Griffon Bookstore

Four floors of downtown South Bend stacked with used books, dice and locked cases of Magic and Pokemon rarities, plus a free Friday game night that has run for years.

Fifty years in one downtown storefront buys a certain kind of inventory. Griffon Bookstore opened on Colfax Avenue in 1976 and has spent the decades since accumulating more than four thousand square feet across four levels — used books first, but also board games, role-playing systems, historical miniatures, records, tarot decks and one of the deeper dice walls in northern Indiana.

For collectors, the draw is the case work. Valuable Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon cards live behind glass rather than in open bins, with fresh sealed packs available at the counter alongside them. It is not a high-volume singles operation and nobody at Griffon pretends otherwise; think of it as the South Bend card shop you visit when you want to actually look at something interesting and talk to a person about it, not when you need forty copies of a staple by Friday.

The building itself is worth the trip. It sits next to LaSalle Grill in a historic Colfax storefront, and the upper levels hold an oddity that surprises most first-timers: a collection of historical military headgear on display among the shelves. There is a free public gaming area with a rotating schedule of organized play — board games, Magic, BattleTech and Pathfinder all get table time.

Friday is the night that matters. The store's free game night draws a regular crowd, and reviewers keep coming back to the same detail: the owner can explain the rules of essentially anything on the shelf from memory. Hours run 10AM to 6PM most weekdays, stretch to 7PM Friday and Saturday, and the store opens late at 11AM on Sunday. The entrance and lot are wheelchair accessible, street parking is available out front, and there are bike racks nearby. Payment is flexible — cards, PayPal, even checks.