boardgames

We live in Madrid, Spain and have one boardgame cafe in the city center. Its called Replay

We have gone a couple of times, usually just because we were in the area and jumped in to play something quick. The collection of games is pretty massive. Many casuals but lots of deeper games too. There is also an outlet section to buy games at a discount. The food is OK, nothing special but fine for a session.

Since its downtown, we do not go that often. Wednesdays they even organize an english-speaking evening which is handy if you want to meet a more international crowd.

My post earlier about the "Evolution of Boardgames" is painted on the wall of this cafe.

There's a few in my city. Both cafes and bars. They're packed all the time. I personally can't get into them but I'm glad people are enjoying them.

They are decently often in Greece, either as boardgame cafés, or (more often) cafés with boardgames. On the latter it's rare to have someone to suggest a game or explain the rules so you have to read them yourself. Used to go very often while a student

My wife and I's first date was at a boardgame cafe. We haven't had a chance to check out any of the cafes in our new city yet, though.

The city I used to live in had a couple, one was more focused on trading card games and running tournaments and just had a smallish board game collection, but the other was a proper cozy little cafe with walls full of great games. Sadly the latter one has had to shut down because of increasing rents.

My current town is a bit too small for something dedicated like that, but we do have a sort of hybrid place that hires out console time as well as has a small collection of board games for the cafe area. Since it's a small town and not exactly moving with the times, a lot of the games are your basic family classics but I appreciate them trying. I'm sceptical that the place will last long though, most new businesses round here don't.

Generally I do really like these places but our local one now isn't the friendliest. And anywhere with a big focus on trading card games like the one in our previous city does, as much as I wish it wasn't true, tend to attract a crowd with less than amazing hygiene. Plus they often seem more hostile to women than dedicated actual board game spaces, in my experience. It's hard to attract a wider customer base when your core clientele are actively putting people off.

There's a bar and grill with board games near me. Never been. Honestly didn't know about the place until your post. Thanks for the date idea. ;)

We have a board game bar near us, there's one my friend group has gone to and there's elements that are fun and also not great. Most of my issues are this bar specific and not a issue with the concept in general, but they're things to watch out for I suppose:

The Good:

• They have lots of games, an entire wall devoted to them. Many games you've probably never seen or played
• They oftentimes have a 'board game somalia' who knows most the games that are hanging up, and it's really good at helping you pick out a game, and teaching you the rules. This is obviously better for games that are simple and quick
• There are sealed games you can buy and take home with you, ofy you looked one of the games
• They well have events with game companies and other companies to promote different things. We went one night when a board game marker was feeling their new game, looking for opinions and feedback, which was cool to do. Another was actually sponsored by bobs burgers, which just was fun
• There menu is pretty straightforward and simple, which makes it so you're not spending too much time wasting on that
• It's pretty casual atmosphere, where you really don't feel like the waiters and waitresses are trying to boot you to get your table for the next group

The bad:

• A bar is a terrible place to try to play games generally. While luckily everyone is in the mentality of playing games, so people aren't trying to dance or whatever that could disrupt your games, it's just loud. We first went there to play DND, and if you have a group of 5+ and are at a bigger table, it's impossible to hear each other. It gets annoying real fast trying to explain rules, talk to other players, or just ask someone to move your piece, when it's so loud
• The service is terrible. While I realize that that's lately location specific, I find there are some elements that are probably inherited from the idea of a Boardgame bar. We would see our waitress maybe once every hour, leaving you oftentimes wanting just a glass of water especially when playing games where you talk a lot, and they were no where to be found. I feel like this is in part that oftentimes tables would be there for 4 hours, and after getting initial food and drinks, they would only order some alcoholic drinks, maybe 1-2 per hour per table, after they got their initial food. As someone who talks a lot and doesn't drink, I need a lot of water. Getting a 'fancy glass' of water, meaning a nice looking glass that's only half the volume of what other restaurants would use, every 2 hours, is really annoying. There's is a bar, but the bar really comes off as only serving people who are sitting at the bar, or ordered a fancy mixed drink. When I've gone up to them to get water or a soda, it'll be like 4 min of waiting.
• Board games, food, drinks, and tables they use at bars don't really mix. You have to eliminate one. I think almost every time I've gone I've seen a table break some glassware just because someone bumped something on the table. This does go back largely to the issue of the waitresses, where you have a bunch of dishes on your table, where it'll be 2 hours before it gets bussed. Maybe we should be more bold and just hunt down a server, and ask them to bus the table, but that seems really rude to me and way more bold than I'm willing to be. So you end up with dirty dishes you're maneuvering around. I honestly wish there was like a place we could move the plates to ourselves when we're done so we don't need to ask for the server to remove dirty dishes when we just want the space for gaming
• The place also does axe throwing, which in of itself is cool, but I could see how it for be distracting for some. Again pretty bar specific, but still something to think about if a place offers multiple things.

What it comes down to is in my opinion, they're a really fun concept, that if they're run like a traditional restaurant, are gonna have potential for some serious issues. Bad or busy service is normally okish when you're just going out to eat and plan to leave in an hour. When is been 4 hours of you playing a game, regardless of how understanding you are, the bad service starts to really bug you. We went to another bar once where someone rented out a section to demo their game that were working on, and had similar issues. There seems to be an element of 'they aren't ordering anything that will get us money, so we'll just check on them very very infrequently '.

