Story and photos by Alaina Clarke
alaina@msgrnews.com
The shop is owned by Reson and Aislynn Holt and Amy and Jeff Van Coney. It is located at 4274 Gray Highway, Building 1, Suite A in Gray next to Jane’s Asian Market, and is open Tuesday through Thursday from 3-8 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 2-10 p.m.
Reson Holt, one of the owners, has been a part of the Jones County community for 10 years, although he is originally from Florida. He moved to Jones County when he was called to be a pastor at Greenwood Baptist Church.
“This is what we call home. I love the community,” Holt said. “There’s this great aspect of people who love each other, connect and are willing to help each other. We moved away from family, but our kids inherited aunts, uncles and grandparents here.”
He expressed excitement to be opening a store for gaming enthusiast.
Holt can’t wait to welcome more people to visit his store and he hopes that their products may even inspire new interests.
“We’re really excited for the community to have another place to be able to hang out, but also to get into some areas of interest not everyone has here,” Holt said.
Without a store like Mop Top & Beardie, people are having to drive to Macon to play games. Holt felt that there was a demand for gaming products in Jones County, so he wants those residents to be able to play these games in their own community.
“We are a TCG and more shop.
TCG stands for trading card games, and those games include things like Magic the Gathering and Pokémon,” Holt said. “We do tabletop games, which are games like Warhammer and Dungeons & Dragons. We also have a room dedicated to console gaming, particularly to Nintendo Switch and multiplayer games such as Smash Bros Ultimate, Mario Kart and more.”
The store not only sells TCG products but also welcomes people to come in and play any kind of trading card games and board games.
Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic the Gathering are some of the most popular trading card games to play. According to Holt, Monopoly is also a customer favorite to play in-store.
“Magic the Gathering is what most people play in the community, but there is a large Pokémon audience, too. Some people just enjoy collecting the cards. There’s also a learning experience with these cards. It teaches logic and reasoning skills, reading comprehension and math skills.
There’s a lot of great opportunities for teaching,” Holt said.
Games are for all ages. Mop Top & Beardie sells pre-constructed sets to build card decks up and individual packs. They also have figurines available for purchase and different items for the cards themselves.
Prices are reasonable. “My oldest son and I started a YouTube channel in 2021where we would open Pokémon packs looking for rare cards and cards to build our decks. We liked the branding of the name and decided to carry it over to the name of the store. I have a beard, so I’m Beardie.
My son has a head full of crazy hair, so we went with Mop Top for him,” Holt said.
It is free for anyone in the community to come in and play, except for tournaments. Tournaments will have an entry fee and a schedule, but right now the store has event days. Events include Tabletop Tuesdays which allow people to come in and play board games, Free Play Wednesdays,
