This place is your typical gathering place for board gamers (mostly tabletop RPG). They do carry a…read moresmall selection of board games for purchase and a separate rack of games you can play before purchasing (or just for fun). They have an extensive collection of figurines and paints for games like DnD, Pathfinder, etc. as well as handbooks and various rulebooks/info books for these games. The people are super friendly! The prices of games and books here, from what I looked at, were about $10 cheaper than other stores! Also, it's open late every night for fun. Only 4 stars because it smells like microwaved leftovers.

Great store with very friendly and knowledgeable staff who are extremely welcoming! They have a…read morewide selection and will always get you what you need! The game nights they host are great, and the later hours are really great for people who work till later in the day!

I so badly wanted to like this place. My husband and I are huge fans of game/puzzle shops. However,…read morethe staff is really rude. My husband was interested in purchasing a chess set, and lifted up the top of the box to see the size of the chess pieces. The worker yanked it out of his hands and yelled at him. It's fine to tell him not to open a box (although he was in no way damaging it), but this should have been handled differently, particularly as one of the reasons people go to these stores rather than shopping online is to see what they are buying. The games and puzzles are also way over-priced. You can find them for half the price on Amazon. Apparently they also have a horrible return policy. You can return only an unopened item and only for store credit and only within a short period of time. I will never buy anything from this store again.

I went to the store in Champaign the evening of 10/3 and my friend and I were in there for almost…read morean hour. The two women who worked there were genuinely excited about various games and thus very good at selling them. There were open games all over the store so we tried a bunch out and the women recommended games based on other games we liked. It was an awesome experience and much better than buying games online! I would love it if this store had events :)

Best video game store in the area. Huge new and retro selection, great prices, and great customer…read moreservice. Much better selection than disc replay, and everything I've ever bought has never had any issues.

Friendly service! Great little game shop. We were warmly greeted when we came in and they had a…read morenice variety of retro games.

Friendly folks, and smells great if you like incense. One note, though - the only games they carry…read moreat this point are collectible card games. Oh, well...

I was pretty excited to check this store out. The name is mystical and the lettering is inviting…read morefor those of us who have a place in our hearts for fantasy. Unfortunately, I was somewhat disappointed. I was greeted well when I arrived and the employees were attentive for my entire stay (asking if I needed help finding anything, if I had any questions, etc.). I would agree with some of the other reviews that this store is a bit hard to navigate. They have quite a large Harry Potter section -- I think this takes up the majority of their store. Then they have some crystals and incense, which don't seem all that fitting. It's like walking through 15 different stores all in one location... and not in a good way. They have your mainstream geek things (Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Nightmare Before Christmas, Magic) and then some random things like the crystals, incense, tapestries, wall vinyls. I came to the store to get a set of dice for DnD, which I thought was a pretty standard item to carry for geeky stores such as this. Apparently, I was wrong. They had a pretty good amount of individual dice (enough to pick out your own color/style for each die you needed to create a set and I did find all matching ones) but they all felt kinda cheap (I mean they were only $0.25 each). They had some very plain sets of dice in plastic bags as well, but they were mostly sad solid colors that reminded me of the dice you got with 90s board games. Other than dice, they had the typical DM Guide and Player's Handbook and a few other DnD items. No miniatures to be found, however. I'd recommend this store if you're looking for a place to gather and play games (they have an upstairs gaming room) or if you need some Harry Potter things, but otherwise I don't know that I would frequent it or go out of my way to stop in.

Conveniently located in downtown Champaign near the Illinois Terminal (Amtrak, MTD buses) and a…read morestone's throw from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus, Exile on Main Street has a fantastic selection of new and previously loved vinyl, CDs, cassette tapes, and more. I recently met the owner, Jeff Brandt, at the store while my partner was on the hunt for Taylor Swift and Charli XCX vinyls. Jeff was immediately attentive and we struck up conversations about Taylor Swift, the positives and areas of improvement downtown Champaign could use, the area's history as a musical mecca, and much more. It was easy to see how much love and sweat equity he's put into the community and the store. An adjacent vintage store has closed but Exile regularly hosts pop-ups, underscoring its community-first vibes. When you're looking for vinyl finds, skip online, Target and chains and support institutions like Exile on Main!

This is the THE record store to visit in Champaign-Urbana. Yeah, there's Record Swap if you want…read moreused classic rock or See You Vinyl with their dozens of records, but Exile is the place to be. The store itself has an interesting layout that promotes exploration and discovery. There's a nice mix of used and new vinyl, (mostly used) CDs, and even some cassettes and VHS tapes. I'd say Exile's strengths are all things indie, major artists from the 90s onward, classic rock, and a bunch of niche stuff. I like to find reissues of 90s and 00s electronic stuff there, and they typically stock new jazz releases from Blue Note and some of the other big labels (not a huge selection, but everything they have is good). Of course, this is just my perception. You'll find each genre well represented. If you don't see what you want, the owner is happy to get it for you. He's a great guy with a deep knowledge of music. He actually has a whole section that he's selling from his personal collection, which is an interesting category. It's like a bunch of great titles that have been out of circulation for a long time. Overall, this is a fun place to find good music. Check it out.

I go there for back issue comic books. I always come away with 20-30 books for a more than fair…read moreprice. I always spend a decent amount of time due to searching through boxes and small talk with the workers, all great people.

No stars. The guy was a jackass and called our sports cards "garbage" and "worthless" without even…read morelooking at them. Very unsatisfactory service, DO NOT GO HERE! You'd have better luck selling ice to an Eskimo, and a more intelligent conversation, too. He's also selling cards with no value for a ridiculous price because HE feels they're worth something by his PERSONAL OPINION. This place is a joke. DO NOT EVER GO HERE!!

I came in with gold and silver items, and I was shocked at the low ball offer from the shop owner…read more For the whole lot, the proprietress, offered 40% off the melt value of the items. One item, a ten ounce silver bar was bought for $240.00 in 2022. She offered only $200.00 for it! I would have made a loss on the item even though silver per ounce sells for nigh $39.00/ounce. I had in total 50 francs and 1 ducat in gold. Using a quote of $3450/ounce of gold and having about .57675 of an ounce would have yielded about $1990.00 in a fair market value outside of listing fees and so on. The whole lot in mkt value was somewhere near $2500.00. The lady offered about $1580.00 for the whole lot. Please avoid this shop at all costs. This person does not want to make a fair profit; she wants to make a killing by taking you for a sucker. I was very angry, but I left w/o making a scene.

I recently discovered this local outlet and am very impressed with their selection, pricing,…read morefriendliness and professionalism. A welcome bonus is there are usually other like-minded collectors in the shop which adds a sense of fraternity and comradery. I will definitely be giving them my business in the future!

Reasonable prices for architectural supplies, Convenient location and store hours for UIUC…read morestudents, Friendly staff! Happy to have Blackline Supply in the Champaign community.

I seriously don't think I would survive without this place. As a UIUC Architecture student without…read morea car, Blackline is a saving grace. They have some of the best customer service I've ever experienced and are always willing to help you figure out what will work best for your projects. On top of the student discount and already fair prices, they're always helping you get the best bang for your buck when they could very easily pray on the ignorance of undergraduates. Their selection is outstanding and I'm always able to find what I need. I can't give enough positive praise to this place, and it helps to know you're giving your money to such a well ran small business!