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TableTop Game & Hobby is an independent tabletop game and hobby store at 9156 Metcalf Ave in Overland Park, opened by Phil Kilgore in 1994 and still run by him as founder and proprietor, with Walter Stewart — a customer at 16, staff since the late 2000s — as general manager and documented co-owner. It sells board games, miniature games, role-playing games, paints and hobby supplies, dice, puzzles and accessories, and deliberately does not run a collectible-card-game business. A free community game room runs through to Cardboard Corner Cafe, the separately owned sister business next door, and the two share one events calendar. The current store is the business’s fourth location; it was the subject of the first episode of the PBS series Wicked Awesome Stuff in 2017.

Description

TableTop Game & Hobby describes itself in one line that has been on both its website and its online store unchanged: “Kansas City’s non-electronic games specialist, proudly serving our hobby community since 1994.”12 The stock behind that line is board games, miniature games, role-playing games, hobby supplies, puzzles, dice and gaming accessories, sold out of a storefront in the Regent Park shopping center at 91st and Metcalf, alongside Micro Center and Natural Grocers.3

The store’s stated purpose is not the register. Its own mission line — “to foster the gaming community in our area, encourage camaraderie, and provide unique gaming experiences for our customers in a family friendly environment” — sits under the banner Bringing Kansas City Gamers together one roll at a time.3 The mechanism is the game room: a large open gaming area, free to use, no cover charge, with terrain and gaming mats supplied and dedicated tables for miniature painters. The store asks only that people buy something or order from the cafe when they need a drink or a meal. Tables cannot be reserved; private rooms can be rented.34

That room runs straight through into Cardboard Corner Cafe, a separate business at 9240 Metcalf Ave owned by Madeline and Chase Davis, which opened in 2020 and holds a library of 800+ board games free to play on site.356 The two operate as sister companies and publish one shared events calendar.57

What the store does not carry is as defining as what it does. Founder Phil Kilgore told The Pitch in 2022: “The fact that we don’t do collectible cards is what makes my store the way that it is.”8 The store’s own policy page still states it does not handle second-hand collectible game cards and is not accepting used board games, though it does buy large used RPG collections for store credit or cash.3 Trading-card retail is the ordinary economic engine of an American local game store; TableTop built a different one. Co-owner Walter Stewart told KantCon in 2025 that miniatures — “buyable, paintable and customizable,” Warhammer 40,000 chief among them — are what “keep the lights on,” and that his own favourite shelf is “the weird, indie RPGs.”9

The shelves also carry handmade goods from local artisans on consignment, which the store solicits by email under the heading “geek chic.”3 A published return policy governs the rest: proof of purchase required, and no returns at all on consignment items, gemstone dice, clearance, or opened product.3

The online store is a Square-hosted storefront at tabletopgameandhobby.company.site, reopened after what the business calls “much-needed maintenance,” with the full catalog still being uploaded and weekly social posts announcing what has gone live. Listings are almost entirely board and role-playing games and hobby paints — no trading-card product appeared in the visible catalog this pass.2

TableTop appears on the retailer directories of the publishers whose product it stocks, including a verified merchant listing with Darrington Press (the Critical Role publisher behind Daggerheart and Candela Obscura) and a CMON Play store-locator entry.1011 It is also one of the shops listed by the Role-Players Guild of Kansas City, the metro’s tabletop nonprofit.12

This page is not Level One Game Shop, the independent tabletop store in the City Market on the Missouri side; not Cardboard Corner Cafe, the adjacent, separately owned cafe and bar; not Victory Road or Meeple-a-thon KC, two other Overland Park game shops;13 and not the Wil Wheaton web series TableTop or the 2024 documentary The Hobby: Tales from the Tabletop.

