Momma Tried Sports Cards shop now open in Avon

Selling trading cards is a family business for Brian Lonsway.

Along with wife and co-owner, Gretchen, and 2-year-old daughter Kora, Lonsways officially opened Momma Tried Sports Cards, 35840 Chester Road in Avon, on July 1.

The store will function as the second Momma Tried store, Brian Lonsway said, along with the flagship location at 5500 Milan Road in Sandusky.

“I was working at Ford in Louisville at the time; I was getting a transfer home, and I told my mom that when I come home, I’m going to open up a card shop,” he said. “I worked all summer to get it ready, and my mom just preferred I was just an engineer or something.”

But, the store was a success, and has remained open to this day, Lonsway said.

The decision to open up a second store in 2024 came when the Lonsway family decided to move, planting their roots in Avon.

“We met in Avon Lake five years ago,” Lonsway said of his wife. “We really like the area, and there’s no card shop in Avon, Avon Lake, Bay (Village) or Rocky River.

“I think it’s a pretty nice area. (It’s strange) for them to not have a shop.”

The decision to open the store in Avon also came as a response to a fresh market, Lonsway said.

The two finalists were Avon or Asheville, N.C., he said, which both were areas that did not have any form of trading card store, but the family wanted to stay close to home.

“We saw a demand for this area, too,” Gretchen Lonsway said. “There’s Tabletop (in Cleveland), there’s Immortals (in Rocky River), there’s other places around that do gaming.

“But, they don’t really have the (sports cards).”

Lonsway said the new store is far from his first rodeo in selling trading cards.

As a child, he said he sold cards at a stand at the annual Milan Melon Festival.

“I actually ran a card shop when I was a kid, from about 8 to 13 years old,” Lonsway said. “You kind of grow up and do your own thing, but I got back into it 10 or 12 years ago, and then opened a card shop in Amherst.”

Momma Tried also carries cards for a few competitive card games as well.

Pokémon cards are a hot seller in Avon, as area schools and libraries continue to grow their Pokémon clubs, he said.

“I’ve been a nerd since I was a teenager playing Pokémon Red and Blue,” Gretchen Lonsway said. “Video games, I love all that.

“(Brian) is more the sports person. Different schools around here, they have Pokémon clubs.”

The hope is for the stores to stay open long enough for Kora Lonsway, the family’s only child, to take over the family business if she wants to.

Brian Lonsway noted the family has a bit of work to do in order to stay open another 16 years.

“We have an office room for our daughter,” he said. “We just started our daughter in daycare, (so) if you’re here on Tuesday and Thursday, there will be a little two-year-old blonde girl here.

“All she does right now is smear stuff on the cabinets, so we’ll see how it goes later.”

“If she has an interest (as a teenager), I’ll keep it open.”

More information is available on the store’s Facebook page, Momma Tried Sports Cards.