Board game sales began booming at the start of the pandemic, as families and households looked for ways to spend time together. The market is still growing. Manhattan’s five board game cafés are often filled in the evenings, with customers coming together as friends, families or even strangers. 

“Are you looking to play?” I was asked by 13-year-old Noah one recent evening at Hex and Co. West. Noah plays Commander, a multiplayer game of Magic the Gathering, from 6:30 to 10pm every week at the Tuesday Magic Commander Night. He began coming on his own via subway about six months ago. Before that, his parents used to bring him. 

Noah continued to make his rounds through the two-room café. It was 9pm and each table in the front room was occupied. 

When Greg May opened the first Manhattan board game café, The Uncommons, nearly a decade ago, it was because the board game meet-up group he had joined when he moved to the city would meet at “dark and loud” bars. So he pitched the idea, “coffee, beer, games, community” to friends, before looking for the right space. 

Hex and Co. West is the largest of his three Manhattan board game cafés. Rows upon rows of board games new and used line the walls of the well-lit café, including “luxury” editions of Clue and Monopoly, each marked with a price tag of $299.99. 

“Folks, we have two caramel lattes and two chocolate milkshakes,” calls a deep and cheerful voice. “If you ordered any of these and are wondering where they are, they’re up here.” 

John Percovich, who’s been working at Hex West for just over a year, wears his long dark hair tied back, his beard full and a red shirt that says Dungeons & Dragons & Diners & Drive-Ins. Regulars that take the lettered sign “Stay & Play” to heart interact with John and Stephen familiarly, while other customers file in and out, ordering drinks to go. 

“When’d you get that?” Winter Guerra asked his girlfriend Kyu Goodman while playing Commander. She was sipping a wild berry smoothie that she’d gotten at the bar. It had taken Winter fifteen minutes to notice it.  The two of them had come to Hex & Co. with a colleague of Kyu’s and were joined by a fourth player they met at the café that night. 

Noah too had found his players: a 22-year-old engineering student, Achilles Batista, and two friends, 25-year-old Cole Anderson and 33-year-old Corey Sarsfield, whose weekly tradition it is to meet for dinner and then play Magic. Noah shook their hands and they all sat down.  

While most tables were occupied by Magic players on that Tuesday night, as they would be by Dungeons and Dragons Encounter Players on Wednesdays, two friends were playing an unfamiliar game of Succulents.  

Sitting down, Noah, sporting a blue puffy jacket, thin ponytail and mask drawn under his chin, complimented one of the decks, “I haven’t seen that one, looks pretty good.” He has been playing for three or four years. But Sarsfield had been playing for 23 years, having first discovered Magic at a Quaker summer camp in rural Maine. Not because he was religious, but because it was the most convenient summer camp to attend in rural Maine. “It was me and my best friend for a long time,” he recalled. Then they went on a road trip together, stopped by a board game café and “got hooked.” Now as an adult, “Every time I’ve moved, I go to the board game café, make friends,” he said. 

Sarsfield had met Anderson at Hex a year prior to the pandemic, playing Magic Draft. For a time, they largely played online, with video, where you could see the other players’ moves. Batista, the engineering student, added that for him, the game is largely about interacting with the other players, the company. He didn’t think he would feel the same playing via video call. 

“You got crabbed,” Anderson pointed out to Batista, after Noah played a crab card that attacked. 

Sarsfield and Anderson have played countless of times together by now – not just at the café. Though it depends on the week, they sometimes (not necessarily together) play Magic up to five to six days of the week. “It’s about the people,” Anderson explained. For Sarsfield, many people in his life are tied to the game and play it together. He met his wife at the Magic Club he had started at his college. 

“I even play Magic at work,” Sarsfield, a software engineer, says of the Magic League he’s a part of. Anderson points out the colorful “G” on Sarsfield’s black beanie, which he wears over dark hair. “Helps me buy cards,” Sarsfield jokingly says of the logo, looking up from his cards briefly. 

As 10pm approached, Noah, with chicken nuggets on his lap, glanced at his phone and declared that he had to go in five minutes. “I feel bad killing someone and then leaving the game, I’m sorry,” he said, playing his last cards and mostly finishing off his chocolate milkshake. 

“GGs,” he said, grabbing his backpack.

“GGs,” the group replied. 

I asked what GGs meant. Achilles Batista laughed and nodded, “It means ‘good game.’”