Features/Dragon

From Sedes Draconis

The Saint George Hotel is an historic building in downtown Santa Cruz. After the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake (the epicenter of which was just 14 km away from Santa Cruz, and even less from my home) the St. George Hotel was rebuilt. In its new incarnation the upper two floors are rented studios, and the bottom floor is home to several retail stores, including my own workplace Bookshop Santa Cruz.

Where the St. George is, two streets, Pacific Avenue and Front Street, are very close together, and indeed meet only a hundred feet or so down the street. So the St. George takes up the entire space between the two streets. In fact, Bookshop Santa Cruz has a front door on Pacific, and a back door on Front ;-).

Another business that moved into the re-built St. George (on the Pacific side) was Game*Alot, a toy/games/hobby store. A few years later the store was doing so well that it expanded by creating a sister-store directly on the opposite (Front) side of the St. George. This sister store carried the more gamer-oriented products, while the original store carried the toys and child-oriented products.

The sister-store's shop face was directly next to the main entrance for the St. George (that is for the St. George as itself).

So what was this sister store called, a gamer store right next to a big sign that said "St. George"?

Naturally, it was called "The Dragon". What else?

http://www.sedesdraconis.com/images/photos/george.jpg

Unfortunately times have been harder for Game*Alot recently and it has decided to close down The Dragon and consolidate everything back into the one store.

But I thought the world should know about this cleverly named store that once existed.