We went and checked out the 4th and newest board game cafe to open in Toronto on Thurs Sept 19. We'd sent a invitation to some of our gaming friends and ended up with 9 of us stopping in throughout the evening. These are my thoughts:
Game Collection: They have some gorgeous built-in shelving at both ends of the room and their collection is off to a great start, with lots of room for expansion. Scott was the game expert on staff that evening and he is very knowledgeable and wisely opinionated about games so I have no doubt that everyone walking in will find a few suitable games for their group from the selection available. We started off playing Garden Dice, a fun hour long game I had only learned the night before and wanted to teach Duncan. We then moved onto Skyline, a dice game I'd learned a few months ago but we don't own (yet?). After that we wanted to try something completely new and ended up with Czech Pub, a card playing party-ish game that will certainly be entertaining to more casual gamers. The other table played Click Clack, Riff Raff, and a few rounds of Dominion in the meantime.
Atmosphere: The space is well decorated, spacious and very well lit. The tables were a comfortable size, maybe a little crowded once we added food and drinks but it was manageable. I loved the colour of the tables, since the muted grey makes even black and brown game pieces show up very well. Lighting should be a big consideration for a board gaming space and they have definitely done a much better job than their competitors in the city. The space was far from capacity during our visit but based on the furniture lay-out, I think they could be full and still feel spacious and uncrowded.
Cover Model: They are still working out the details of their pricing model, but the way it was presented is that there is no cover charge or sitting fee, as long as your group is actively ordering from their menu. The first 2 hours are free with any purchase and after that you might be charged $3/hour if you are not continuing to order. I think that is a very fair approach from a business stand-point, but I think it needs some work from a customer service perspective since it isn't clear enough and actually caused our group to delay placing orders on a few occasions to ensure we were ordering in the next time window. Making me think about my orders in relation to time probably meant I ordered slightly less than I otherwise would have and I still wasn't confident about what would be shown on the bill. It does sound like they are continuing to explore options and I hope to see improvement on this model.
Food: We hadn't eaten dinner so decided to order a custom pizza from their menu, with sweet peppers, italian sausage and bacon (you can pick any 3 toppings plus choose any type of sauce and cheese). It was delicious and the super thin crust was crisped to perfection. We shared a bubble pop waffle afterwards that is served with some fresh fruit and a nutella banana whipped cream! Everyone who goes there needs to try this out. We also ordered a chai latte, Hank's soda, salted caramel macaroons, and a red velvet cake pop - all of which were as expected or better. The prices were a bit higher than I expected, and high enough to keep me from coming here regularly, but certainly still reasonable as an occasional evening out.
Overall, I would definitely recommend checking this place out, and I'm looking forward to a few return trips myself. :-)