Ownership and history

Phil Kilgore opened TableTop Game & Hobby in 1994. The date is carried on the store’s own site and online store, and is repeated with his name attached by KCUR (2023), The Pitch (2022), KantCon (2025) and The Army Painter (2026).126894 The store’s team page lists him, without a surname, as “Founder and Proprietor — Duke of Dice Town.”1415

Kilgore dates the impulse to 1977: “The thing that warped my sensibility and gave me my career in 1977 was Dungeons and Dragons.”8 His first-party bio gives the same origin — original Dungeons & Dragons as the spark for a lifelong interest that eventually produced the business.15 The proximate cause was more practical: he told KCUR the shop grew out of painting toy soldiers for extra income, and out of a chance meeting. “I ended up getting connected with an individual that just wanted to have a good place to take him and his kids to go have fun. There wasn’t anything like it in our area, and he ended up investing in my idea.”6

The store has moved three times. It ran 11 years in its original Lenexa location and had outgrown it by 2005. A second location held it about five years, and then, in Kilgore’s words to KCUR, they “bounced again.” Tired of moving, he settled the business in Overland Park in 2016.6 The Pitch counts the Metcalf Avenue store as the business’s “fourth iteration.”8 The intermediate addresses were not located this pass. A wall of plaques inside one of the store’s game rooms records the chronology of the moves.6

The second location produced the incident the store is best known for surviving. Kilgore described it to The Pitch: “When I pulled up, a six-inch city water main had blown in the middle of the night. And it was sending this arcing rocket of water on top of my store. It was about four degrees out, so it was supercooling and flash-freezing everything.” He spent four hours not knowing whether the claim would be covered. It was — and the claim was strange enough, the article reports, that Kansas subsequently required two additional pages in every insurance policy in the state.8

Walter Stewart is the second name on the business. He arrived as a customer at 16 — “As a wee bairn of 16, my mom would take me to the store in the minivan and I was an insufferable little nerd tyke. I was one of the first customers of Tabletop” — spent his young adulthood there playing Vampire: The Masquerade, and later joined the staff.6 KCUR put his start at 2008 and called him “a manager and co-owner”; The Army Painter, writing in August 2026, said he “joined the company 16 years ago” — about 2010 — “and eventually became one of its co-owners.”64 KantCon calls him “Co-owner Walter Stewart.”9 The store’s own team page lists him as “General Manager — Judicator of Rule Discernment” and does not print an ownership title.14 Both the start-year figures and both the title framings are recorded here rather than merged.

Stewart is the store’s own argument for itself: “We have customers now that are in their third generation of nerds. Those little nerd grandbabies are in here. We’ve just fostered a place that everyone wants to go to and people can pass down to their kids.”6 The Army Painter made the same point in the vocabulary of urbanism: when TableTop opened, “nobody was talking about ‘third spaces’ … Looking back, that’s exactly what the store became.”4

The rest of the published team is Hailey (Manager), Brent (Assistant Manager), Drew (resident miniature painter), Anna, Jake, Khris, Emily White-Winter and Ly Pahud.14

Cardboard Corner Cafe is the newest branch of the story and is deliberately not part of this business. Cafe owner Madeline Davis, who had come to TableTop as a customer from the Missouri side and joined the staff in 2018, told KCUR that “Phil told us, ‘Hey, I want a bar and cafe but I don’t wanna run it. Can I invest in you?’”6 Kilgore framed the same arrangement to The Pitch: “It’s really going to be their show. We invested in their idea for what they wanted to do in the same way somebody invested in my idea when I was young and poor and no bank would give me any money.”8 Cardboard Corner opened in 2020, months before the pandemic silenced it; the businesses stayed connected to customers through a public Discord, and in early 2021 Discord members staffed the cafe for a week after all but two employees tested positive for COVID.6 It has since added a second location at Lenexa Public Market.59 Kilgore also credited the wider community with carrying TableTop through the pandemic: “I had no idea how much we were loved. We would have people buying $1000 gift certificates.”8

The store’s one piece of national broadcast coverage is the PBS series Wicked Awesome Stuff, whose Season 1, Episode 1 — “TableTop Game and Hobby” — aired 4 October 2017, ran 27 minutes, and was built around host Ray Walters visiting the Overland Park store. It interviews Phil Kilgore, John Cleaves of DGS Games and strategy player Tommy Rebecchi, and includes a look at an original printing of Dungeons & Dragons.1617

TableTop sponsored the KantCon gaming convention at the Overland Park Convention Center in 2025, staffing a booth, running games, and supplying raffle prizes.9 The store marked its 30th anniversary in 2024.9

Legal entity name and Kansas Secretary of State registration were not searched this pass.

