Board Game Cafe

I recently learned about Thirsty Meeples Board Game Cafe. This is a shop where you pay a cover charge (the Thirsty Meeples cover charge is £6.00 for three hours, £5.00 for children, with a discount of £1.50 if you order something from the food/drink menu). If they're slow, they'll let you stay beyond the three hour limit. You are then welcome to come into the shop and play any of the games they have available (over 2,000 titles, according to the website). It's not the sort of place you go when you want a meal; their food offerings are a handful of cakes, snacks, and sandwiches. They're there mostly for people who want to play board games.

Thirsty Meeples is far from the only one. Board game cafes are popping up all over the globe. There are some in New York, at least one in Beijing, another in Toronto, a few in Australia (Brisbane and Melbourne at least), even one in Malaysia. There doesn't appear to be one in the state in which I live, unfortunately; that might be good news though, as I'd probably bankrupt myself if there were one.

The staff have to be well versed in board games. They're responsible for helping people find the right game for their group, and ensuring that they know how to play. Of course, this sounds like a fantasy job to me; spending all day showing people how to play board games and getting paid for it would feel like it was too good to be true!

Apparently, many of these cafes were created via kickstarter. It seems that there's a demand for such spaces. I wonder if I'd be able to get such a business off the ground in my home state. Of course, I'd first have to have the time necessary to run a business. That's simply not the case, unless I quit my current job, which I really don't want to do. As stressful as my career is, I love doing it. What I'd really like to do is get the funding and hand the reins over to someone I trust to manage the place. Then I'd pop in once in a while to play some games with my employees or bring some friends along.

I don't know how feasible this idea would be, but it's fun to dream. And if you're reading this, maybe you can look into your city; it's possible there's a board game cafe already there!

I know this was a short entry, but I really wanted to talk about the idea. But even if there's no board game cafe in your area, I hope you have the opportunity to sit down with some friends and play some awesome games. So with that, I will leave you for this week.

Game on!