Do you know your Settlers of Catan from your Magic The Gathering? Your Risk from your Stratego? Do you feel an unending nostalgia for Subbuteo? If so, Draughts, Dalston’s hub for all things board games, might just be for you.
The bar is a new arrival to Dalston’s bustling Kingsland High Street, and in many ways from the outside it looks exactly like the trendy coffee shops and bars around it. But below the surface there’s a lot more. A favourite of Sex Education’s Asa Butterfield, the “board game cafe” (as it calls itself) boasts a library of over 1000 games, from niche monopoly editions to various Cards Against Humanity clones, that subtly occupy the far walls of the site.
Sleek marble
The inside of the building too doesn’t strike you as a gamer’s paradise. All sleek marble countertops and pastel colours, it kind of strikes you as an art deco office lobby or a 50s hotel bar. Even this though is a nod to its history, as the building’s new design is based on the Grade II listed premises’ past as a beloved East End Pie and Mash shop.
When it fills up Draughts bursts to life. Throngs of people fill the booths and a low hum of laughter fills the air. Add to that a great selection of food (including some classic nods to its East End heritage), its wide selection of on tap beer and cider (give the Bad Apple a go) and pun-based cocktails (Sours of Catan anyone?) and you have yourself a winning combo.
What more could you want?
Andrew Kersley is a freelance journalist and student at City University. His previous work has been published in The Times and The i Paper.