Co-owner Levi Bailey said the reaction to his new shop has been “overwhelming”
Levi Bailey and Keira Reid from Gawtos TCG, Southport.
The owners of a new Southport shop say the seaside town has shown “the same level of interest” as Amsterdam. Couple Levi Bailey and Keira Reid were inspired to open Gawtos TCG on Post Office Avenue following a trip to the Netherlands.
The Pokémon shop offers customers the chance to buy individual cards, sealed products and trade collectibles. It opened in mid-July in the former Dog Haus unit at 14 Post Office Avenue and has already built up a community of regulars.
Levi, 22, and also from Southport, told the ECHO: “We had been thinking about it for a while and playing with the idea of it. In late 2025, we went to Amsterdam, and they have a ton of card shops and Pokémon shops. We were really impressed with what they have and thought to ourselves, ‘Why can’t we have something like this back home?’
“We initially started vending at card shows, including the local Southport card show, and that’s when we first realised that people wanted a dedicated shop.
Couple Levi Bailey and Keira Reid have now become business partners
“We realised we weren’t the only people who thought people wanted something like this. It was something people were actually asking about, and we realised there was 100% the same level of interest in Southport as there was in Amsterdam.”
Levi, who began collecting Pokémon card games around 2016 when he was still at school, said the community is one of the biggest attractions of the hobby.
He said: “There are multiple factors that bring people together. Pokémon cards in general are art, so people can connect over the art and the general fanbase, as well as the community aspect of it.
“People enjoy having others to talk to. When people are queuing outside shops, there’s a social aspect to it as well, because you’ll see the same people and build up conversations and relationships around Pokémon. We’re approaching our third week, and it’s been going great so far. The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive.”
Levi said the enthusiasm has been particularly rewarding given some of the divisions that have emerged within the Pokémon collecting community.
Gawtos TCG Pokemon shop is found along Post Office Avenue
He said: “Over the last year or two, it all has been divided into two different factions: the people who are buying it simply to resell it on the internet, and the people who actually collect and enjoy Pokémon.
“So to see the community rejoice and fully invest their time into the shop, have conversations with us and generally just see the community interact with each other has been amazing. It has made it all worthwhile.”
Levi continues to work as a civil servant while running the shop alongside Keira on a part-time basis. The pair secured the premises around a month before opening and spent the following weeks transforming the former hot dog stand into their new Pokémon store.
The two also have ambitions to make Gawtos TCG a wider hub, having applied to become a Pokémon Play Store. This would essentially allow them to host official tournaments and help customers learn how to play the trading card game.