It was Grandma, in the cafe with a Scrabble tile: Game cafes are big holiday business

A Scrabble game with larger tiles is displayed at the 2023 Toy Fair, in New York's Javits Center, Monday, Oct. 2, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Richard Drew

It’s the holidays, which means for many across the Prairies, there’s no better time to get locked in a dungeon with a dragon.

Or smoke out Colonel Mustard in the billiard room with the revolver.

Or — in the case of Janet Gutierrez and Katy Cadman — lay that magical X tile on a triple letter score.

"It's the human contact,” Gutierrez said, lifting her head from a recent lunchtime Scrabble battle with Cadman at D6 Table Top Café in Calgary.

“We spend time and I know her interests and she knows mine...You don't find this very often, right?"

Between rounds, the two can stare up at more than three walls of 650 games advertised in brightly coloured titles, divided into young adult, family-friendly, first timer and experienced gamer categories.

“It's just a nice atmosphere,” said Gutierrez. “It isn't noisy and they have food available that you can buy and stay the whole day.”

Cadman said she normally plays video games but sometimes likes a change of pace.

"We're regulars here," Cadman added. "We come just to play games. Just to kill time."

Board gaming and the board gaming business tend to peak as families and friends gather for the holidays. But, like everything else, it's at the mercy of economic and geopolitical peaks and troughs.

Solomon Kwan, 30, who opened D6 Table Top Cafe with his older brother Michael, said he and his family have always played board games, especially when public gatherings were cancelled during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

"During the isolation, I played a lot of board games with my parents. We had a lot of time and funnily enough my mom said, ‘If you're going to buy another game you'd better turn it into a business,” Kwan said with a laugh.

“So we did.

"We just wanted to bring people together, especially after the isolation and board games was the perfect way to do it."

Kwan's personal favourite is Ark Nova, about putting animals in a zoo and releasing them back into the wild.

On a busy day, the cafe can host about 85 people. There are three private rooms for fans of the ever-popular Dungeons and Dragons.

"One thing a lot of people like about the room is we have dungeon lighting. We want to create a space that, as weird as it sounds, makes you feel like you're playing in your own basement," Kwan said.

"We named our store D6 Tabletop because of a six sided dice — a D6 is what's commonly used in Dungeons and Dragons but it's also the dice that most people would recognize."

Kwan said Christmas is the busiest time of year. A number of families have already made reservations, companies have booked holiday parties and the cafe has even hosted one wedding.

Two provinces over, at Winnipeg’s Across the Board Game Cafe, some 1,800 gaming titles stretch from floor to ceiling, including classics like Clue and strategic ones like Kingdom Builder. 

“We’re at capacity for December,” said co-owner Clinton Skibitzky.

“The cold months are very good for us because it’s an option to get out of the house that isn’t frigid. It cures cabin fever without getting the chills.”

During December, the space is filled open-to-close for corporate events, family shindigs and shoppers looking to snag gifts for the gamers in their lives. 

Skibitzky said the café’s clientele ranges from children to older folks looking to play games from their youth.

He said "party games" are in high demand this time of year — ones that don’t take long to explain or play and can accommodate groups of all sizes.

A popular one has been a game called Just One, which requires players to discover as many mystery words as possible using one-word clues.

In Saskatoon, Roberta Alton, the owner of Breakout Escape Rooms and Board Game Lounge, says affordability is taking a bite out of gaming.

She said sales are down compared with last year, though up from two years ago. She said there have been fewer holiday parties and visits from individual patrons due to economic pressures.

“Christmas parties are down significantly this year from previous years, and it appears as though companies have less money to spend,” Alton said.

“I think companies are seeing less sales this year and so they are also then pulling their own spending.”

Alton added she’s noticed the board game café industry has shrunk over the last few years.

“It’s a very challenging business model,” she said.

“There are plenty of days where I think that I should just throw in the towel and reform all the space to escape rooms to move on. But we have a pretty loyal board games community here in Saskatoon that are fantastic.

“We're still doing fine.”

And even when things look their bleakest, there are always the dragons.

Alton says the mythological fire-breathing beasts of the sky are popular for gaming because, well, they are mythological fire-breathing beasts of the sky.

“Dragons are fun,” Alton said.

“It’s always a big genre.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 22, 2024. 

— With files from Brittany Hobson in Winnipeg and Jeremy Simes in Regina