{"id":447743,"date":"2026-08-30T03:40:53","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T03:40:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/447743\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T03:40:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T03:40:53","slug":"retro-video-games-store-at-sacramento-flea-market-destroyed-in-fire-after-43-years-of-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/447743\/","title":{"rendered":"Retro video games store at Sacramento flea market destroyed in fire after 43 years of business"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over 20,000 games in one of California’s oldest vintage video game stores have turned into piles of charcoal.<\/p>\n

“I got the call from the manager on duty and said, ‘Your barn’s on fire,'” Dave’s Retro Video Games owner David Smith said. “I said, ‘Yeah, right.’ It was on fire.”<\/p>\n

It was a heartbreaking discovery for Smith, who has poured everything into his video game store at the Folsom Boulevard Flea Market for over 43 years.<\/p>\n

“We had 33 years here and 10 years at Denio’s. Started out running around on a bicycle, picking up games around the neighborhood,” Smith explained. “It just grew and grew. I love to buy. I hate to sell because I’m a hoarder, but I’m a good hoarder.”<\/p>\n

The fire broke out around 4:30 p.m. on Friday at the Folsom Boulevard Flea Market in Sacramento. The blaze completely destroyed countless items and memorabilia worth well over $500,000.<\/p>\n

“Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, GameCube, Wii, everything,” he said. “This place was packed, and it was as far as you can reach, as I could reach inside the store. That’s how high they were piled.”<\/p>\n

Smith was able to recover only a few items and is now trying to pick up the pieces.<\/p>\n

“Although I’m not here right now, I think I’m going to have a presence in the future,” he said. “Get some tables, and maybe not this large, but at the same time, only the future will tell. I have no idea right now. I’m just kind of absorbing what’s going on here. It’s a lot to handle.”<\/p>\n

He’s been getting support from customers who stopped by throughout the day on Saturday to offer comfort to Smith.<\/p>\n

Despite all odds, he’s keeping a smile on his face, cracking some jokes and trying to look ahead.<\/p>\n

“Somebody’s been telling me about GoFundMe. I’m not looking for charity. We just have a lot of cleanup to do. It’s going to be a mess and it’s going to be a lot of work trying to salvage whatever we can salvage and try to start up in a limited space, a limited amount,” Smith continued. “I don’t know what the future holds, but hopefully good things. Every door burns; another opens. Isn’t that how it goes?”<\/p>\n

Cal Expo is sponsoring a table for Smith over Halloween weekend so he can have the chance to sell the remaining items he was able to recover.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over 20,000 games in one of California’s oldest vintage video game stores have turned into piles of charcoal.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-447743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}