwag Toys’ time might be finished, but you haven’t heard the last of us by any means.
Thank you to everyone who has supported us, loved us, and just been there for us when we needed to cry on the more challenging days. You are as much a part of this legacy as we are,
so thank you for creating this community with us;
thank you for playing.
Illustration by Melinda Robinson
Scalliwag Toys is by definition, a Friendly Local Game Store, or FLGS, located in the heart of Downtown Belleville in Ontario, Canada. We sell tabletop games including board games, wargames like Warhammer, and tabletop roleplaying games and accessories like Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and more. We also sell educational toys, puzzles, plush, and plenty of unique gifts and fidget-y toys.
As an FLGS, we provide a retail experience that you can’t find at your local big-box stores or when you purchase from a similarly massive entity online. Scalliwag Toys is a gathering place - we support our local communities of game enthusiasts, hobbyists, and folks who are looking for creative and fun ways to play and explore. We provide an in-store play area with regularly-scheduled gaming events, workshops, and activities for a wide ranges of ages and interests.
Community is at the core of our business, and by design we are an inclusive, safe space for folks like us who are a little bit odd, a touch neurospicy, a smidgen spooky, and ultimately looking for a place to belong and be themselves.
We are also excited to offer activities where we guide you beyond our doors too, through our Wander Local Walking Tours program!