Sources

Footnotes

  1. TableTop Game and Hobby — official site home page, accessed 2026-09-07. URL (HTTP 200; WordPress with Yoast. Asserts: “TableTop Game & Hobby is Kansas City’s non-electronic games specialist, proudly serving our hobby community since 1994. We carry a massive variety of board games, miniature games, role-playing games, hobby supplies, puzzles, dice, gaming accessories, and so much more”; address 9156 Metcalf Ave, Overland Park, KS 66212; phone 913-962-4263; email customerservice@tabletopgameandhobby.com; hours “Sunday: 11:00am to 6:00pm / Monday - Saturday: 10:00am to 9:00pm”; the free game room, weekly events, Open Play nights and learn-to-play and painting classes; the online-store reopening notice; TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and Discord links, the Discord being discord.gg/t2c3; “We have partnered with Cardboard Corner and adding a cafe, bar, private gaming rooms, and large game library right next door!”; nav items Home, Shop, About Us, Events, Contact Us, Downloads, with Events pointing off-site to cardboardcornerkc.com/events/. Also carries an embedded Instagram feed whose visible posts are dated 1–6 September 2026 — painted dragon and monster miniatures brought in from a longtime regular, new weekly stock, a Daggerheart “Hope & Fear” expansion, and a 1 September release. Bio line in the embed: “KC’s Premier Game Store! Game Bar & Cafe @cardboardcorner next door.”) ↩ ↩2

  2. TableTop Game & Hobby Online Store (Square-hosted), accessed 2026-09-07. URL (HTTP 200. Asserts: the same “since 1994” line as the main site; the reopening notice — “After some much-needed maintenance, our online store is finally reopening!… Please bear with us as we continue uploading our full catalog”; a live catalog of board games, expansions, RPG books and hobby paints with per-item prices and in-stock / sold-out states; customer testimonials. No trading-card product appeared among the visible listings; the only mentions of “Magic the Gathering” on the page are inside two customer testimonials, not product entries.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. TableTop Game and Hobby — “About Us,” accessed 2026-09-07. URL (HTTP 200. Asserts: the banner “Bringing Kansas City Gamers together one roll at a time”; “TableTop is located in the Regent Park shopping center at 91st and Metcalf. We share this shopping center with other excellent stores such as Micro Center and Natural Grocers”; the same hours as the home page; “The large gaming area is connected straight through to Cardboard Corner Cafe… There is no cover charge”; game room open during Cardboard Corner’s hours; “We do not currently take reservations for tables, but private rooms are available for rental”; the 800+ game library next door; “Our goal for over 30 years is to foster the gaming community in our area, encourage camaraderie, and provide unique gaming experiences for our customers in a family friendly environment”; used-RPG trade-in for store credit or cash, and “At this time, we are not accepting used board games and we do not handle second hand collectible game cards”; handmade “geek chic” goods from local artisans; and a return policy requiring proof of purchase with no returns on consignment items, gemstone dice, opened or used products, or clearance.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  4. “While You’re Out: Painting Miniatures at TableTop Game & Hobby in Overland Park,” The Army Painter (retailer spotlight), 20 August 2026. URL (Asserts: “Walter, co-owner of TableTop Game & Hobby in Overland Park, Kansas”; that he “joined the company 16 years ago and eventually became one of its co-owners” after arriving as a kid dropped off by his mother; “the store’s original owner, Phil, who opened TableTop Game & Hobby in 1994”; the large free community gaming area with terrain and gaming mats provided, private rooms available to reserve, and dedicated hobby tables; one-on-one introductory painting classes built around a Games Workshop Chaos Warrior miniature; Paint-a-Palooza, the store’s painting weekend of classes, demonstrations, contests and a limited-palette speed challenge; and the “third spaces” framing — “Back when TableTop Game & Hobby first opened, nobody was talking about ‘third spaces’… Looking back, that’s exactly what the store became.”) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  5. Cardboard Corner Cafe — official site home page, accessed 2026-09-07. URL (Asserts: two locations — Cardboard Corner Overland Park at 9240 Metcalf Ave, Overland Park, KS 66212, phone 913-208-2227, and Cardboard Corner LPM at 8750 Penrose Ln, Lenexa, KS 66219; “Check out our sister company, Tabletop Game and Hobby, Kansas City’s premier game shop!”; “About the Owners — Madeline and Chase are professional geeks”; board game library, private rooms bookable for up to 10, community Discord, and a food and drink menu.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  6. Zach Perez, “Meet the ‘3 generations of nerds’ who find their escape at Overland Park’s TableTop game café,” KCUR 89.3, published 17 February 2023, part of the series The Regulars. URL (Asserts: “Phil Kilgore first opened TableTop Game & Hobby in 1994”; the toy-soldier-painting origin and the investor quote, “I ended up getting connected with an individual that just wanted to have a good place to take him and his kids to go have fun”; “TableTop operated for 11 years in its original location in Lenexa, Kansas, but by 2005… they’d grown too big”; a second location for five years and a further move; the 2016 decision to settle in Overland Park “near 95th and Metcalf”; a wall of plaques recording the chronology of the moves; Walter Stewart’s “wee bairn of 16” quote, that he “began working at TableTop in 2008,” that he is “now a manager and co-owner,” and the “third generation of nerds” quote; Madeline Davis joining staff in 2018 and Kilgore’s “Can I invest in you?” line; Cardboard Corner added in 2020 and the Discord community staffing it for a week in early 2021; regulars Matthew King, Madeline Turnipseed and Larson Wiley, and Wiley teaching Warhammer 40k in the game rooms.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10

