North Texas Daily

On Saturday, Freaks and Geeks LLC was bustling with cosplayers, trading card game players, face painting and plenty of gaming.

The store officially celebrated its grand opening on Dec. 8.

Freaks and Geeks is a “nerd store” that carries everything from vintage video games, action figures, and toys to comics and trading cards. The store was previously located at 1629 N. Elm St. in a house, but Freaks and Geeks moved to a new space on 1807 N. Elm St. near Texas Woman’s University.

The store has won the “Best Video Game Store” title by Best of Denton County Magazine every year they have been open. This year they won “Best Arcade” title in Denton County. Freaks and Geeks is going on the end of its fourth year and has almost been open for five years now.

“It’s a big time for us,” Featherstone said. “It’s weird because it feels like we’re opening a new store. It feels like we’re starting all over again because it’s such a larger footprint and such a bigger idea. All in all, [we’re] going into our fifth year, but it sure as heck feels like we’re starting all over again with a brand new idea.”

Not much has changed since the soft opening of Freaks and Geeks back in October, but owners Joey Ramirez and Alec Featherstone have refined some processes within the store.

“We’ve sort of refined everything for the most part,” Ramirez said. “[We’ve been] needing our little breathing room, but for the most part the biggest thing is we finally have our sections together and near complete.”

Featherstone added that they were “in the home stretch.”

“Everything is where it needs to be, and we just need to keep making progress from there,” Ramirez said.

Since its original opening, Freaks and Geeks has worked on fostering a wonderful friendship with the community. This has not changed with the expansion and the grand opening.

“[The community] has done nothing but help us through, shoulder us, give us words of encouragement, be here for us [and] literally bring us coffee at certain points, which has been great,” Featherstone said. “It really speaks volumes to the relationship that we’ve built with the community and the respect and trust the community puts into us.”

A couple of days ago, people stole items from the Freaks and Geeks store. Disheartened, Featherstone made a post on his personal Facebook about it.

Face painting of a “moogle” from the “Final Fantasy” game series during Freaks and Geeks’ grand opening. Emily Olkkola

“It was just one of those days that got to me, and the community just reached out [with] nothing but words of encouragement, and this was at like two in the morning,” Featherstone said. “Just to see everybody show up [today] and turn something like that that’s negative into something like this that’s so positive? Couldn’t ask for anything more.”

Ramirez agrees that the Freaks and Geeks community is something to be admired.

“We’ve got one of the best communities,” Ramirez said. “A lot of our regulars [helped] whenever we were not even opening. We were moving stuff over there, helping organize, price stuff out, put stuff where it needs to be.”

Amongst the community, a Yu-Gi-Oh! player often comes in to help sort and price cards. Video game players also help Freaks and Geeks price and sort video games.

The “Smash Bros.” players help a lot with Freaks and Geeks’ tournaments. They went from around eight people coming to their “Smash Bros.” tournaments to having around 60 people attend a lock-in for “Smash Bros.” from 9 p.m. to 9 a.m.

“They started trickling out, but it was still huge to see all of these people put their own personal time that they could be doing other stuff with,” Ramirez said. “They love us so much that they’re just doing this.”

In the new year, Featherstone and Ramirez are starting a not-for-profit charity with the “Pokemon” community.

“We want these communities to look at us as a sounding board for them,” said Featherstone. “We’re an interactive community bulletin board if you will, and that’s the way we want to be.”

In January, Freaks and Geeks plans on hosting a free video game day where there will be free video games handed out and also feature discounts on products.

Until then, Featherstone is enjoying the support of the community and the opening of the store.

“We can never ever put the words of what the community means for us and what they do for us,” Featherstone said. “So we just try every day to present ourselves as good of a product and as good of an experience as we can in some sort of way to thank them for what they’ve done for us.”

Featured Image: Retail worker Briana Carter cosplays as Link from “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” at Freaks and Geeks’ grand opening. Emily Olkkola