Bye Bye Ryan, for now...

 

Last Saturday was a bittersweet day, as Des Moines is now temporarily short one card shop. One of my favorite brick-and-mortar stores within the metro area, Ryanscardz, made the decision to close his doors, with the ultimate plan of relocating to a new shop closer to his Waukee home later this fall.   Owner Ryan Grother opened his Hickman Road retail shop on July 2, 2012 and has been running it solo ever since. As if he wasn't busy enough running a successful card shop, Ryan and his wife, Carissa, became the proud parents of twin sons in January.   It wasn't long, however, before lack of sleep, doctor's appointments, babysitting issues, the daily nine-mile , one-way commute, as well as sharing quality time with this lovely family began eating into store hours. All this may have turned out to be the "perfect storm," which eventually led him to this decision.   Ryan writes in his weekly Facebook page notes, "I've had this little secret eating away at me for some time now. My lease is expiring at this location and I have chosen not to renew it. With our two awesome boys at home that I can't quit talking about, I need to make more money! That means I need to find a more affordable venue and build an even better, leaner and meaner store! "Carissa and I initially started planning this back in September. This is an exciting time for us. We do not have a new location currently picked out and feel that it is the right time to take a little break, while I plan the future of ryanscardz," writes Ryan. Besides taking care of his family, Ryan is looking forward to getting a little fishing and golf time in as well - Something that was hard to do for a five-days a week card shop operator. I had to swing by his current shop one last time to bid him farewell until fall. And, as usual, I couldn't leave his shop without picking up some Padres goodies .    Within his baseball teams box, I found these San Diego  cards - 2014 Topps Update Red Hot Foil Seth Smith (#US81), 2014 Panini Prizm Rookie Reign Reymond Fuentes (#10) and a 2014 Topps Update Red Hot Foil Tyson Ross (#US283). Smith and Fuentes are ex-Padres, as Smith is now with the Seattle Mariners and Fuentes is currently with the KC Royals, playing next door with their AAA affiliate, the Omaha Storm Chasers.

I also picked up a 2013 Select Casey Kelly Autograph (#224) S/N 469/500 and a 2014 Topps Update All-Star Stitches Tyson Ross (#ASRTR). Ross currently sports a 5-7 record as part of the Padres pitching rotation. In 16 starts, he's put together a 5.33 ERA, with 102 K's and 70 BBs. He's also given up 12 homers, a rate of almost one per game.

 

I also picked up a couple of 2015 Tony Gwynn cards, which I've already filed away.

While I am extremely sad to see Ryan leave, I am happy that things are working out so well for him and his young family. I'm definitely looking forward to when he reopens his shop this fall.