Yes - With caveats.
Old form member Kristoff and I ran a local game store when we were in college between 2000 and 2002 I believe. It wasn't "owned" by us, but we ran the store more or less. Even though it was back in the "retro" days, there was a clear difference between a store that was independently owned versus something owned by a corporate retailer (EB eventually bought our shop).
The best thing about the experience were the tournaments and small fighting game community we built. We installed a 4-slot MVS Big Red and between our MVS collections and supplied the community with games they could never find at local arcades (which were dying quickly anyway). We even had a small "show and tell" kind of event and
@Jon came to visit with some rare games and other folks came by.
We have quite a few locally owned retro shops around the area now, and they all carry that same vibe - although they have to focus on more than just video games. One shop is a hybrid comic and figure shop, another has a secondary Magic the Gathering store, etc. While I wouldn't say a pure video game store is feasible these days, the community and events the stores put on for the nerds it supports is more or less what keeps them thriving.