Reforge Gaming Lounge brings the party with potions, PCs, and persistence

When arcades faded away, Christopher saw an opportunity. The Charleston native's vision? Create a gaming space built "from the viewpoint of a bar out" – combining the communal joy of gaming with modern technology and adult beverages.

Opening Reforge Gaming Lounge wasn't easy. Originally slated for April 2020, the pandemic forced a devastating five-year delay. But persistence paid off when they finally welcomed guests in November 2024 to their Dorchester Road location. The venue now boasts 20 high-end gaming PCs alongside modern and legacy consoles, creating a perfect blend of nostalgia and cutting-edge technology.

What truly distinguishes Reforge is their creative approach to the bar experience. Their signature "potions" – custom cocktails served in potion bottles – draw inspiration from gaming culture with names referencing invisibility, health, and stamina. The infamous Chaos Potion (a potent mix of absinthe, bourbon, and cranberry) is so powerful they limit customers to just one per visit. For special occasions like Star Wars Day, they craft themed drinks like Sith and Jedi cocktails that delight both casual visitors and die-hard gamers.

Beyond commercial success, Reforge has become a community hub. They host the Military Magnets esports team, participate in Charleston Tech Week, and offer private events on Mondays and Tuesdays. Whether you're planning a birthday party, date night, or simply want to experience gaming in a social atmosphere, Reforge delivers an experience you won't find anywhere else in the Lowcountry.

Ready to level up your night out? Visit Reforge Gaming Lounge Wednesday through Sunday at 8484 Dorchester Road in the Kusaw Village Shopping Center, and discover why gamers of all ages are making this Charleston's premier gamin

King & Columbus is a full-service marketing and advertising agency based in South Carolina that helps brands grow through a mix of creative storytelling and data-driven strategy. They offer everything from branding and content creation to media planning, digital advertising, and PR—focused on delivering measurable results across digital, social, and traditional channels. https://kingandcolumbus.com

Transcript

Welcome to Charleston Marketing Podcast

Speaker 1 0:43

Welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast, brought to you by the Charleston AMA and broadcasting from our friends at Charleston Media Solutions Studios. Thanks to our awesome sponsors at CMS, we get to chat with the cool folks making waves in Charleston, from business and art to hospitality and tech. These movers and shakers choose to call the Lowcountry home. They live here, work here and make a difference here. So what's their story? Let's find out together how are we sounding, Larry?

Speaker 2 1:13

We sound pretty good, we're live.

Speaker 1 1:15

I mean the content is kind of iffy, I get that, oh, we're live right now.

Speaker 2 1:18

We're coming out of my mouth or anything, but this is my content.

Speaker 1 1:21

We're live currently from Jigsaw.

Speaker 2 1:24

This is Stephanie Barrett here.

Speaker 1 1:26

Charleston Marketing Podcast.

Speaker 2 1:27

Yep, yep, what's?

Speaker 1 1:28

up Christopher.

Speaker 2 1:29

Howdy, how are you bud Tired? If I'm being honest, it's been a long day.

Speaker 1 1:33

Just be real, chris. Happy to be here. Happy to be here Now. Are you from Charleston?

Speaker 2 1:37

Yes, ma'am, okay, good, oh yeah, I was actually born at the former Naval Hospital, which is, but once upon a time it was full of Navy folk, okay.

Speaker 1 1:46

Over in North Charleston, nice, so tell us a little bit about your business.

Speaker 2 1:50

Reforge Gaming Lounge yeah, so we have been around for about 10 years, but we were finally able to get open in November of 2024. We were going to open in April of 2020. And unfortunately, COVID-19 had different plans. And so that delayed us by almost five additional years. But gaming lounge is a very simple concept. I grew up going to arcades. We grew up, arcades kind of went away, didn't embrace the internet right.

Speaker 1 2:18

Right.

Gaming Venue and Community Hub

Speaker 2 2:19

So they just kind of went by the wayside. They still exist in pockets, but it's not what they were. No, we. Embraced it, said hey, people still want to gather and game together. Embraced it said, hey, people still want to gather and game together, but they also want the internet and they're older now. So we're going to build it from the viewpoint of a bar out. Thank you, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 2:33

You're welcome. I was hoping you were going to say that 100%.

Speaker 2 2:35

Now they went lettuce-spraying booze today. Womp, womp, womp. We tried. By the way, that would make this podcast a lot more interesting out the campus. We're at the college of charleston right, right, right it's look, I get rules and whatnot, but come on um.

Speaker 1 2:52

We're all adults here. I'm gonna have a drink here about 34 minutes.

Speaker 2 2:53

Uh, stan actually came out shortly after we opened, checked out the place. It was like awesome, we want you to be involved in charleston tech week. And then later he was like hey, what would you think about doing? Once we talked to the folks that call charleston we used to do pro con for them, pre-covid as well. That's a full day of anime and gaming. They subcontracted all the gaming to us. Nice, so they're familiar with us, right. So we're like yo, are those guys still around? Like eh, we're still around, still around, yeah we got our own place and everything.

Speaker 1 3:17

now, where is your place?

Speaker 2 3:18

Yes, so we're at 8484 Dorchester in the Kusaw Village Shopping Center. We took over a spot that was empty for a little while. Perfect for our location 20 high-end gaming PCs, modern consoles, legacy consoles, some of which we have over there right across the banister there.

Speaker 1 3:36

He's pointing at the exhibitor lounge. Do I get to go play games?

Speaker 2 3:38

after this Right now. Well, actually we're going to check it out, Do they?

