Snakes and Lattes

Snakes and Lattes
Restaurant information
Established 2010
Current owner(s) Ben Castanie
Food type Coffees, teas, draft beers, sandwiches, snacks, desserts
Dress code Casual
Street address 600 Bloor Street West; 489 College Street
City Toronto
State Ontario
Postal code/ZIP M6G 1K4; M6G 1A5
Country Canada
Seating capacity 150; 240
Reservations No
Website www.snakesandlattes.com

Snakes and Lattes is a board game cafe chain in Toronto, Canada, with two venues located at 600 Bloor Street West and 489 College Street.[1] Guests pay a small cover charge to play board games for as long as they like, choosing from the cafe's collection of about 3,000 games.[2] There was no wifi available at the original cafe when it first opened[3] as the focus is on playing games and socialising with friends,[4][5] however, public wi-fi was installed in both locations to accommodate the morning business and student crowd. The cafes serve light food and beverage items, including some draft beers.

History

Snakes and Lattes was opened on August 30, 2010 by Ben Castanie and Aurelia Peynet,[4][6] at what later became known as Snakes and Lattes' Annex location. The couple had moved to Toronto from France four years earlier, and came up with the idea for Snakes and Lattes, which they named after the Canadian children's game Snakes and Ladders, from a visit to a Chicago area game store in 2008.[3] Over the next two years, they slowly built up their sizable game collection to prepare for the 2010 opening.[3]

As the cafe gained popularity it quickly outgrew its seating capacity. In 2011, the adjacent property was purchased and the wall between the two properties was demolished, adding roughly 2,000 square feet to the existing café and increasing capacity from 45 to 150 seats.[7] With 7,500 square feet of space, Snakes and Lattes was, according to its managers, the biggest board game café in the world in January 2016.[8]

In January 2014, a second location was opened, a board game bar called Snakes & Lagers.[9] Also in 2014, Snakes and Lattes became a sponsor of the Toronto International Film Festival, offering a board game concierge for interested visitors.[10]

In July 2015, The Globe and Mail reported that a sitcom, Snakes and Lattes: The Show, would air starting in September as a fictionalized account of the cafe's early years.[11]

In September 2015, Snakes & Lagers closed, but immediately reopened in a larger space across the street under the name Snakes & Lattes College in the space that was formerly occupied by the Andy Poolhall bar.[12] The new location features space for 240 guests, a collection of more than 1,000 games, and a combination of the Lattes and Lagers concepts, offering beer, wine, and assorted coffee based beverages.[12]

Games

Snakes and Lattes Annex location began in 2010 with approximately 1,200 games, and its collection, under the guidance of a game curator, had grown to about 3,000 games by 2015,[2] all of which are available to the public to be played for as long as desired for a small cover charge.[13] The cafés sell a wide variety of games, at both locations and through an online store.[1][14] Trained 'game gurus', some with teaching backgrounds, are on hand to help newcomers learn games they are unfamiliar with.[15]

Snakes and Lattes features a monthly Game Designers Night, where game designers offer prototypes to be tested by the public,[16] as well as regularly hosting tutorials and tournaments.[8] It also records a weekly board game podcast, called the Snakecast.

Global influence

Snakes and Lattes has been cited as the inspiration for the opening of many other board game cafes around the world,[11] such as Victory Point Café in Berkeley,[17][18] Draughts in London,[19] Thirsty Meeples in Oxford,[19] the Tabletop Board Game Café in Cleveland,[20] Loot & XP in Oklahoma,[21] The Castle, near Boston,[22] Boxcar Board Game Café in Calgary,[23] Chance & Counters in Bristol,[24] Small Print on Prince Edward's Island,[25] and the upcoming Bonus Round Games in Chicago.[26]

Snakes and Lattes also pioneered the proliferation of board game cafés in Toronto, which has more than 20 such businesses operating across the city.[14]