I've been to one coffee cafe that wasn't exactly a board game cafe, but they had tables that were really good for board games that you could reserve. That was not too bad because they just had the coffee counter you could walk up to and get food and drinks, they had a soda dispenser for refills, they had trash cans and places to put dishes so you could keep your table clear. The music also was much more like a coffee shop, so you didn't find yourself trying to talk over everything. This was a much much better experience.

I've once been to a board game store in another state that had a HUGE gaming area and a ton of open games you could sit and play. They sold some really basic food, lots of candies and chips and soda and energy drinks, and a few microwavable things. But the atmosphere was great because everyone there seemed to want to game and seemed much more open to pulling in strangers to play there games. Much more like a GenCon vibe. This was in another state though, and at the time there was a lot of COVID restrictions. Would have loved to go back and see what it's like now

So I guess the biggest thing Id say is look at how they handle their foods and drinks. While it would be nice if you didn't have to get up from the table all the time, it just doesn't seem to work that way, at least not in every case. Id much rather just have a place I can walk up to and grab what I need, rather than wait for someone to come to you

We have two near us and both are a great time! My wife is more into board games than I am but the food is delicious usually and their selection has both old favourites alongside new board games to try for the first time as well! It's a really great outing idea whether for a date, a social get together with friends, etc. Highly recommend going if one's close by!

Vancouver has a boardgame pizzeria out of all things: https://www.ludica.ca/

You'd think that handling pizza slices and handling boardgame components at the same time would be a recipe for disaster but it works pretty well somehow. They have a good collection of games and the pizzas are great too.

Unfortunately not. Until just now I wasn't aware of any in my country but it turns out there are in some now but the closest is 1.5h away.

Yes, in Santo Domingo! I didn't know it was a more widespread thing, but one showed up around a year ago and has grown more popular this year. It's called "Playboard Café", and their food is also great.

https://ragnaroek.cafe opened in my city (Kiel, Germany) last year. Been playing Magic over there a lot and a few of their games. Great experience so far and they have a great palette of games.

Theres a gamestore called die spieleburg (the gamecastle) nearby, they also do gaming evenings etc

Unfortunately no. I'd love if there was a place where I could try a game before buying it but unfortunately the local scene is really scarce where I exist.

I do have some LGS 20-30 mins away (by car) but with a 30 euro markup I don't see the point of even going.

Yes, there’s one in my town. But after they charged me £4 for a latte all whilst struggling to make it - I’ve never gone back.

It does seem popular with others though.

There’s a boardgame bar around here. It’s fine - but attached to a LGS so that may not meet the definition that you’re looking for.

Yes, it's called Pieces. I've gone mostly just for drinks because they have good cocktails but I did go with a group to play a little Cards Against Humanity once. My friends live way out in the suburbs and I live in the city so they don't come here to go out much.

I think there's about 3 in my city. Always seems to have people in it playing something, and event nights look more packed when I go past. But I don't really have the friend group for that kinda thing though

One just opened not too far, planning to check it out soon.

There're plenty of boardgame cafes, and plain straight out boardgame playing spaces here in Singapore. I've been to quite a few, the latter I much prefer because the staff/owner are invested in the games, are long-time gamers themselves, and are very good at recommending and introducing games. Being able to concisely introduce rules and mechanics and have a group of people understand them is not as easy as it looks!

No, never been. I just looked whether there are any in the wider region but looks like only bigger cities have any, so an hour by car minimum.
I don't even have any LGS though, so a BGC would have positively surprised me.

I think I would like to visit a really nice one at some point just to try the experience. On the whole I prefer to play my own games - and to buy the games I prefer to play, needless to say - but going to a café with a nice small group and seeing what games they have could be neat.

I recently visted one in my home town for the first time. I didn't expect much, but it was actually a lot of fun. The food was meh tough (mostly fast food).

I have a board game bar in my city. It's pretty nice. They have staff to introduce you to the games. they serve lots of mixed drinks. Those tend to be expensive, but hey it's to cover the cost of the board games and non wait staff.

Yes there is one in the city Nearby. It's about half an hour from where I live. I've been there several times and it's a fantastic place. Over 300 games to play. Nice selection of non alcoholic drinks from teas to fancy lemonades or coffee. Some beers too but only bottles. The food is surprisingly good as well. They make fresh sandwiches and pizza for example as well as a selection of sweets as well as chips etc.

I've only been there to play board games once. The other times we were there for TTRPGs.

No cafes and sadly the closest store that is anything more than a MtG/Pokémon shop is an hours drive away.

We’ve had a couple of people try to open stores but they’ve never lasted. A cafe might actually fair better in the college town nearby but no one has tried for some reason.

At least I save a lot buying online..

Unfortunately not anymore. We had one and it was really nice - good selection of beers on tap, some ok food options, a lot of games and staff that was eager to help you learn new games.

It closed down after COVID lockdowns... Boardgame cafe was not really the best place to go during those times so I guess at certain point they couldn't make ends meet. Anyway, hopefully something similar rises from their ashes.

My partner and I like to check out these kind of places when we travel. It's always fun to see what people play there and what games are available + try a new one (or three).