Game On! Cards and Coffee shop is leveling up to a new location, moving from their current storefront located at 560 N. Reilly Road to a new building currently under renovation at 3406 Raeford Road. 

The hobby shop was started by Ryker Taylor, an active duty soldier, and his wife Sara in 2020. The shop carries board games, trading card games, table top games, anime and Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) merchandise and more. 

In its history, the store has moved twice, going from the Ponderosa Shopping Center to their current location on Reilly Road. Co-owner Sara Taylor shared that over their last nearly five  years in business, they’ve seen their customer base grow along with the need for more space. 

“It’s to the point where, our parking lot is packed out to where we've had to use the church across the street to have extra parking. Everyone's just been so amazing that we were like, ‘Okay, we can make one more jump, and this will be the final one.’ That's when we found this current building,” said Taylor. “We had been looking for probably over a year. We were hoping for something not in a strip mall, something that's near a really busy road, and that had enough space, because we have a back end as well that's our online store.” 

Previously Phat Daddy's Sports Bar & Grill, the new facility measures more than 10,000 square-feet. Along with 90 parking spaces, the kitchen and bar already included will allow for Game On! to continue offering snacks at their cafe. 

“The whole bar was set up to where we could just put the cafe directly into it. We're going to do packaged snacks and drinks the way we've been doing it. There's always a possibility in the future for us to go in the direction of making our own food,” shared Taylor. 

Now the team is working overtime to transition between locations and a grand opening is currently scheduled for early October 2025. 

Drivers on Raeford Road may have already seen the recently completed new mural on the outside of the building painted by local artist Lacey Crime of Lacey Crime Art. Work on the inside has already begun with Taylor sharing that renovations are minimal and won’t require major reconstruction. Plans for how to utilize the larger space are already in the works. 

“We're going to be building probably, I want to say, another two tables for D&D and then I think four tables for the miniature games. We've got a ton of space. The way that the building is set up is there's one main, big room where the card counters, all the card tables and the cafe will be, but then there's two smaller rooms off to the side. So we'll actually have a lot more room for cafe seating and people just coming in and working on their laptops or to game on their laptops we'll have more seating for that, and then an entire left wing, basically for the shop, is going to be D&D and miniature games,” shared Taylor. 

As the store works to transition to the new building, customers can keep up with all updates and announcements on their Game On! Facebook page here and learn more about the merchandise and Cafe menu on their website here.