Hobbytown USA

Buy somewhere else. The quality of the drones is about the same as buying at a gas station, just more expensive.

I am really pleased with the staff, their stock, and their sincere desire to help me out. I came in with a quadcopter I had bought on amazon. A couple rotors weren’t working because the little motors had quit. Cheap Chinese stuff on Amazon: you get what you pay for. The young man at the counter was eager to help and he showed me how to disassemble the arm and get the motor out. They had a motor that we were fairly sure would be compatible.
It’s worth mentioning that one of the managers was rather blunt and admonished the employee who was helping me. I think she didn’t want the guy messing with my device, lest he make a mistake and then I expect some restitution. it was a bit rude to stand 6 feet from me, tell the young man not to help me where I can plainly hear the conversation, and not address me as the customer and politely explain what you are and are not willing to do to help me. This also doesn’t serve as helpful training if she thinks the young employee is going to make a mistake, because all she told him was what NOT to do in that situation, not what TO do.
I give them 5 stars in the end, despite the manager’s overabundance of caution, because the motor worked great. And thanks to the young man’s help, I was able to take it from there, make my own repair using their parts, and salvage my copter.
My copter from on Amazon, was $ 70. Hobbytown sells a very similar one for $ 99. Now that I have seen both, I understand the quality difference between the cheap Chinese one I got on Amazon and the quality ones they sell at Hobbytown (whose parts are highly likely also Chinese, but are higher quality and backed by the store’s expertise). If I lived in the area and knew about Hobbytown, that price difference would have been well worth the quality difference.

This is a fun hobby store. From trains, planes and rc cars they have all your basic needs. They also have just about everything you could need for modeling or treasure hunting or rocketing. The staff is helpful and knowledgeable but not pushy. This is just a cool store to stop into on a rainy day to kill some time or find a fun new hobby.

I’ve been coming to Hobbytown for years and it really has never changed that much. I always feel I know what I am going to get, which I good, but they never surprise me with cool new items.
They have a good assortment of small games and puzzles (although I think they are too expensive) and kites too. Probably the most kite you can find since the kite store at waterside went I out of business many year ago.
They have plent of r/​c cars and planes, but sadly I am only looking for r/​c one meter sailboats and have never found a good one there.

Would give it zero they sold me the wrong part swore up and down it would work. It was wrong and it wasn’t worth the money to go back and waste more money in gas. Look at all prices in there and then look at other hobby shops in the area they are marked way up. For example… Novak glitch buster costs 11.99 online, at Debbie’s Rc world, and even the Hobbytown in Newport News!!! Wow. 12 or 13.99 at this store. Really? Can you imagine what else your getting ripped off for. Oh and I wouldn’t suggest getting a glitch buster. You can get a capacitor for less than a dollar. This is just something I noticed at a glance.

Nice place and friendly staff. The prices are not bad either. They have slot car races on Wed’s with friendly people with a lot of slot car knowledge.

There’s this hilarious book called Undateable (
). I think it’s a show on VH1 now too. Anyway, it’s all about the ultra-​wrong things guys do that make them «undateable” – everything from mullets and wife-​beaters to owning a cat (think about it).
I think working at Hobbytown should probably be added to list. The dudes that work there, well, they like hobby stuff – model airplanes and cars and figures and all of that stuff (can you tell I’m not one of them?)
All this leads me to the fact that my husband IS one of them. He doesn’t have to be dateable, he’s married. Sad but true.
For the longest time he wanted one of those remote control helicopters, so I finally got him one as a birthday gift from Hobbytown.
He played with it incessantly. Until the battery started crapping out. He got a new battery and it started crapping out, so they gave him a whole new helicopter — no charge. Pretty cool.
They also flew his helicopter around the store to check out the problem. I am kind of falling asleep writing about this but my point is they have good customer service. And they like hobby stuff. So, yeah.