References

  1. 1 2 "Snakes and Lattes". Snakes and Lattes. Retrieved 2015-11-01.
  2. 1 2 "Snakes and Lattes blog". Snakes and Lattes. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
  3. 1 2 3 Daubs, Katie (2010-08-31). "Board games and coffee, hold the Internet". The Toronto Star. Retrieved 2015-10-13.
  4. 1 2 Kupferman, Steve (2010-08-30). "New Board Game Café Welcomes You, But Not Your Laptop". Torontoist. Ink Truck Media. Retrieved 2015-10-13.
  5. ↑ Liu, Karon (2010-09-01). "Introducing: Snakes and Lattes, the Annex's clever new board games café". Toronto Life. Retrieved 2015-10-13.
  6. ↑ Kates, David (2012-04-17). "Unique idea, strategy fuel game café's success". O.canada.com. Retrieved 2015-10-13.
  7. ↑ "Snakes and Lattes is about to get a whole lot bigger". Post City Toronto. Post City Magazines. 2011-06-21.
  8. 1 2 Reynolds, Christopher (2010-08-31). "Burgeoning board-game café culture makes Toronto king of analogue play". The Toronto Star. Retrieved 2016-01-14.
  9. ↑ Manzocco, Natalie (2014-01-04). "Snakes & Lattes opening board game bar on College". blogTO. Retrieved 2015-10-13.
  10. ↑ Hodgins, Andrea (2014-08-14). "James Franco, Reese Witherspoon among stars to attend TIFF 2014". Tribute (magazine). Retrieved 2015-12-01.
  11. 1 2 Fraiman, Michael (2015-07-05). "Toronto board game café Snakes and Lattes gets its own sitcom". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2015-10-13.
  12. 1 2 Ipsum, Liora (2014-09-24). "Snakes & Lattes (College St.)". blogTO. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  13. ↑ Liu, Karon (2010-09-01). "Introducing: Snakes and Lattes, the Annex's clever new board games café". Toronto Life. Retrieved 2015-10-13.
  14. 1 2 Freehill-Maye, Lynn (2016-01-26). "In Toronto Cafes Board Games Rule". The New York Times. Retrieved 2016-01-26.
  15. ↑ Sadowski, Jonathon (2016-09-20). "Introducing: Game cafe to roll dice on permanent location". Columbia Chronicle. Retrieved 2016-09-23.
  16. ↑ "Snakes and Lattes events". Snakes and Lattes. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
  17. ↑ Yoon-Hendricks, Alexandra (2015-09-21). "Victory for Berkeley gamers: board game cafe to open Wednesday". The Daily Californian. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
  18. ↑ Palmer, Tamara (2015-05-21). "Board Game Cafe Headed to Berkeley". KNTV. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
  19. 1 2 Coldwell, Will (2014-07-16). "London's first board game cafe to open in Hackney". The Guardian. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
  20. ↑ O'Brien, Erin (2015-06-29). "Old-school face time stars at West 25th Street gaming cafe". Freshwater Cleveland. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
  21. ↑ Burke, Mack (2015-08-16). "Game on: The birth of Norman's first ever board game cafe: Loot & XP". Norman Transcript. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
  22. ↑ Hartley, Ethan (2015-12-23). "Tabletop game café opens in Beverly". Beverly Citizen. Retrieved 2016-01-11.
  23. ↑ Clapson, Dan (2016-04-22). "Rolling the dice with board game cafés". Retrieved 2016-04-23.
  24. ↑ Watson, Alex (2016-01-25). "Bristol's First Board Game Café Set to Open in March". Johnston Publishing Ltd. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  25. ↑ Carroll, Lindsay (2016-03-01). "P.E.I.'s first board game café set to open". Retrieved 2016-03-06.
  26. ↑ Cheung, Ariel (2016-08-26). "Could Chicago Finally Get Its Board Game Cafe? Bonus Round Owners Hope So". Retrieved 2016-08-28.

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