If you’re not prepared to lose every friend you have ever made over a game board, you’re not playing hard enough.
It’s 2016. You can unlock your phone with a thumb, order a Chinese to your house whilst in the bath and meet the love of your life through an app. Fantastic, isn’t it? But why is it we all recall and long for the “good old days”. Where times seemed simpler, where we seemed to speak more and candles and game boards would come out in a black out. Feel melancholic? Well fear not, Sugar and Dice is here.
If you’re one of those people who yearns for simpler times, you’ll be absolutely made up to hear about “Sugar and Dice” – the new cafe about to open in Baltic Triangle where you can play board games from all over the world with best friends, family and strangers. Just be careful who you let be banker in Monopoly. Not only that, they have some pretty mean looking cakes that might just give you the edge in deciding who the murderer was in Cluedo.
We caught up with them:
Nice to meet you! How’s it going?
We have secured our premises after a long waiting for planning permission from the council. We have workers in building us a lovely kitchen so we can make tasty treats for everyone. They should be finished in the next 10 days or so.
We have launched a Kickstarter campaign to help try and fund the tables and we’d like to purchase and install better lighting – so you can see all those important details on the games! It would also help to fund some of the kitchen equipment we need, and expand the library of games.
What were you doing before this and how do you know each other?
Jason and Vanessa spent the last few years living in Berlin, where they were introduced to the concept of board game cafés. Being new to the city, it was here that they found new friends and connections. Every board game café they visited was filled to the brim with smiling and laughing people of all ages interacting with each other. They soon realised that this concept would be a perfect fit for the friendly and welcoming people of Liverpool and they decided to bring this little slice of joy to England and make it a reality here when they returned to the country at the end of 2015.
Earlier this year, they met Rachel – a fellow board game obsessive. Rachel trained and worked as a Food Technology teacher and then perfected those skills to become a professional cake baker, so you know her baked goodies are incredible. Rachel’s dream has always been to open her own café with delicious home baked treats. After visiting a fellow board games café in Oxford, she got thinking about how this would go down well in Liverpool. We have been working with the Chamber of Commerce in Liverpool to perfect our business plans, found our venue and have been busy sourcing local suppliers and caterers. We hope to get an alcohol license soon so you can enjoy a lovely local craft beer whilst playing that game.
Why board games? and what board games can people expect?
New technology is awesome, however it’s changing the way we communicate. We love the fact that a board game brings people together, in the same place at the same time. You can play with people you don’t know, and quickly have a new best friend for life!
There is lots of research on board games and the benefits they provide. From beating stress and just having fun, it’s a great way to get some quality time with loved ones. Playing board games also helps with memory and cognitive skills and they are even known to help your immune system, as the happiness from playing games and interacting with people can reduce depression and negativity whilst giving your brain some excellent stimulation. Less time in front of a TV or smart phone will give your eyes a break and you will be exercising your brain by learning something new! Your strategies will have to be creative and cunning to win games and this in tandem will help you with problem-solving in your day-to-day lives. To sum it all up, board games are great and playing them will make everyone happier!
We have everything from the traditional games such as Monopoly and Scrabble, however, our passion is more diverse games. Like our ‘Booker prize’ for amazing books, in Germany, they have the ‘Spiel Des Jahrer’ – i.e. the game of the year. Every year, several games are nominated, with the winner selling hundreds of thousands of copies. These games are family friendly and the main thing we like is, in most cases, players are not eliminated. Everyone is included to the end and, many games involve you when it is not your turn, from trading cards to analysing other’s strategy.
Sounds intimidating? Not at all, our staff will help you to select and set up the perfect game for your group, and teach you the rules so you can start enjoying yourselves immediately! Some of our favourites include ‘Carcassonne’ which involves building the French medieval city, ‘Happy Salmon’ a silly but fast paced card game, ‘Splendor’ – a renaissance jewel collecting game and ‘Pandemic’ – a cooperative game where all players work together to cure the world of deadly viruses.
To say we’re excited is an understatement. Like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter and support their Kickstarter.