Jeff Rietveld says his Out of the Box Games & Puzzles store needed a larger space so the 40 or so customers who gather for board game nights could have more than just elbow room to play. So after two years in business on Zeeland's N. State St., Rietveld and his wife, Hillary, relocated the growing business to a 4,000-square-foot storefront at 137 E. Main St. and opened two weeks ago.
"We've had as many as 60 people for our game nights," Jeff Rietveld says. "They come in about 5 p.m. to play our board games and it goes to 1 or 2 a.m."
Out of the Box carries some 1,200 board games and hundreds of puzzles, Rietveld says. And now the store also carries select lines of unusual toys. With that much inventory, one would think there'd be an electronic or video game in the mix, but Rietveld says "the closest to anything with a battery in it might be a board game with a battery in the timer."
"We think people are valuing time with family a lot more," he says. "Our customers are mostly people coming in looking for a couple of games they played at a friend's house and they want to find something for their family to play."
Popular games include Ticket To Ride, Dominion and Settlers of Catan, Rietveld says. Puzzle enthusiasts will find jigsaw puzzles from Germany, Canada, Portugal and the U.S., including the unconventional WASGIJ (jigsaw spelled backward) puzzles, as well as brainteasers and word puzzles.
Toys include action figures of knights and dragons, princes, princesses and animals, wood building blocks, dress-up dolls, and Klutz "how-to" craft kits for making balloon animals, paper airplanes and jewelry.
Store hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mon., Tues. and Weds.; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thurs. and Fri.; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sat. Games nights happen four nights a month. For more information, call the store at 616.772.5544.
Source: Jeff Rietveld, Out of the Box; Abigail deRoo, City of Zeeland
Writer: Deborah Johnson Wood, Development News Editor
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