Morton card shop owners buy pair of Twin Cities stores as East County business expands
Shortly after celebrating their first successful year of business in Morton last month, Nerd Pros co-owners Marcus and Alissa Read announced the operation is not only growing, but expanding with a second new location - Nerd Pros West.
The announcement came after the Reads closed on purchasing a pair of Twin Cities businesses, AllTech Electronics and Bigfoot Treasure.
Bigfoot Treasure is an eccentric gift shop featuring everything from paranormal-themed novelty gifts to Bigfoot track castings. It was first opened in 2009 by Mitch Moberg, who had already been looking for a new owner to take over since early in 2025, as previously reported by The Chronicle.
"When we first found out, I was so sad. But I wanted him to find a good buyer, so I kept liking and commenting on his posts about the sale, hoping the right one would come along," Alissa said in a Nerd Pros news release.
"I have been doing this type of work for 46 years. It is time to change it up," Mitch added. "I have enjoyed my time with Bigfoot Treasure and it has brought many wonderful people into my life. However, (being) a full-time brick and mortar business owner is not where my future is. I'm ready to try some different things."
AllTech was owned by father and son Bill and Jeremy Haddox and had been relocated to 1610 S. Gold St. in Centralia after they lost their original location in 2014 when the old Yard Birds shopping mall was closed without notice. It was a computer and electronics repair shop that also sold instruments, stereo systems, video games and other nerdy collectibles. Together, the Haddoxes had been running the business with Matt Peterson.
"It was time for a change," Peterson said in a Nerd Pros news release.
When the Reads found out that AllTech's owners were looking at selling, they decided to go ahead and pull the trigger to buy Bigfoot Treasure as well.
"It just made sense," Alissa added.
Especially with Nerd Pros growing its own selection of vintage video game consoles and equipment.
While both Bill and Jeremy are moving on to pursue other interests - with Bill wanting to do some travelling and enjoy retirement while Jeremy wants to focus on doing more electronic repairs - Peterson has now partnered with the Reads to oversee the operations of Nerd Pros West, which will be at Bigfoot Treasure's old location at 548 N. Market Blvd. in downtown Chehalis.
He's now the second business partner to join the Reads this year along with Damon Hanger.
"We want to make a family friendly game store, with a selection of harder to find gaming media. With the new games being downloaded, it is really frustrating to buy media then have it become unavailable when the company who owns it terminates the support for it," Hanger said. "It's really more like you rent it, and a lot of people miss being able to grab a game, put it in a system and just play. There's a nostalgia to it."
Marcus stated both businesses will still be focused on providing local community members with safe places to play their favorite trading card games (TCG) with friends, along with a much bigger vintage videogame selection now.
"We listen to our customers and we pride ourselves on having a clean, friendly store where people can learn new games or play old ones. We knew that with AllTech and Bigfoot Treasure, both staples in the local small business arena, looking to step out into other areas, we had a gap to fill," Marcus said.
With the changes, Peterson stated he hopes to bring back one of AllTech's old traditions, the vintage VHS movie club, where he along with other customers would pop in an old VHS into a VCR in the shop's gamer lounge.
"It was great, we put in an old movie and sat around watching it together in the gamer lounge, making jokes kind of like Mystery Science Theater 3000. It was like once a month and so much fun," Peterson said.
Much like the Morton location, Nerd Pros West will also host Dungeons & Dragons sessions along with TCG tournaments, though, not all the remnants of Bigfoot Treasure will dissapear.
"We are definitely going to keep a lot of the fun things Bigfoot has," Marcus said. "The snarky magnets, the fun socks, the metal signs and the shirts are all things we have a little of in Morton, and wanted to expand on. And of course, we have to keep some Bigfoot stuff. We will also bring some of that to Morton as well."
For more information, message or follow Nerd Pros on its Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/NerdPros.
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