We speak to Board With Friends owners Nick and Alyssa about opening their business during a pandemic and their recommendations for people looking to get into the board gaming world.
We speak to Board With Friends owners Nick and Alyssa about opening their business during a pandemic and their recommendations for people looking to get into the board gaming world.
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Disclaimer: This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Jackie: Hi, my name is Jackie Lamport. Today is Wednesday, August 4. Welcome to the Capital Daily Podcast. Today on the show, We speak to Nick and Alyssa, the owners of Victoria's board game cafe Board with Friends. They share some recommendations and tips for anyone diving into the world of board games, as well as explaining how they managed their first year in business through a pandemic.
For this episode, I headed down to the board game cafe board with friends on Johnson Street to speak with owners Nick and Alyssa. Before we start full disclosure, I come here a lot. I want people to know that. But every time I come and pick up a game, you both know it, and you've played it, and you know all the rules, and you can explain them in under five minutes. Is that something that happened because you work here? Or is that something that you guys had before?
Alyssa: Well, from my experience? No, it is solely because of opening up a board game cafe; I had to learn a lot. Nick's goal was that anyone who came in here, whoever our staff was, had to be able to explain any game across the board. Yes, we might not know every single rule. But if we understand the general components of the game and how to play it to the end phase, that would help guide the customer. But Nick is the true kind of game master who probably knows the majority of the games in and out for the most part.
Nick: So my past history and stuff like that. I've been in a leadership role for about 15 years. So my goal was always to teach people things and make them excel from what they're at. So coming into this board game came naturally for me, and I've been playing since I was four. I already knew a lot of them prior to that and then just grew from there. Obviously, we learned a crap ton more about opening the store.
Jackie: I have yet to ask a question that you didn't know the answer to, so I'm going to keep trying. What are your personal favourite games to play?
Nick: I lean towards mechanisms more than game titles. Okay, so my favourite mechanisms would be worker placement and engine building. And obviously, there are tons of titles in there that fall under that, but I think tops are hard for me. There's a lot out there.
Jackie: Currently, what's your favourite that you're playing?
Nick: I guess we play Terraform Mars a lot. That's a good engine-building component. We dabbled in some Tapestry and Barrage a little bit lately, so that was good too. And yeah, I don't know. I guess it was the ones right now.
Alyssa: Yeah, for me, my kind of go-to game if, depending on my mood, is Clacs. I love that game. It is so easy to play. Press Your Luck where you don't need to feel as if you're in the headspace to play a game. It's the same thing for me, though, basically knowing Nick and opening up a board game cafe. I have found that I enjoy the mechanism piece versus a specific game. And for me as a dice base, I love having the dice in my hand and rolling it and taking that chance factor and sometimes it really doesn't work out, but I still enjoy them. So I love Dice Hospital. Fuse is one of my favourites. They're all Roll and Write games, and there's also Clever Cubed and Trek 12. There are so many, so it's hard to pinpoint.
Jackie: This isn't a board game, but you say "dice-based," and I go D&D (Dungeons and Dragons). Do you play D&D?
Alyssa: I personally do not. I have never dabbled in it, but Nick has.
Nick: I tried a few campaigns. But unfortunately, things really work with them, whether it's staging, timing, scheduling, or whatever, so I wasn't heavily invested. I have, like I said, dabbled in it, but that's about my extent.
Jackie: Yeah, I find that you have to get people together for a continuous amount of time over and over. That's the hard part of it.
Nick: You're trying to get together every week, so it's a dedication.
Jackie: But you do board games. And for those who come in here for the first time, what are some of the ones you recommend to people who are getting out of those classic games.
Nick: So getting away from Katan? One that is a good go-to that's going to be a new family favourite like a household is Azul. It's simple. It's different than what people are used to because it's a drafting game. And in all the classics, I don't believe there are very many, if any, right? So get someone a different mechanism that they've never done before. And they're like," Oh, man, this is amazing," even though the game is very, very similar.
Jackie: When people come in and start to play new games that aren't Monopoly or Life, do you find that they get hooked on the different types of games pretty quickly? I feel like it would like to open up to people this world of different types of board games because you think beyond Monopoly or whatnot, and you think, "Oh, there are these all these different types of games with different complexities."
Alyssa: Yeah, we've had some groups come in, where they are very clueless, and they could just kind of grab something and have nothing, have no knowledge of it. And Nick has spent the time teaching them like, "Hey, how about we suggest this game instead? I think you guys would be really into it.". And it's more than Kattan, more than your classics that people tend to go to, and they loved it. And that's the reason why they keep coming back. Because they know that we'll remember what they played, and we'll kind of elaborate on that and get them up to a game. So it's been a great thing in that aspect. Other groups, when we kind of come in and see what they're playing, and check-in, they're just stuck on their Life and Monopoly. And that's okay; they're just there to have fun. Yeah, we sit and wait until we see that they're unsure of and looking for a recommendation, and that's when we'll step in.
