The goal is to treat every customer who walks in our door the way we would like to be treated.
Tate’s Comics, is the brainchild of Tate Ottati, who as a seventeen year old high school senior, first opened his store on March 28, 1993. While “playing” his high school economics class’ stock market game, Tate also invested in Marvel Comics stock in real life.
He ended up doing very well in the school stock market game and in turn, he did well in the “real-life” stock market! Lucky for Tate, he sold the Marvel stock when it was at the highest point. Shortly after he sold it off, Marvel went bankrupt and the stock was not publicly traded for a few years. That original Marvel seed-money helped to open the store! With the help of his supportive father, Tony Ottati, Tate opened the doors to Tate’s Comics and in those first months the shop was only open after school.
A Woman’s Touch
In 1996, Tate met his future wife Amanda, who soon added her favorite things to the mix of the store’s various offerings.
TATE’s Comics History
Tate’s first location was a tiny 1,000 sq. foot store that was home to all his favorite things… it featured a variety of comics, graphic novels and toys. With Tate’s enthusiasm and youthful eye for new merchandise that catered to his personal taste, the store did well and expanded quickly.
Within two years the store was moved to a larger location right around the corner, 4942 was the address number. With the larger space, Tate soon expanded the store’s merchandise to include Japanese animation videos, Japanese comics and garage model kits. In 1995 anime and manga was very hard to find, so word quickly spread that there was a local store catering to this niche fandom! Also in ’95, TATE’S began renting rare Japanese anime import VHS videos to South Florida customers, who were thrilled to have the opportunity to see at home what was mostly only shown in anime fan clubs at the time. This was 1995 don’t forget… the internet was just getting started, there was NO streaming services and VHS was still pricey!
TATE’S sold and rented Japanese Animation since ’95 and at one point had over 8,000 rare and hard to find titles available for rent. The rental section included hard-to-find cult videos, bizarre horror films, TV Shows, twisted animation, and retro cartoons (such as Transformers and Thundercats). The goal was to supply South Florida with videos it couldn’t find anywhere else. Sadly, interest in renting videos from a physical local shop decreased rapidly year by year and in April of 2010, we had to acknowledge that times had changed and stop renting videos altogether. Knowing when to evolve is one of the things that has kept us going strong all these years. We still miss the rental section and many of our customers remember it fondly.
Tate & Amanda
In 1996, Tate met his future wife Amanda, who came into the shop as a customer and immediately appreciated the more unique items and shared many interests with Tate. She jumped on board as TATE’S graphic designer… working in the shop by day in the tiny back room designing the first website and at night she would go work in the Advertising Department of the Sun-Sentinel. Over the years, Amanda began to contribute her favorite things to the store’s offerings as well. By stocking a selection of lowbrow art and popular culture books, as well as adding cult/horror movies to the video & rental section – the store became even more diverse and full of niche fandom fun.
TATE’S Comics did not start out a huge superstore like it is today. We started very small and grew steadily over the years with the help of many dedicated staff members and friends. Wanna throwback time warp? See what our store looked like back in the year 2001... and also gawk at some photos documenting our big move out of there and into the first version of the current location! What an undertaking that was!
After a successful 7 years at TATE’S 4942 location, it seemed that we were bursting at the seams with merchandise and ideas!
Tate decided to move his shop up the street, to a much larger location in Lauderhill’s historical “Promenade Shops”, which was once home to the beloved local indie record store Uncle Sam’s. They were our first neighbors and they were lots of fun to have next door.
After spending nearly 6 months working on the design & ‘theme’ of our new 4566 superstore, the doors were opened to our current location on July 31, 2002. You can see some interesting photos of the work in progress, way back in ’02! The store was now bigger, better and cooler than ever before! We were really excited to offer our customers more merchandise and a more unique shopping environment!
TATE’S included some fun things when the 4566 location first opened…we also had an actual photobooth, but since it was an old chemical dip bath photo developing system it was always breaking down, so we had to get rid of it… sad!! We also had an original Tron standup arcade game in the back, but it was also always breaking down unfortunately! The giant artwork & sculptures, that remain on the walls today, were designed for us by Colin Christian, who also created the now iconic faces in the current front window.
TATE’S GAMING SATELLITE
Even with the truly wide variety of merchandise that TATE’S carried, there WAS one category missing… games and a place to play them! In response to an outcry of customers looking for “a better place to game”, in October 2003, TATE’S Gaming Satellite was opened.
The Gaming Satellite started out as a tiny 500 square foot shop, just a few doors down from the “big” store and had a full selection of gaming merchandise and supplies. The space included tables for gaming, tournaments, snacks and drinks. The Gaming Satellite was a success and quickly outgrew its first home. In March 2005, TATE’S Gaming Satellite relocated a few doors north into a much larger 2,000 square foot location. It now offers more merchandise and lots more room for gaming! You can learn a lot more about everything the Gaming Satellite offers on their dedicated website.
