Snakes and Lattes – A Review

I’m the token board game geek friend, and so I received many links about Snakes and Lattes, a board game cafe near Bathurst and Bloor in Toronto. It costs $5 and you can stay and play for as long as you like.

The shady character on the right was the only guy who would come with me

Initial Impressions

The place only opened up a week ago, and I can’t believe the initial buzz. I had a free night on Saturday, and so I sent off a note to my board game group to see if anyone wanted to meet up. We arrived around 8:30pm and it was packed. Every table was full, and the place was filled with gaming. Along one wall were games of every type: Eurogames, party games, kids games. They claim to have 1500+ games, and because my estimating skills are poor, I’m not one to dispute them.

How My Night Went

First order of business was finding a table. Fortunately, a group of five left, and we grabbed it. Lyf, who has a smaller review on his site, was kind enough to buy me a coffee and pay the cover charge. Huzzah! This is why he’s my current BFF until he tells me to stop being awkward in public. Soon after, my friend Nelson showed up and we had enough for a three player game.

As I stared at the wall of games, Sarah came up and asked what type of game we wanted to play. She was one of the five or so employees. Knowledgeable and friendly, she offered many suggestions. I mentioned we were open to playing with anyone that was willing to endure my company, and she pointed out a couple of people.

Ben and Sarah. Ben is the guy who owns the place. Also friendly.

One of the guys, named Chris, was teaching another group how to play Manhattan. We introduced ourselves and after a bit of mulling, we decided to play Roll Through the Ages. Chris wanted a light game because he was planning on leaving soon (make note of this!). Lyf ordered some sandwich thing. I have no idea if it was good, but for once I was excited not worrying about having food and drinks getting on MY games.

Pop, Latte and Sandwhich thing on game table. Normally, this is a cardinal sin.

You know what’s also cool? I didn’t have to explain the game. I’m the board game organizer at my group, and that normally means I explain the game. I also have to decide what games fit with such and such number of people and how heavy or light the game is. I didn’t have to do that. This is a bonus on many, many levels. Ok, just one level, but it’s still a bonus.

The next game we pulled out was new to me, and so I was excited. It was Piece of Cake. It was cool because it had cardboard slices of cake which you can arrange in a circle to form… a cake. But I’m not here for board game reviews, nor culinary descriptions. But here’s a pic anyway:

Lyf, Nelson and Chris. I'm the absent one.

After this game, Lyf had to leave, but that’s ok, because more people joined in. Marcel came and brought his friend Daniel, and Chris’s friend Paul joined us. That was enough for a game of Cash and Guns. And that’s another great thing about the place. People are willing to play with people they don’t know. Whether or not this is normal, that was the atmosphere I perceived. If you are a bit shy, you can ask the employees to help you out, but definitely helps to be social in these settings.

Marcel, Daniel, Paul, Nelson and Chris. If you're into John Woo, this game's great!

The place was super packed by now. There weren’t even enough chairs. In fact, one of the customers went out to buy ten more chairs from Canadian Tire earlier, and there still wasn’t enough. Sarah did mention this was the busiest night so far. If you are like me, and just like to be amidst all the board gaming revelry, it was exciting. 😀

Next up was another new game for me, Chicago Express. A wonderful train game and one I’m considering buying because I know it would work well with my group. Yet another plug for coming. Is there a game you want to check out before buying it? Come to Snakes and Lattes! Only $5! Heck, no one even checks if you paid the five bucks, but I really want this cafe to succeed, so I was all for paying. 😀

Me, Marcel and Daniel. I'm thinking too much and still losing.

The majority of people had to go after that, it was almost 12am. But a large game of Long Shot was starting up, and I opted in. Once again there were new people, David, Darrel (I think), Duncan and Alex. Sarah also joined us for a game. Paul and Chris (remember when I asked you to make note of something? This is why!) were still hanging about! At about 1:15am, we finally finished. Crazy. I had been at the place for almost 5 hours!

Yet even more gaming. Nelson had to leave soon, so he started downloading things on my iPad.

The place closes at 12am. Yet, we were still there at 1:30am. Ben didn’t try to kick us out. Sarah was still up for playing Ubongo. In fact, Ben offered us water and free coffee because he was going to throw it out anyway! How awesome is that? He’s a gamer, and knows how gamers like to game. I didn’t take him up on the coffee, because I would have just been up all night peeing, and that’s not good at all.

In the end, there were a few stragglers and I left after a great night of gaming. I really enjoyed myself!

I didn't even need to clean up. Super awesome.

Final Thoughts!

It was great! I had a fun time, got to learn new games, and I got to play for five hours! As someone who runs games night on a weekly and monthly basis, it was wonderful not having to do that myself.

And the place is filled with geeks. Now, this shouldn’t scare you normal people, they were friendly! And as long as you types can handle vague references to geek culture you’re not familiar with, you’ll be fine! In fact, I started singing the theme song to Three’s Company. No one joined in. Either my singing was that awful, or people did not know what I was talking about. I’m hoping for the latter.

How could you NOT know who these people are?

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