Jackie: Actually, I think one of the things too, that's nice is that you can come in here with a group of friends and play party games like there's a lot of party games that are fun, but they're fun, like one or once or twice. And you have to have a whole group of friends, and that's not worth buying. Do you have a lot of people who come and go, "I like Secret Hitler," or something?
Alyssa: Yeah, Secret Hitler or Werewolf. We have one group of kids that literally have been here for eight hours of the day, and they rotate Uno Werewolf and Secret Hitler. Then they'll go into Between Two Castles and Between Two Cities. And then they'll jump back into Uno. They'll just constantly flip between the party and then play in a strategy game and then go back into something that's fun and social. So it is great to see that.
Jackie: And when people do come in, what do you find is the most popular game that people go right to and pick up immediately?
Alyssa: So different demographics, I would say. People who are new to board game worlds and don't really know much, Jenga and Game of Life, hands down, are the top two games I've seen pulled off that shelf.
Jackie: I'm shocked; actually, I think the first time I came in and played Life, you guys.
Alyssa: What have you seen, Nick?
Nick: Trouble gets played a lot, but for people who want to learn, it's Wingspan, which I have mixed feelings about, but it's a great game. People love it. It's an entry-level engine-building game with a little bit of action-based kind of card base stuff going on as well. So that's probably one of the number one games that gets picked up right now.
Jackie: Do you think that's because of the theme? It's a theme that's very true to bird facts.
Nick: Yeah, it is. It's a gorgeous game. The pastel colours and stuff they use and Elizabeth Hogberg did a great job, and it won eight awards, right? So like, it got the hype it needed. And because of that, it's starting to snowball, and when we get even copies in for sale, they go really quick, even two and a half years later. So it is a good game. And then we see people pick up Seven Wonders a lot, which is a classic too, but I notice it's games that are highly awarded because they're safe. They'll be on the top lists of whatever you're googling for family games like that. So people do some research at home.
Jackie: I don't know if this is anybody else's strategy, but mine is to come in and pick the prettiest game, which is how I've ended up playing Wingspan and also London in Viticulture. Is that something that you see?
Nick: So if you notice Americanized games, very colourful, the artwork is gorgeous on them. And all these other games are like Paladins. And basically anything from Jim Phelps and me like that some of the artists they use these days are absolutely fantastic. But a lot of the Euro games, they're usually better games, but they're bland. And people don't realize that because you look at the box, you're like, "Oh, really?" And then you play it. You're like, "Wow, that's an amazing game." Castles of Burgundy is way better than Settlers of Catan, but people don't know it because it looks boring.
Jackie: To open during a pandemic, what was that like?
Nick: Well, we would definitely have anticipated it as everyone else in the world did. Right. So super, super, super good. Now, we signed our lease, February of 2020. And we had that little bit of an inkling in the background that something was going on in China, but we signed our lease, and we're like, "Okay, this year, let's do it." March rolled around things kind of kicked in here. We're like, "You know what, no big deal. It'll blow over." And then, when May came around, it didn't blow over. So we opened it in May but didn't have sit-down service or anything like that, just for retail. And then we finally got our sit-down service on Thanksgiving weekend. And things were good for a little while, and then they shut everything down in November. And then things pick back up, and then they shut us down and pick back up and shut us down. So it's been a really big roller coaster ride.
We've been open for a year and a half, and we made it through a pandemic as a brand new business. So I think we're good. I don't think we can really worry about too much. I mean, if you can make it through that, you can pretty much make it through anything. We definitely had our struggles. I'm sure a lot of businesses did, but we persevered. We had doubts, and we thought about shutting down, but we're like, "Nope, push through." And now we're here.
Alyssa: Yeah, I think a big thing about it was our regulars. We have met some amazing people who have supported us through the whole pandemic phase. And we owe a lot to those people. And unfortunately, a lot of people were always opening up new businesses in the middle of the pandemic. And they don't realize that we made all these plans in 2019. We started searching for places in December because you want to make sure you find the right place, you want the right fit doesn't just happen instantly, that flick of the switch, we're opening a business and here's the keys like no, there's a lot of planning that goes in. So, unfortunately, it just hit us in our year. And the same thing with the banks. They're like, "Yeah, it's an unfortunate thing." "What do we want to do?" Our landlord, they've never had this situation before. So there's a lot of discussions, but we're very thankful for the people that have supported us and have strived us through to where we are today, and we're still open.
Jackie: I'm not sure if this was an adaptation, but you do rentals. Was that something that you had planned before, or was that something that came about because of it?
