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 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:
The bad:
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