Family Run Family Fun
We're a local family with big dreams and big hearts, wanting to share our love of video games, board games, and good food with our community.
Our Story
The Story of Game Lobby begins with Tash and James deciding that upon Tash's return to work after being a stay at home parent, they wanted to open a business that has laser tag and hosted kids birthday parties. Knowing that the local area was not big enough for two entertainment venues, they ended up joining forces with the owners of the local gaming arcade "XSite Gaming" to create one larger venue that would host a bit of everything, and ease the stress on both families by sharing the work required to run a business. Arcades, laser tag, virtual reality, a café, board games, table top gaming, and parties of all kinds!
There were quite a few hiccups and difficulties along the way, the most significant of which, was the Covid-19 epidemic. Two weeks before Game Lobby's grand opening, nation wide lockdowns went into effect, and all our final installations and system tests were put on hold. We were devastated, but we did what we could to make sure the shop was ready to go as soon as the lockdown ended and we would be allowed to open. Months later, on the 4th of July 2020, we finally had our grand opening! It was a fantastic day, and the weeks and months that followed were just as good. Our local community showed us so much love and support. Without our community, our business would not have lasted long, as unfortunately, being a new business meant we were ineligible for any government grants for businesses affected by the lockdown at the beginning of the epidemic. Our first couple of years were a bit scary, with a few more smaller outbreaks and smaller lockdowns, and the knowledge that pretty much everyone was struggling financially now, so families were going out less. There was a constant nagging fear that the epidemic would cost us our business before we really had a chance to operate without restrictions, build it up, and see what it was capable of.
Fast forward to today, and we are very proud to say that we are still here! Still trying to grow and improve our shop and ourselves.
We've had some changes to management along the way, as the former owners of X-Site have left the company to focus on their families and new career paths. We've also said some sad goodbyes to staff (though they still come in to hang out and play games), gained new staff, and we have even started training some of our own teens who are eager to help out and gain some paid work experience. Throughout all of these changes we have made sure that our company's values have been upheld, and that our staff have always made customers feel welcome and safe. We pride ourselves on putting in that little bit of extra effort with each group, party, family or individual, to make their experience memorable instead of being another "laser tag vending machine" type venue.
What does the future hold for us? We would love to become successful enough to open more stores one day! But honestly, we're not really sure what our future holds. We can say with certainty though, that we will continue to grow as business owners and push ourselves to learn more skills and form more bonds with our surrounding community, with the goal of helping our business to bloom into the best it can be!
We have been so lucky to be surrounded by such a wonderful and supportive local community, and visited by so many friendly faces who have passed through on their travels, and we hope that everyone who comes to our store can feel the love and passion that we pour into this place.
Meet The Team
Teams that we sponsor
Our Distributors and Gaming Service Providers
