Emely Taveras 
Jersey City’s beloved trading card shop, Bodega Cards, is making the move to Hoboken this January. Owner Pete Keeling has spent the past few years building more than just a business at Bodega Cards, located at 3563 John F. Kennedy Boulevard in the Jersey City Heights. He’s created a community hub where kids crack packs after school, collectors trade rare finds, and everyone from WWE wrestlers to local families gathers for events. Now, with a new location at 119 Monroe Street, Pete is bringing that same energy to Hoboken. Read on for more with Pete and what to expect at the new Bodega Cards location.
The Experience
The first time you walk into Bodega Cards in Jersey City Heights, there’s a split second where your brain short-circuits. The blue and yellow signage outside promises trading cards, but past the threshold, you’re greeted by what looks like your neighborhood corner store: fridges lining the walls and the kind of place where you’d expect to grab a breakfast sandwich and a coffee. Except the fridges have been gutted, “de-AC’d”, and retrofitted to display signed rookie cards, rare holographics, and collectibles worth anywhere from a few dollars to thousands.
“People still walk in asking for cigarettes,” Pete said. “They used to come to this corner for their bodega. They don’t realize it’s not here anymore.”
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Its unexpected collision of nostalgia and niche passion has made Bodega Cards a fixture in the Heights over the past few years (and the 2024 recipient of The Hoboken Girl’s Best New Hidden Gem award). But now, after outgrowing the space that started it all, Pete is preparing to move the shop to Hoboken, just blocks from where he lived for 15 years. The new location at 119 Monroe Street will be two and a half times the size of the original, with room for bigger events, more inventory, and the kind of community gathering space Pete has been dreaming about since day one.
The bodega itself won’t make the trip, but everything it represents will.
Many of the kids who frequent the Jersey City shop already attend the school just down the block from the new location. They’ve been asking Pete when it’s opening for months. His best estimate? Early to mid-January, though he’s hoping to open before Christmas if the stars align.
Pete didn’t stumble into the trading card business. He grew up collecting hockey cards with his brother and dad, making weekend pilgrimages to their local card shop in Morristown, New Jersey. Those trips, and the ritual of cracking packs with the thrill of a good pull, stuck with him. Years later, after spending a decade and a half as a Steadicam operator for film and TV, Pete realized he wanted to create that experience for someone else.
“A lot of card stores were closing,” he says. “I just felt like it was the right time to jump back in and provide that for kids of Hoboken and Jersey City.”
The space he found in the Heights was far from ideal – a former bodega in an obscure part of the neighborhood with worn floors and walls that needed serious work. Pete, who freely admits he’s “not a handyman,” spent two to three months redoing floors, installing joists, and patching up a shop he had no business renovating himself. But every day, four or five kids would wander in to see what he was building.
“They’d ask, ‘When’s it opening?'” Pete recalls. “I had a feeling we were building something special.”
He was right. When Bodega Cards finally opened, it became an instant hit. More than just a place to buy cards—it was a place to be. Kids flooded in after school. Collectors started hosting trade nights. The tiny shop, sandwiched between three different schools, became the neighborhood’s third space.
More Than Just Cards
Walk past the bodega fridges, and you’ll find racks of everything: Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Pokémon, soccer, wrestling, UFC, lacrosse, bowling, and even SpongeBob. There’s a bubble hockey table in the back – Pete’s all-time favorite game, a nod to his childhood spent battling his brother and hockey teammates on the same kind of table every weekend. He remained undefeated at the shop for years, until notorious entrepreneur and co-founder of VaynerMedia, Gary Vee, visited for one of Bodega Cards’ “rip nights” and dethroned him in front of a cheering crowd packed into the small space. Pete still hasn’t lived it down.
But the real centerpiece is the shop’s Big Hitter Board, a corkboard plastered with photos of customers who’ve pulled something extraordinary from a pack or box. Kids and adults alike beam next to their rare pulls, their faces immortalized in printed snapshots inspired by Pete’s own brother’s Polaroid of him winning it big, the original hanging worn and proud with his predecessors.
“Every time a kid gets their photo on that board, it reminds me of being a kid,” Pete says. “I have a photo of my brother from the ’90s hitting big at our local card shop. I never got up there, but doing that for kids now is the coolest thing.”
One kid pulled a card worth $1,000, a hit so significant that Topps posted it to their Instagram. Shohei Ohtani, the card’s subject, reposted it to his millions of followers. The kid’s parents later told Pete that every kid at school was jealous.
“It’s a huge moment for those kids,” Pete says. “People often buy on eBay, open it at home, and don’t interact. Hosting events where 50 to 100 people open together and trade in real time builds relationships. People go to shows together and hang out because of the store. That’s our true measure of success.”
He hopes to expand the Big Hitter Board into a Big Hitter Wall at the new Hoboken storefront.
A Bigger Space in Hoboken, Same Heart
But as much as Pete loves the Jersey City shop, it’s simply too small. Last year, Bodega Cards threw a block party on Congress Street, shutting down the block for an ice cream truck, the Topps street team, and a surprise appearance by Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin. A few hundred people from the neighborhood showed up—a massive success and a logistical squeeze.
“We want to keep doing events like that, but at a bigger scale,” Pete says. “The current shop is too small, especially in winter.”
The new Hoboken location changes everything. The iconic checkered blue-and-yellow floors from the original shop have already been installed. There will be a custom mural along the back wall, high-top tables where kids can do homework after school, a bigger countertop for hosting rips and signings, and a whole back area for editing social content. A clothing rack will feature a collaboration with RSVLTS, a bold local clothing brand based in Hoboken. Pete is building ten custom “fridge” display cases – cabinets designed to look like bodega fridges, complete with glass doors salvaged from actual refrigerators. The real fridges are too heavy to move, so he’s improvising.
“We bought fridge tops and bottoms and repurposed them as display,” he says. “When you walk in, you’ll see the facade of a bodega—fridges, the floor, the community vibe.”
On a chilly November day, Pete showed HG the space mid-renovation of bare walls and scattered tools. As we talked outside the shop, a few local residents recognized the Bodega Cards name.
“We live right around the corner,” one of the women said. “We can’t wait for this to open.”
Pete grinned, launching into an explanation of when to expect a grand opening and how he hopes to bring that trademark community to their neighborhood. The trio nodded along, already imagining themselves as regulars. It’s moments like that that remind Pete of why he started Bodega Cards in the first place.
“The bodega concept is more about community than being literally a bodega,” Pete says. “The name stays, that’s the root.”
When Bodega Cards finally opens its doors in Hoboken, it won’t be starting from scratch. It’ll be bringing an entire community with it. The bodega fridges might not make the move, but the heart of what made that tiny Heights shop special will.
“We’re the center or hub of the community—where everybody meets up,” Pete says. “That’s important. It’s not just about selling things. It’s about connecting people.”
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