Boxcar Cafe

One of the first board game cafes to open up in Calgary, Boxcar Cafe is a combination café and board gaming space that offers Calgarians a place to enjoy cozy café food and drinks while playing board games. Inspired by the popular Snakes & Lattes café in Toronto, Wylon Wong opened up Boxcar Cafe to bring Calgarians their own little inner city nook for discovering new board games, revisiting childhood favourites and – most importantly – playing more.

“This business was started because the owner saw a need for a board game café in the city,” Boxcar Cafe manager Matt French says. “Board games are more in the limelight and more in the mainstream. They’re becoming popular so people are like, ‘Oh! Let’s go play some board games! That’s a really cool thing!'” Boxcar operates as a traditional café with a full kitchen and locally brewed Phil & Sebastian coffee and locally blended Tearrific loose leaf teas. But the real crown jewel of the cafe is its collection of more than 350 board games which are available for play, rent and purchase.

Boxcar charges $3 per hour per person for game time in the café or a flat $5 cover charge for play from Monday through Thursday. The café’s board game masters are always on hand to help teach the games, make recommendations and – if you’re lucky – reveal some strategies. The games are organized into categories including classics (the more nostalgic Monopoly and Scrabble type of games), strategy games (slightly more complex strategy games like Catan and Ticket to Ride), family games, party games (including the extremely popular Cards Against Humanity) and two-player games.