In spite of some serious short term stress, the shutdown was good for our business over the long. It forced us to get a more better webstore, one of the parts of our business that continues to grow and the injection of capital from the sale of the bookstore became just what we needed to build the inventory we have today.

It took nearly two years after the shutdown to feel like things were getting back to normal (not having in store play for a year. after NY pause enabled us to have the slowest build out into our new shop), but we're now running gaming 6 days a week in store and back up to 3 amazing employees in addition to our family.

We’re working to give back every bit as much to WNY as the community has given us. To do so, we aspire to create a space that is truly welcoming to all, builds stronger community connections through a shared love of gaming and is built on ethos of sharing joy and fun. Competition is what makes many games engaging and fun, but we're committed to the notion of fun first in all of our programming and events. It's a aspiration that we hope shines through to each person who comes to our shop. Our mom and pop shop runs with a very small staff of avid local gamers who all live iin or near our west side neighborhood and share this vision.

Our old bookstore, Westside Stories, has reopened under new ownership just a couple blocks north of our shop on Grant St! If you're reader be sure to stop by and welcome them back and support them.

Our Story

Gather & Game is the home for all your tabletop gaming needs. We've got one of WNY's largest inventory of board, card and role playing games as well as board game library for gamers to shop and play in our cozy game space.

It all started when Jeanenne and Joe Petri opened a used bookstore, Westside Stories, on Grant St in 2011. When we opened our little shop, we did it with barely a $5k budget and no where near enough books to fill the first 1/3 of our store front.

But fate, an incredible landlord and an amazing community allowed us to grow our bookshop from it's meager beginnings and by 2014 we had grown not only to fill out bookshelves but started carrying gaming products at the bookstore to expand our offerings. When a storefront across the street from our bookshop opened up in 2019, we jumped at the chance to spin the game store off on its own as Gather & Game.

But in 2020, we celebrated Gather & Game's one year anniversary by locking the doors for the pandemic shutdown. Knowing we couldn't sustain both shops during an extended shutdown, we made the difficult decision to sell the bookstore and consolidate the game shop into the bookstore space at 205 Grant St.