(Image: Gabrielle Locke)

(Image: Gabrielle Locke)

By Gabrielle Locke

“We have re-opened into a little shop with a semi-cranky old man,” owner Eric Logan tells CHS.

We talked with Logan before the latest round of COVID-19 restrictions added new limitations on in-person shopping. It’s possible Logan is a little crankier now.

Eric and Amy Logan opened a specialty retail shop on Capitol Hill 12 years ago called Gamma Ray Games.

“My wife and I share a passion for creating and building intersectional environments and the original store was a way for us to do that together,” Eric Logan said.

Logan and Amy began to see a need for an event oriented space and opened Raygun Lounge on E Pine, eventually consolidating the businesses.

Now the game play of life is completing a circuit of the board. The lounge is going back to being a game shop.

The First Annual Raygun Lounge POP Up Store is now open.

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“We will be selling the same kind of amazing eclectic, gaming and pop-cultural swag and collectibles that we focused on back in the original tiny Gamma Ray Game Store down the street,” Logan said. “We sell new and used games, accessories, comics toys, and collectibles that I source from both wholesalers and private collectors.”

Meanwhile, the latest challenges have added to a growing discomfort for the business.

“The retail environment and Capitol Hill neighborhood that we initially opened into were both already changing dramatically even then, so we evolved the environment that we created to be viable through those changes which led, eventually to a fusion retail/event/tavern/play/arcade space that was just starting to really succeed, take root and expand on its own when arbitrary political forces banned all gatherings on short notice indefinitely and I and it have been struggling to find our place in society and the economy ever since,” Logan said.

But, he also admits, the COVID-19 crisis is part of what has been a longer running set of challenges existing as a small business on Capitol Hill.

“When I opened in this neighborhood there were dozens of small businesses, it was a real draw,” Logan said. “People would come here from all over the world.”

Those kinds of lost opportunities are piling up.

“This past March, the first day of Emerald City Comic-Con, was going to be the more successful weekend of the more successful quarter of the most successful year we’ve ever had,” Logan said.

Today, all he can do is look forward future days and nights of beer and arcade games and try his best to enjoy getting “back to his roots” selling board games.

The Raygun Lounge is located at 501 E Pine. For current hours and days of business, check out raygunlounge.com where you can also shop online.

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Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.