  7. Cardboard Corner Cafe — “Events” page, the destination of TableTop’s own Events nav item, accessed 2026-09-07. URL (Asserts: “Welcome to our new events system! You can also bookmark events.cardboardcornerkc.com”; nav sections for Full Events Calendar, Tabletop RPGs Community Guide, Really Pleasant Gaming Weekend (RPGW), Paint-a-Palooza, Overland Park Events, Lenexa Events, Private Rooms and Book a Private Room. Establishes that TableTop’s event programming is published through Cardboard Corner’s calendar.) ↩

  8. Jonas Pelot, “TableTop Game and Hobby demonstrates resilience and community support,” The Pitch, 19 April 2022. URL (Asserts: “Phil Kilgore, the owner and founder of TableTop, has run the shop since its beginning”; the absence of Pokémon and Magic as the store’s distinguishing feature and the quote “The fact that we don’t do collectible cards is what makes my store the way that it is”; “The thing that warped my sensibility and gave me my career in 1977 was Dungeons and Dragons”; “The first shop came around in 1994”; the current store as the business’s “fourth iteration”; the water-main rupture at the second location, in Kilgore’s own words, and the insurance outcome including the two extra pages subsequently required on Kansas policies; that Cardboard Corner is attached but “not directly owned by Kilgore” and is run by Madeline and Chase Davis “who are slowly buying their part of the operation,” with Kilgore’s “It’s really going to be their show” quote; the COVID gift-certificate quote; and the address 9156 Metcalf Avenue with hours “open daily from 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.”) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  9. “KantCon enjoys booth, staff, and support from TableTop Games and Hobby, Cardboard Corner Cafe in 2025,” KantCon, 25 June 2025. URL (Asserts: “Phil Kilgore opened the store in 1994 and relocated in the past few years to a new, even nicer location right next to the new Cardboard Corner Cafe”; “TableTop celebrated its 30th anniversary last year”; “Co-owner Walter Stewart” and his quotes on miniatures keeping the lights on, on indie RPGs being his favourite shelf, and on reaching a third generation of customers; the product range — miniature games such as Warhammer 40K, RPGs including D&D and Pathfinder, adult- and family-friendly board games, dice and books; free game space; TableTop as a 2025 KantCon sponsor running the booth and games at the Overland Park Convention Center; and the addresses 9156 Metcalf Ave for TableTop and 9240 Metcalf Ave for Cardboard Corner, “right next door,” with a Lenexa Public Market cafe location added.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  10. Darrington Press — “Tabletop Game and Hobby,” marked Verified listing in the publisher’s retailer directory, accessed 2026-09-07. URL (Asserts: merchant-supplied description — “We specialize in non-electronic games & carry a VAST variety of board games, miniatures, role-playing games, dice, gaming accessories, and MORE! Our store features a MASSIVE gaming space open to the public… We host weekly open play nights, tournaments, and other gaming events a’plenty!” with Cardboard Corner named as “our sister company & premium gaming café” and its 800+ library; address 9156 Metcalf Ave.; phone (913) 962-4263; website tabletopgameandhobby.com; hours Monday–Saturday 10:00am–9:00pm and Sunday 11:00am–6:00pm, matching first-party; social links to Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, plus a Discord invite at discord.com/invite/SMMpUzvmau that differs from the discord.gg/t2c3 link on the store’s own site; tags for Darrington Press Games, Tabletop Games and Critical Role Products; and a store photo gallery dated 2023.) ↩

