Tate's Comics is the brainchild of Tate Ottati, who as a seventeen year old high school senior, opened the store as an alternative to all the "cutthroat high-priced retailers around town". Tate had invested in Marvel stock while "playing" the stock market game in his high school economics class and did very well in the "game" as well as in the "real-life" stock market! Lucky for Tate, he sold the Marvel stock when it was at the highest it was ever going to get. Shortly after Tate sold the stock, 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, Inc. in March 1993. In those first months, the store was only open when school was out, 3-8pm!

Tate's first location was a 1,000 sq. foot store that housed a variety of comics, graphic novels and toys. With Tate's youthful eye for new merchandise and personal taste, the store did well and expanded quickly. Within two years the store was moved to a larger location around the corner. 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 and word quickly spread that there was a local store catering to this "new" medium! That same year, TATE'S began renting rare anime import VHS videos to our customers, who were thrilled to have the opportunity to see at home what was mostly only shown in anime fanclubs at the time.

In 1996, Tate met his wife Amanda (at the store, of course) and as the years passed she began to contribute to the store's offerings by ordering a small selection of art and popular culture books and cult/horror movies. In 1997, JoAnn joined the TATE'S family and her love of Sailor Moon and anime led to an eventual expansion of TATE'S rental selection and anime merchandise. The store now had the ingredient it needed to grow even more, a woman's touch! XD See what TATE'S looked like in 2001.

After 7 years at TATE'S second location, it seemed that it was bursting at the seams. It was decided to move up the street to a much larger location in Lauderhill's historical "Promenade Shops" home to the local indie record store Uncle Sam's. After spending nearly 6 months working on the 'theme' of our new store, the doors were opened to our current location on July 31, 2002. See photos of the work in progress, back in 2002! Bigger and better than ever before, we were excited to offer our customers more merchandise and a better shopping environment!

For all the variety of merchandise TATE'S carried, there was one thing missing... In response to an outcry of customers looking for "a better place to game", in October 2003, TATE'S Gaming Satellite was opened. Starting out as a tiny 500 square foot shop, just a few doors down from the "big" store, it had a full selection of gaming merchandise and supplies - including tables for gaming, tournaments, snacks and drinks. The Gaming Satellite was a success and quickly outgrew it's 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!

Tate had always dreamed of expanding the store “just one more” time. When the tenants on our north side left the shopping center in the summer of 2006, Tate’s dream became reality! It was quickly decided that TATE'S would expand once more, this time an additional 2,000 square feet - bringing our store to a total of over 6,000 square feet!! The wall between the two stores was removed and after much work on everyone's part the expansion was complete in October 2006. But wait! We're not done yet!

Part of the "expansion dream" was to include an art gallery and boutique inside a 700 square foot loft area that was in the new section of the store. Dubbed Bear and Bird Boutique+Gallery, it features original artwork, gallery shows and unusual, cool merchandise! Opening for the first time on February 3, 2007 with a massively successful first show, For Love of Munny, the gallery is off to a great start. With a focus on new artists 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 as a little shop run by a 17 year old after school.

We are proud to say that Promenade Shops has turned into a great local community over the years as like-minded businesses have come together to offer a unique South Florida shopping experience. Check out this photo to see what we mean!

We Are

Tate's Comics, Inc. is a family-owned and operated business. We are located in Lauderhill, Florida - nearby to Ft. Lauderdale, about 30 to 40 minutes north of Miami and south of Palm Beach/Boca. The store is a pretty easy drive from just about anywhere in South Florida, we even have semi-regular customers from Key West to Fort Meyers! Everyone who visits makes sure to tell us that they are happy to have made the trip.

Tate and his father Tony can be found working at the store on most days. As a store, TATE'S treats every customer who walks in our door the way we would like to be treated. If we do not have what you are looking for, we will do our best to try and hunt it down. We run the store as a customer friendly place. We are always trying to improve our store's appearance and bring in new stuff for our customers to enjoy! We always appreciate it when customers let us know about their good (or not so good) experiences shopping with us, please take advantage of our email for this purpose!