Speaker 1 3:41

have Roblox, you can go real quick lounge.

Speaker 2 3:43

How did you hear what he said?

Speaker 1 3:45

Take it easy, larry's ears are going to bust if you're so loud. I do have. We play a lot of Dresden Press at our house.

Potions and Unique Drink Offerings

Speaker 2 3:53

Super Smash Brothers, all those things right over there. A lot of folks have come through, including the Military Magnets field trip that was here today. Their esports team was here. They were playing scrimming in our room a couple hours ago they had their own controllers and everything. They're always ready, so you're not having any fun?

Speaker 1 4:11

No, fun, no, I've been having. You brought the fun today A little bit. A little bit of fun. Maybe you brought the fun.

Speaker 2 4:15

You brought the fun, yeah, so we do this Wednesday through Sunday, right now to the public, and Mondays and Tuesdays Sometimes we get to take a little sleep, but other times we do private event for people that um don't need open to the public.

Speaker 1 4:35

Now we can do private event at any time, but if you're on a budget, uh monday and tuesday is your play, because if we're open to the public, yeah, yeah, we charge accordingly, right? Yeah, I mean so cool now. Is this like a date night thing or just like bring my kids to the?

Speaker 2 4:42

thing, one of our potions, which are custom cocktails in potion bottles that we do sell.

Speaker 1 4:47

These are potions.

Speaker 2 4:48

And is a love potion which was made for Valentine's Day weekend, but people enjoyed it so much that it is now one of our core ten potions that we offer. We started with four how to Vision, hey, health and stamina right, it's very common in media and those kind of things. Okay, and now we're up to ten. The only one that I can take credit for a little bit is the Chaos Potion, which is incredibly strong. You can have one per visit. Are you limiting it?

Speaker 1 5:14

Sounds like I'm Ubering there.

Speaker 2 5:15

We do have a flight of shots that you can pour it in five, even shots, and share, and then you can get more than one. Can you tell me what's in it? I can, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 5:21

It's no secret, it is Absinthe.

Speaker 2 5:31

In this case Woodford Reserve. But what we use in this one is Jim Beam although we can level that up and then a little bit of cranberry as a mixer, and that's it. And then the chaos begins. Bourbon.

Speaker 1 5:41

It sounds like it.

Speaker 2 5:43

Chambord, chambord. So we're all going to Dorchester Road after this and cranberries, absolutely Because literally when I get done with this, we're breaking down and we are heading back to redeploy for service tonight, wow.

Speaker 1 5:55

Nice, all right so.

Speaker 2 5:56

I will be at the Harbor closeout for this and then I leave that and go back and close.

Speaker 1 6:00

I was going to ask you if you're going back to work. There you go. You've got to work tonight.

Speaker 2 6:02

We are, and my business partner will be there at the lounge trying to stay awake. We've been up for many hours now doing things. We're running out of caffeine, caffeine to keep us up, but we're going to make it and then I'm going to let him go home, go to sleep and I'm going to finish up.

Speaker 1 6:15

Now are you highlighting all this fun, all these drinks and all the fun stuff on social media?

Speaker 2 6:19

Oh, absolutely. But we do have to be careful, because in this state, did you know that if you market alcohol more than you market food, that puts you in a different bracket of liability?

Speaker 1 6:31

That makes sense.

Upcoming Events and Closing Remarks

Speaker 2 6:32

I can see that so we market the hell out of our gaming, and we also happen to have a tiny bit of alcohol food and drinks.

Speaker 1 6:37

There you go, if you are so inclined.

Speaker 2 6:40

But things like this really help us kind of switch this, because this is, ironically enough, not traditional marketing right and so we can do the inverse now we can talk about the sham board and the wood for work.

Speaker 1 6:52

that's right, and all the things.

Speaker 2 6:54

I want to come. I want to come. Well, we'll be there, I'll go. Fantastic. I mean, look, it is for adults, although we allow children to come as well, obviously.

Speaker 1 7:02

I'm leaving the children at home and I'm going to take a few births. It's appropriate times for kids.

Speaker 2 7:05

I'm sure we're running multiple birthday parties for May the 4th and whatnot Star Wars day it is, and we do have a Sith Jedi cocktail and shooters that are on our social media right now. So that is one thing, to your point, that we are pushing Absolutely.

Speaker 1 7:22

May the fourth be with you, friends. May the fourth be with you. That's right. Well, chris, thanks for sharing your story, absolutely. Thanks for coming on. You were very fun. You brought the energy I liked it Rev me up.

Speaker 2 7:32

We're trying, we're trying our best here to keep it moving.

Speaker 1 7:34

We're all moving. I'm going to be dancing tonight at the after party. Fantastic, I will come find you.

Speaker 2 7:39

I will attempt to dance as well, but it's probably going to be more of a swaying back and forth. Yes, exactly, you've got to bring the potion with you. I'll do my best. We'll see if we can sneak one in. Fantastic. Thanks, chris, nice to meet you. Thank you guys, so much Nice to meet you. Hang out for a second, I want to come by.

Speaker 1 7:55

Yeah, for sure I want to thank our sponsors. Yes, we got Larry Monti, we got Cos Films, we got Delaney over there, we you know.

Speaker 2 8:04

Stephanie Dick South. Thank you, stephanie, of course, dick South.

Speaker 1 8:18

St Phil media solutions. Yeah, we have a lot of support. It's been a really really fun day stream here. We've been live streaming since 10 am. This has been awesome. Hope you guys are having a good time too. Yeah, we're having a great time and, uh, we got all right. We got someone coming next awesome.