It’s been more than half a year since a devastating Jan. 2 fire engulfed an entire block in downtown Arcata. The fire took more than the corner of 10th and H Street; it took homes and businesses the Arcata community cherished. Dandar’s Boardgames and Books and Northtown Books weren’t the only locations turned to ash. Hensel’s Ace shops, Vanilla Sky Co., Global Village Gallery, Tenth Street Studios and a number of upstairs apartments were also destroyed.
Not surprisingly, the community responded in the weeks that followed the blaze with countless fundraisers, including assistance from the nonprofit Pay It Forward Humboldt.
Support from the Humboldt community has been abundant for the small family-owned business. Immediately after the fire, GoFundMe and Give a Hand campaigns were set up to keep the business afloat.
“So after the fire, businesses came to us immediately and said, ‘What can we do?’” Dandar’s co-owner Doranna Benker-Gilkey recalled. “We’re like, ‘All right, we want to keep doing game nights.’” She said she is grateful to Septentrio Winery and the Outer Space for opening their doors to the gaming community. “Septentrio Winery let us have Saturdays, and they have a nice little indoor area,” she said.
While it has taken time, Dandar’s has shown a resilient recovery after temporarily opening at the Jacoby Storehouse before finally settling in a new home at 737 G St., the former location of the Hatchet House. The space has been split to allow both Dandar’s and Northtown Books to make new starts side by side once again.
When Benker-Gilkey sent out a request for help with moving to their new location on June 23, she said the community more than responded.
“We put out a call and word got out, and then 10 o’clock Tuesday morning … so many people showed up to help,” she said. “They loaded up hand trucks, people brought expandable wagons and just walked it over … it was done in like less than an hour. It was done so fast.”
Staff and patrons celebrated its grand opening on June 24 with a Star Wars Unlimited game that night.
“The next day, we were able to open as normal for business, and it looked weird, and it still looks a little weird. But we’re getting there,” Benker-Gilkey said in a recent interview.
Dandar’s originally opened in 2019 on Giuntoli Lane before moving to H Street in May of 2025 to grow the business. “Our people found us. The gamers found us, the science fiction fantasy people found us,” Benker-Gilkey said.
Once settled, Dandar’s found comfort and stability on H Street on the Arcata Plaza. “We had really big plans,” she said. “Yeah, we were going to be happy there.”
Then, the fire happened.
While the transition to G Street has been difficult, Benker-Gilkey has big plans for the new location. She hopes to host community game nights, organize a monthly “tea and tarot” event and start a science fiction and fantasy book club.
As they settle into their new space, Benker-Gilkey said she is happy to have the store back and rebuild what was lost. People are finding them again, she said. “Yeah, we’re quickly getting back to where we were before.”
It’s a change of direction for longtime business owner Dante DiGenova of Northtown Books, which will reopen adjacent to Dandar’s on G Street. “It’s just a one-way street going the other way,” DiGenova said.
Originally hoping to reopen in August, DiGenova noted that reopening in the fall seems more realistic. “Ideally, sometime in August. But for how long this ordering process is going, it might not be till September,” he explained.
Although they had been neighbors for less than a year on H Street, the two business owners grew even closer after experiencing the traumatic fire. DiGenova explained that both businesses initially hoped to share a neighborhood again. “We were looking around together, thinking we can find a big space that we can divide up … this just happened to be available,” DiGenova added.
Benker-Gilkey and DiGenova had looked into the building they now occupy previously but did not pursue the offer. Later, when the building was bought by Adamas Commercial General Contracting, both businesses were invited to share the space.
“It was just very fortunate because we were getting a little discouraged at that point … trying to find anything that would really fit,” DiGenova said, adding that finding space downtown was a challenge. “We were just fortunate to find this place.”
The two business owners had to put their partnership into practice from the start by designing a wall split down the middle of the shared space, with the new layout presenting another major adjustment for DiGenova. “It’s a little bit narrower, but it’s much deeper,” he said. “We’re trying to figure out the logistics of how the configuration is going to go.”
Before the fire, Northtown Books, established in 1965, was located at its former site for decades.
The sense of familiarity that the H Street location embodied may never be replaced, but for DiGenova, the best approach is to remember and move forward. “We were so, you know, comfortable and ensconced in our old place,” he said. “When it’s sort of ripped away from you, you … have to adapt.”
DiGenova likes the proximity to Café Brio, hoping to attract similar foot traffic to and from the plaza on G Street. “There’s a lot of things about this place that are pretty great,” DiGenova said. “We also have decent natural light from the large windows up front.”
While DiGenova didn’t find an exact replacement for the beloved rocking horse lost in the fire, he stumbled upon a child’s rocking chair that had been gifted to the bookstore. “This way [the previous owner] can visit this old rocking chair that’s been in her family for many years and can come visit it as a piece of Northtown Books.”
Grateful for the abundance of community assistance, DiGenova reflected on the generosity that made their reopening possible. “It’s been very touching, very heartwarming to us to know how much people care about the store.”
Demolition and removal efforts back at the former sites of the two businesses are expected to be done by the end of the week, or roughly half the timeline originally estimated, according to an update from the city on Tuesday.
“During debris removal, the contractors identified some of the tenants’ personal property and returned to the owners what was salvageable,” the updates states. “They continue to look for and set aside additional items as they sift through debris.”
Izabella Nickerson is a freelance writer spending the summer in Arcata. Find more of her work at dailynexus.com/category/sports.
This article appears in ‘The Next Wave’.