26 Nov 2010

Labyrinth Opens Today

Owner Kathleen Donahue and her trusty stockboy David

Just in time for the Christmas season, Labyrinth Game Shop is opening today.

Capitol Hill’s newest shopping destination features a full and intriguing collection of games, puzzles, and other accoutrement. Dungeons and Dragons paraphernalia, strategy games, and even an extensive collection of gift-worthy well crafted wooden games. So much, in fact, you will get beat up in gym class for talking about it.

Labyrinth will be hosting a Grand Opening celebration from noon to 7 pm, with Rubik’s Cube demonstrations by Capitol Hill’s own William Neidecker-Gonzales from 1-3. William was recently featured in the Washington Post, and we’ll see if he can’t beat his record of 25 seconds for solving the puzzle.

You might want to get there early. If the soft opening this Tuesday was any indicator, items were starting move off the shelves at a brisk clip.

The store is on 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, just down the street from the Eastern Metro stop.

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13 responses to “Labyrinth Opens Today”

  1. Janet says:

    Great store! My mom and I stopped by today and bought a game and a puzzle. There is a huge selection – definitely something for everyone.

  2. Jon Penndorf says:

    Sweet shop! Great selection of games and puzzles for all ages.

  3. gina a says:

    So, I send my 11 yo with her friend to pick out birthday and christmas gifts for their siblings-ages 14, 10 and 8. These two girls are used to shopping on their own all over the Hill. Unfortunately, the sign on the door said “no children under age 18 without a parent” so they didn’t go in. Um, a toy store on the hill with game tables set up where you can’t go without a parent? I can appreciate the issues that storekeepers have when school gets out with rowdy kids coming in to their stores, but to penalize all kids for the potential actions of a few, I think is completely ridiculous. If you can’t handle urban kids who might come into a store, here’s my suggestion-don’t open a toy/game store in the city! I’ll be taking my shopping dollars elsewhere, and it’s too bad. We were all looking forward to this store.

  4. Jon Penndorf says:

    As a brand-new business that sells not just children’s games but also high-end, imported, and hard-to-find puzzles and sculptural pieces, I can see why having an unaccompanied minor policy would be helpful until the owner feels out the clientele and neighborhood. Ultimately it is the business owner’s right to make the rules in his or her shop. Labyrinth has lots of childrens games but it is not JUST a toy store.

    And how do you penalize just the “bad” kids anyway?–let a child break something expensive with no way to pay for it? Allow vandalism of some sort to occur before instituting the same policy? What if a good kid backs up into a display case by accident breaking several items?

    As for not opening a toy store in the city, I’d rather have this store open with its policy so I can enjoy it WITH my urban family.

  5. gina a says:

    No what I am saying is if you are opening a game store in the city, you should expect tweens and teens to want to shop there. Any item that is broken accidentally is the cost of doing business anywhere. Any item that is broken maliciously or stolen or whatever, needs to be reported to the police and the culprit banned from the store. I just don’t think that a big sign on your door barring kids under the age of 18 the first day you are open is the best way to encourage business. But, hey, you’re right, that’s her prerogative, and I have my prerogative for where I’ll spend my game dollars as well. And it’s interesting that you are the second person to comment on playing games “with” your children. FWIW my kids are 14, 11 and 8 and we still play board games together at our home. However, as I stated in another email, part of why I still (since ’94) live on the hill is to be able to encourage and foster my child’s independence from me in a safe neighborhood. Walking, browsing the stores and vendors, roaming the Hill is good for my kids, and I don’t think it’s good for my kids to have me hovering or following them or being with them all the time. Maybe you do, so you can do that with your “urban family”.

  6. Tim Krepp says:

    @gina a

    Part of what, for me, makes living on the Hill so great is the sense of community. When my kids are a little older, I look forward to encouraging the same independence that you’ve been doing. Part of the reason I’ll be comfortable with that, is that my kids will be familiar with the area, and personally know many of the small business owners they may choose to shop at. It will help that these people aren’t faceless corporate employees, but friends and neighbors. So that I don’t have to personally hover about, but have an entire community let me know if my kids are getting in trouble, self-induced or otherwise.

    Of course, that goal will probably be furthered if I don’t publicly crap all over them the first week they open for business. But that’s just me.

  7. gina a says:

    “publically crap all over them”? I thought I was allowed to express frustration over an unfair rule, but I guess I should have held my tongue so as to not offend people. And Tim, for someone who often publically and rudely attacks neighbors on listserves with messages that I suppose you think are wildly funny, witty or sarcastic, that’s the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it? But whatever, I’ve wasted enough time on this subject already.

  8. Tim Krepp says:

    Did I say you weren’t allowed to? By all means, snark away. It’s what the Internet is for!

    Just don’t whine when people call you out.

  9. Jon Penndorf says:

    For the record, I didn’t comment on playing games with my family. I stated I could enjoy going to the store with my family. As more and more retail closes on the Hill it is refreshing to see a new business open that I can patronize with my daughter.

  10. Nichole says:

    Also, not everyone wants to have to navigate unattended children while they shop – in fact, I think that’s probably the case for most people. And since much of the inventory at this store is geared toward adults, it’s completely reasonable that the shopkeeper would ask that children not be unattended – regardless of how mature and independent their parents think they are.

  11. Agree says:

    Heck, even Harris Teeter limits the size of kids in groups and the under 18 w/o a parent limit is a pretty widespread policy on the hill including Fragers and most 8th street businesses if I’m not mistaken.

    Quite honestly, given the muggings and other violent attacks in broad daylight here on Cap Hill, I certainly wouldn’t send an 11 year old off with a fist full of cash to go shopping.

  12. m says:

    What’s Child’s Play’s policy? When I was a tween, 6 of us were unattended in there for 3-4 hours every Friday as one of the shopkeepers game mastered a RPG for us.

    I think it’s a good policy for now so the owner can scope out the flow of traffic and figure out what kind of help she wants. And not every store can afford to pay someone to be a game master to a bunch of tweens, out of which only two spent any money at the store.

    But I do think that the owner could allow someone to volunteer to run games for unattended tweens/teens, and while those kids might not spend money there, the volunteer would, and the practice would endear others to the store so they would spend money there too.

  13. Mark says:

    I finally made it to this great shop where I bought a game for my niece…it was packed on Saturday.

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