San Lorenzo may be small, but Angry Goose Games has helped turn the East Bay community into a growing destination for card trading and board gaming. The store has also helped San Lorenzo become the backdrop for an upcoming internet series. 

Angry Goose Games opened its doors at Hacienda Plaza in San Lorenzo in December 2024. Founder Alex Giessman saw a gap in the East Bay, where few stores specialized in board games or tabletop games, and decided to fill it himself.

The store sells a variety of board games and trading cards, while also offering card inspection services and gaming rooms where customers can book sessions. With little local competition, Giessman quickly built a loyal customer base; visitors travel from across the Bay Area — including San Lorenzo, Hayward, San Leandro, San Jose, San Francisco, and Dublin — and even from as far away as Sacramento.

Despite the store’s growing customer base, Giessman sought ways to expand its offerings and reach new audiences. He had already begun selling trading card games such as Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh!, but wanted an expert who could help take that side of the business further. 

That opportunity came when he met Manuel “Zeus” Escobar, a frequent customer who became co-owner of Angry Goose Games in July 2025. Drawing on his experience in trading card wholesale and vending, Escobar helped broaden the store’s inventory to include popular trading card titles such as Pokémon and One Piece. The expansion attracted a new wave of customers and further diversified the store’s offerings.

“I was in here every single day wholesaling to him because I had so many Pokémon singles, and we kept doing so much business,” Escobar said.

He added, “I quickly realized he [Giessman] was working here alone. He was working six days a week, 12 hour shifts alone. No one should be doing that. In July, he asked me to join him as a partner and I was like, ‘Why not?’” 

With a significant stake in the store’s future, Escobar was tasked with helping market Angry Goose Games. Escobar, who graduated from San Francisco State University in 2020 with a degree in screenwriting, pitched what he initially considered an outlandish idea: developing a web series set in the store. Giessman ultimately said yes to the project.

While working at a Banana Republic store in San Francisco, Escobar came up with the idea for a series centered on the everyday absurdities of retail work. Now with Angry Goose Games, Escobar wanted to revisit the idea, but modernize it through the lens of trading card culture.

“I spent July to September rewriting the pilot to fit this narrative. It’s not really the old show I wrote, but in a way, it’s carrying on what I wanted to do such a long time ago,” he said.

Thus, “The Shop” was born. Inspired by television shows like “The Office,” the mockumentary-style comedy series follows a group of Angry Goose Games employees as they navigate the chaos of running a trading card store. Escobar also wanted each episode to cater to a specific card-trading fandom, incorporating references and inside jokes that players would appreciate.

He said, “It [the series] plays on all those trends. You’ll see in future episodes, we do make jokes on every trading card game. That’s the whole point, not one of them is perfect.”  

Escobar, and a crew consisting of himself, Giessman, and three others, filmed the pilot episode in September 2025. He uploaded the pilot to his YouTube channel this past January, and to his surprise, it received over 30,000 views.

Escobar said he had not expected the series to resonate so strongly, but was grateful that it found a place within the card-trading niche.

“I think the beauty of what the show could be, or is now, is that there wasn’t something like it before,” he said. “People are like, ‘I like the hobby already. To see this, and this narrative, is even funnier to me because I relate to it so much.’”

He added, “It’s cool because a lot of people do ask us about it. People are waiting for it, and it’s really nice to know that they can expect what the episodes are going to touch on.”    

Nearly two years after opening its doors, Angry Goose Games continues to thrive in its corner of San Lorenzo. Through store events and creative marketing efforts such as “The Shop,” Giessman and Escobar have cultivated a strong community around the business. Looking ahead, the pair hopes to expand the store while continuing to develop future seasons of the series.

“This is the first time I’ve gone to a shop where there’s no rude people here. Everyone’s really nice, and I think that’s the biggest thing about this particular space,” Escobar said. “I give the majority of that credit to Alex because he was here alone, so we’re lucky he was able to build this.” 

Seven new episodes of “The Shop” are set to premiere weekly on Escobar’s YouTube channel beginning July 3.