Expanding the store
Tate had always dreamt of expanding the store “just one more” time… because somehow we still needed more space! So, when the tenants on the north side of the shop left in the summer of 2006, Tate’s dream became reality. It was quickly decided that TATE’S would expand again, this time an additional 2,000 square feet – bringing our store to a total of over 6,000 square feet! The huge wall between the two bays was removed and after much work on everyone’s part the first expansion project was completed in October 2006… But wait! We were not done yet! In January 2015 TATE’S took over the empty store on the south side as well, expanding the main headquarters to over 10,000 square feet which is where we currently remain for our retail space.
Bear & Bird Boutique + Gallery
Tate and Amanda decided to include an art gallery and boutique inside of the 700 square foot loft area that was upstairs in this new expanded section of the store. So, after many years of working full time elsewhere and helping to run the store, Amanda dedicated herself full time to running the gallery and improving the business.
Dubbed Bear and Bird Boutique+Gallery, the gallery features original artwork, art shows and unusual/useful merchandise! Opening for the first time on February 3, 2007 with a massively successful first art show, For Love of Munny, the gallery started off with a bang. With a focus on illustration art and creating new art collectors, Bear and Bird is a perfect compliment to the varied people and merchandise that have made TATE’S successful since it’s beginnings. Bear and Bird now has a second location in Upstate New York and an online webshop that can ship anywhere. It doesn’t have EVERYTHING, but it has a lot and more items are added every week! Shop small – online! 🙂
Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award
In 2009, TATE’S COMICS was awarded the prestigious Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award!
The Eisner Spirit Award is presented annually at San Diego Comic-Con, “the largest comic book and popular arts event in the United States”. Since 1993, The Eisner Spirit Award has been presented to an individual retailer who has performed an outstanding job of supporting the comics art medium both in the community and within the industry at large”. It really and truly meant a lot to Tate to be recognized by the industry and his peers. It is an international award that can only be given once per store’s “lifetime” and we couldn’t be more proud and honored to have won in 2009!
Family time
After many, many years of spending all their time and energy on making the store a better place, Tate and Amanda started a family. Rosemary Jane was born on her mother’s birthday in May 2010 and spent most of her first two years ‘working’ at the store with her mom. She was often on hand to ‘rearrange’ the shelves and smile sweetly at customers, Rosemary loved visiting ‘daddy’s store’. In March of 2012, the male heir was born, he was named Tate Wolfgang.
Both of the kids spent much of the first years of their lives at the store and helped to grow and change the merchandise and types of events offered over the years. We take pride in always evolving and changing, while still staying true to our roots.
If you’d like to see a nifty visual timeline of the first 20 years of TATE’S Comics history, check out this flyer from 2013 that was created for our 20th Anniversary. Adorable illustrations by Danielle (knee) Estefan!
In memory of Tony Ottati
Anthony “Tony” Nicholas Ottati, at 75 years of age, passed away on December 12, 2016 after a hard fought battle with lymphatic cancer. For over 20 years you could find Tony at the front register, chatting and ringing up customers for their purchases. Tony worked for 32 years as a Broward County school teacher and after retirement in 1998 he continued to work every single day at the business he helped his son build. He never missed a day at the shop, unless he was off on adventures in Las Vegas or on a cruise with his wife Eileen.
Tony is missed by the long time loyal customers, who fondly remember his friendly face. He was always was sure to greet everyone as they walked in and to say “Thank you for your business, my friend” as they were leaving.
In 2018, Tate, Amanda and the kids moved out of South Florida to the city his parents grew up in, Schenectady, New York – which is in the “Capital Region” of Upstate New York, near Albany. After being born and living their entire lives up that point in South Florida, it was time for a change. The ever increasing population and year round boiling temperatures had simply became unbearable. After visiting Schenectady over Halloween and experiencing Fall for the first time, the family decided to take a leap of faith and move north. Leaving the store was a tough decision, but it was necessary – after 25 years Tate needed a break from the day to day operations of the shop. Tate returns back to South Florida every couple of months to check up on things, to help with big events and facilitate store layout rearranges. We are lucky to have an outstanding staff of great people running the shop, it would not be operating today without them!
A second Bear and Bird location was opened in Schenectady in November 2019. The NY location has a very diverse mix of items reflecting a wide variety of things that are found at both TATE’S and the FL Bear and Bird. It is a hybrid of a sort, but still has a similar vibe to the South Florida shop! Anyone who knows our Florida location and finds us up here is welcomed as if they are a celebrity! We hope you will visit if you ever find yourself in Upstate New York too!
