The Board & Brew, a pub featuring board games, to make a move into University City
The cafe-bar, which was founded five years ago in College Park, Md., is taking a spot at Chestnut Square on Drexel's campus.
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The trend of board-game cafes continues as the Maryland-based The Board & Brew has signed a lease at Chestnut Square, a mixed-use complex on the Drexel University campus at 32nd and Chestnut Streets.
It will take the two levels of the former CoZara, a Japanese restaurant that closed in late spring.
Michael Chmar, who with business partners Ben Epstein and Brian McClimens, says it will open this fall and will have full food and bar menus. Otto Architects will design.
The College Park location, he says, has a happy, Cheers-like vibe and — since it opens at 7:30 a.m. weekdays and at 9 a.m. on weekends, staying open till late — gets some customers two or three times a day to choose from thousands of games.
Philly’s first game cafe-bar is acknowledged to be Thirsty Dice, which opened last year at 1641 Fairmount Ave. Also on the scene is the Basement Board Game Cafe in Roxborough, which also opened in 2018 but does not have a liquor license. Soon to open is Queen & Rook at 607 S. Second St., a cafe-bar at the former Hikaru just off South Street in Queen Village.