  11. CMON — store locator entry, “TableTop Game & Hobby,” CMON Play, accessed 2026-09-07. URL (Asserts: the store is a listed CMON Play retailer; 9156 Metcalf Ave, Overland Park, KS 66212, USA; phone 9139624263; website www.tabletopgameandhobby.com. Used as publisher-directory corroboration of address, phone and trading status.) ↩

  12. Role-Players Guild of Kansas City (RPGKC) — “Local Game Stores,” accessed 2026-09-07. URL (Asserts: “TableTop Game & Hobby — Overland Park, KS,” linked to tabletopgameandhobby.com, on the Guild’s list of KC-metro tabletop game stores. RPGKC describes itself as a nonprofit “dedicated to enhancing tabletop hobby gaming in Kansas City and the surrounding areas since 1990.” Used as local-community corroboration that the store is an operating metro game shop.) ↩

  13. LGS Finder — “TableTop Game & Hobby, Overland Park, Kansas,” accessed 2026-09-07 (rendered via Firecrawl). URL (Asserts, used here: 9156 Metcalf Ave, Overland Park, KS 66212; +1 913-962-4263; hours Monday–Saturday 10 AM–9 PM and Sunday 11 AM–6 PM, matching first-party; a rating of 4.9 across 1,968 reviews, Google-derived; a directions pin at 38.9621758, -94.6699927; and neighbouring Overland Park shops Victory Road and Meeple-a-thon KC. Asserts, and rejected: machine-generated feature and FAQ text claiming the store “carries Magic: The Gathering,” offers “booster packs, singles, and sealed product,” and rating Magic availability at “90 percent accuracy” — this contradicts the owner on the record in The Pitch and the store’s own policy page, and is recorded as a conflict rather than used as fact.) ↩

  14. TableTop Game and Hobby — “Team,” accessed 2026-09-07. URL (Asserts: Walter — “General Manager - Judicator of Rule Discernment”; Phil — “Founder and Proprietor - Duke of Dice Town”; Hailey — “Manager - Wonder Wee One”; Brent — “Assistant Manager - GenCon Travel Agent”; Drew, “resident miniature painter”; Anna, “gaming guru”; plus Ly Pahud, Khris, Jake and Emily White-Winter. No ownership title is printed against Walter first-party — the co-owner description comes from press.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  15. TableTop Game and Hobby — team profile, “Phil,” accessed 2026-09-07. URL (Asserts: title “Founder and Proprietor - Duke of Dice Town”; that his interest in tabletop gaming began with the original Dungeons & Dragons and led to the business; current favourites Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd/4th ed., Small World with expansions, and Warhammer Fantasy Battles 5th–7th ed. No surname and no founding date on the page.) ↩ ↩2

  16. Wicked Awesome Stuff — “TableTop Game and Hobby,” Season 1, Episode 1, PBS video page, accessed 2026-09-07. URL (HTTP 200. Asserts: the episode exists on PBS under the title “Wicked Awesome Stuff | TableTop Game and Hobby | Season 1 | Episode 1,” with the synopsis “WAS takes a look at some of the hottest board games, RPG’s and tabletop strategy titles.” The series page, pbs.org, names the host as Ray Walters.) ↩

  17. TheTVDB — Wicked Awesome Stuff, Season 1 Episode 1, “TableTop Game & Hobby,” accessed 2026-09-07. URL (Asserts: original air date 4 October 2017, runtime 27 minutes, network PBS, and the full episode description — Ray and the WAS crew travel to Overland Park, Kansas to visit TableTop Game and Hobby, interviewing Phil Kilgore, owner and proprietor, John Cleaves of DGS Games and strategy enthusiast Tommy Rebecchi, and viewing an original printing of Dungeons and Dragons. Used for the air date and cast detail the PBS page does not print.) ↩

See also

Categories

On the record — ks.city/registry/tabletop-game-and-hobby · record updated 2026-09-07