Alyssa: Yes, we were trying to. We did succeed in recording some educational videos of how to play, but we just have not had a chance to upload them yet. But our intention is to continue that process to upload them to our iPads. I don't know if it was mentioned earlier about our iPad. So with our menu table, ordering system, we have an iPad table 24/7. So ideally, if there's ever a moment where you're unsure of how to play a game and you can't get a game master with you, we would have videos uploaded onto the iPad for any customer to play and watch. So then, ideally, I would guide them in that way. So that was our intention. And unfortunately, we only got a few done. It's a lot of work. We're not video editors.
Jackie: You said that you drew a lot of regulars through the pandemic. Is that something that you continue to see new regulars coming in now that it's open again?
Alyssa: Yes. I think we draw a different crowd than other board game cafes around Canada. I feel like our environment and ambience is a little more welcoming in other aspects.
Nick: So basically, what we try to do from the beginning, and what we're going to continue to do is we want to build. I know I'm dating myself here, but we want to build the Cheers. You know the theme song that Cheers. It's a place where everyone knows your name. So we want to know, everyone that comes in here, we want you guys to feel comfortable when you come in here, yourself included. We've gotten to know you as you came several, several times because you're a huge nerd. And we're going to keep continuing to do that with new customers that come in and the existing ones that we have, and we build a repertoire with them. And I think that's why people keep coming back. Because like, she's a walk in the door. We're like, "Hey, enter your name here." And everyone feels more at home and comfortable. You know, me, I'm not uptight, I'm very, very loose when I talk to people, probably something a little bit bad, and I should probably tighten up a little bit of it. But it makes people feel comfortable in that sense.
Jackie: Before the pandemic, you had a mingle Monday. So you have this like community that you're building for people to meet other people who enjoy this kind of activity. Is that something that you're continuing?
Nick: Yeah, we actually just started a backup four weeks ago. I guess it seems we were allowed events again, whenever that was. So we got that up and running, and twelve regulars come in every Monday, and they met through this, but they all know each other now. It's nice to see friendships grow, and I remember Alyssa the first time that we put them at the table; we're like, "I wonder if that's gonna work with those people." Then you hear them laughing. And she's like, "Oh, it's so good." She's the event person, and I just know the games.
Alyssa: I think another thing from it is we've seen a few regulars in the couple setting have come in super quiet kind of to themselves. You don't really know how to read them, and then through Mingle Mondays, they come, and they've changed completely. They've opened up, and they're so much more conversational with us, but also the others that they're playing games with. And they've now formed mortgaging groups throughout the week to play different games because Mingle Mondays isn't really a night to be playing those super heavy games that take all night; it's more about the social aspect, play a few games, mix and match with different play styles and go from there. So that's been really rewarding from that process. And we've had a lot who have moved to your pre-pandemic or during and didn't have an opportunity to meet people. So this is one where they can, and some have been very thankful for that opportunity to be social because they haven't had anything for the past year and a half. It's very emotional for a lot of people. So it's been fun, where you want it to keep growing more and more so come down.
Jackie: And you also do trivia Tuesday.
Alyssa: Yeah, Trivia Tuesdays. It's Trivial Pursuit real life. It's hosted by Sixty Watt Trivia. She is amazing, and she puts together some phenomenal questions. You think you're so smart and you have all this knowledge, and then you come to a night, and you're like, "Shit, I don't know anything. Where did you come up with that?" Her brain is incredible. She does these music duos where she matches two songs into one she does before and afters. We're so thankful that we get to partner with her on that. It's definitely been a growing thing from our first trivia night, as you can remember to where it is now; it's hugely popular.
Jackie: Do you have anything else planned or anything else that you wanted to share with people?
Alyssa: In the future, we want to do Teach It Thursdays. So we'll be featuring a game that people really want to learn, have a bunch of copies opened, and then be able to teach it to people. And that's mostly for those bigger games like From Mars, for example.
Jackie: Blackout: Hong Kong?
Nick: That's out of print.
Alyssa: There's a lot of great games that are out of print.
Jackie: Do you have a lot of games that are out of print now? So this would be the only place you can come for them?
Alyssa: Potentially, yeah. Other board game cafes might have them open. But we have done a lot. When we open games for libraries, we tend to open games that we want to play and try, and it gives us a reason to play them. Then it goes to the library. So we don't know that it's going to go into print, but that's how we pick our games for the library, not because of popularity. And not because of what we know people are going to want to play; we put the games out that we value.
Jackie: And you play them all before you put them on the shelf?
Alyssa: That was all of our pre-opening from the May to September phase of constant playing so many board games.
Jackie: That's quite a lot of games to play.
Alyssa: Yeah, I think we have 500 plus in our library.
Jackie: Awesome, thank you both so much for this. This has been really fun, and I appreciate it.
Alyssa: Oh, thanks for having us today. It's been fun chatting.
Nick: Yeah, thanks.