Heroes Hideout Is The Pop Culture Center of the Capital Region

By Connor Danz, Creative Editor

When it comes to pop culture-centered stores in the Capital Region, none of them compare to Heroes Hideout in Colonie Center Mall. Established in 2017, The store is focused on everything pop culture-related from all decades.  The business started in 2017 in a small store in the city of Rensselaer and would quickly expand from there. From that store, he made his first move into Colonie center in a smaller store to start, until they took over one of the bigger areas. With the bigger retail space, the products that were carried also began to expand.

“When we got down here down to the big store (referring to the current store) it was time to expand t-shirts, socks, pop culture stuff…” Steve, the owner of Heroes Hideout told me in our interview. “Expand the pop wall, start carrying more in general”.

As the business grew, he was involved in getting into contacts with the large toy companies such as Funko and Mattel, “Some Places are easier than others, Funko is fairly easy to work with, as long as you hit a very small minimum, they’re happy”.

Heroes Hideout has been a long-time work in progress for Steve, starting by selling figures and collectibles on eBay, when the chance arose after the Time Warner merger, he took the opportunity to open his first store. “I took everything I got from them (Time Warner), and I cashed it all out and I put it in here” he further elaborated “I took my retail experience previously and I used that towards this, I had a desire to do my own thing”.

Ever since Heroes Hideout initially opened back in 2017, the store has undergone a constant process of expansion. However, like many other businesses during the last year, many plans were derailed by the pandemic. Despite this, the store continued to expand into new markets and locations, opening up a new full-time store in Albany, a seasonal store in Lake George, and a large push on their websites.

Shopping at Heroes Hideout is quite a pleasant experience, having gone to their Colonie Center store numerous times. When you walk in, it is a nice and open floor with small racks with smaller figurines and merchandise such as tee shirts and socks. Going into the store further, you will see the main walls of the store, where the main product is held. 

Lining the walls of the store is almost every collector toy line you can think of from every company out there. The left wall is covered from floor to ceiling in Pop Vinyls from every brand and franchise that you could possibly think of, old and new alike. The right wall is much more varied, containing many of the present-day 1/12th action figure lines you see nowadays such as Marvel Legends, Star Wars Black Series, G.I. Joe Classified, and many others with one of the big staples being WWE.

Along with carrying many WWE figures, Heroes Hideout often brings in many different WWE stars both past and present and has even kept this tradition going during covid, opening the store to limited numbers to allow people to see the WWE stars.

Heroes Hideout in Colonie Center Mall, Crossgates Mall, and the various seasonal stores are all wonderful shopping experiences. The store has an amazing atmosphere from the layout and the retro music they have playing in the background. I guarantee if you go there, you will find something that appeals to you, whether it is from your childhood or from the present day.