Our 6,000 square foot store is extremely well stocked, shelves are filled to the brim with all those unusual, old, or rare toys that you've always wanted. Perhaps, there are even toys you had as a child that your mother threw out! Regardless of your age or gender, TATE'S is filled with memories and fun for many people. You'll have a great time looking at everything! New merchandise comes in ALL the time, it is unlikely that you'll see everything in one trip anyway!

While we are NOT what most folks would consider a ‘typical’ comic book store, TATE’S takes pride in our comic book stock. We have an enormous selection of back issue comics, we have thousands upon thousands of titles. The back issue bins take up nearly 1/3 of our floor space, so you can imagine! Look for our 3-drawer bin of bargain bundle comics, which collect a sequential run and are offered at a discounted prices. Newly released and recent comics run the entire length of the far wall (60 feet!) and are arranged alphabetically by title. TATE'S also offers a first class discount comic book subscription service for new comics. We carry all the comic related merchandise you can think of, such as statues, T-shirts, toys and coffee table books. We also carry a large variety of independent mini-comics from around the world.

TATE'S is proudly home to the largest selection of vintage Star Wars figures, vehicles, books and more for sale anywhere in South Florida! And... remember those cool 3-3/4" G.I. Joe's that you had as a kid? Well, Snake Eyes and the gang are all nestled on the shelves; as well as Transformers, the newest McFarlane figures, Star Trek (past and present) and more and more and more!

Another of the TATE'S many specialties is the sale and rental of thousands of Japanese Animation DVDs and videos. We have been selling and renting Japanese Animation for since the early nineties and we are thrilled to witness the recent rise in the medium's popularity. We are always EXPANDING our rental section which includes hard-to-find cult videos, bizarre horror films, TV Shows, twisted animation, and retro cartoons (such as Transformers and Thundercats). Our goal is to supply South Florida with videos it can't find anywhere else!! We currently have over 8,000 titles for rent and have a customer rental base of thousands of members! New titles in all categories are added every week. Give us a call (or email) and see if we have what you've been looking for! If we DON'T have it, we will even try and get it!

As well as the sale and rental of the videos, we also carry a wide variety of Japanese Comics (manga), Japanese Hobby Magazines, Japanese Photo and Art Books, Japanese Music CDs and Japanese Import Toys! Our Japanese Snack wall is chock full of bizarre and delicious treats... We have Ramune Soda and MANY different types of Pocky, plus a lot more!! Our tri-annual free Japanese Snack Tastings have been become a fun tradition for folks to try new and interesting things!

TATE'S has a dedicated section to budding (& accomplished) artists, which features a plethora of 'How to Draw' and reference books, Comic Book Specialty Drawing Paper, Japanese Imported Screen Tones, Markers and Pens. Supplies you won't find anywhere else in South Florida!

All the most unique and fascinating books focusing on pop culture, 'lowbrow' artists, sideshow history, fashion, fantasy art, movies and more are hand picked for you at TATE'S. We pride ourselves in presenting interesting books on our bookshelves! You can also pick up some postcards, inexpensive and funny novelty items, magnets, stickers, buttons, t-shirts, posters, designer plush dolls and cameras while you're here!! TATE'S offers a large selection of Vinyl / Designer Toys, from Kid Robot's latest offerings to releases from the smaller and more unusual companies!

We truly try our darndest to bring the most interesting and hard-to-find merchandise into our store, we hope you will come visit us soon! Additionally, if you have any special requests, please fill out a special order form in the store, we will do our best to fulfill your wishes!

Hey! Be our MySpace friend! Look for us at: http://www.myspace.com/tatescomics
We'll even be offering special "incentives" once in a while to our MySpace pals! Oooooo!

Meet the staff

Vital Stats