Veteran-owned and remodeled largely by volunteers, The Basement doubled its Bossier City play space in 2025 to fit Magic, Warhammer and D&D nights.
Chris Sullivan retired after 21 years of military service and opened The Basement in March 2024 with a fairly simple premise: give people in Bossier City a comfortable place to sit down with strangers and play something. Within eighteen months the original space could not absorb the foot traffic, and the shop moved up the street to 4092 Airline Drive — a relocation that more than doubled its capacity for tabletop gaming and was handled, by Sullivan's own account, mostly by volunteers from among his own customers.
Magic: The Gathering drives most of what happens on the floor, but the shelves are broader than that. Board games, tabletop RPG rulebooks, Warhammer and other miniatures, paints, dice, Funko Pops, classic video games and snacks all share the room, and there are TVs with consoles set up for people who want to sit back rather than shuffle. Comics are the one category the shop deliberately does not carry.
What regulars describe is less a store than a hangout with a register. Sullivan enforces a no-bickering rule, and one parent's review notes that before The Basement opened there was nowhere in Bossier she felt comfortable dropping her teenagers off. The pack-opening culture is part of the draw — Sullivan has watched customers pull cards worth $1,000 and $6,000 across the counter, and the whole room turns around to watch when it happens.
Practical notes: the shop is open every day from noon, closing at 9PM Sunday through Thursday and staying open until 11PM on Friday and Saturday. That late-evening window on weekends is when the play space fills up, so come earlier if you want counter time to talk trades. Special orders are a real service here — reviewers repeatedly mention that if the shop does not have something, staff will source it. Full details and the current event schedule live at thebasementbossier.com, or call 318-459-7192.
