The Uncommons is a

board game café A board game café is a type of café in which patrons play board and card games while being served food and drink. Customers usually pay an entry fee or rent a table in order to access a large library of games and instruction from the staff on ho ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

established in 2013, located at 230 Thompson Street in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

. It has claimed to be the first board game café in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, and the largest board game library on the

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. Visitors pay a $10

cover charge Cover or covers may refer to: Packaging * Another name for a lid * Cover (philately), generic term for envelope or package * Album cover, the front of the packaging * Book cover or magazine cover ** Book design ** Back cover copy, part of copy ...

to access the cafe's lending library of games for 3 hours, and can be served coffee, tea, beer and wine. Despite this, the venues are promoted as a less alcoholic "bar alternative" for New York nightlife. The cafe caters to high school students, hipsters, elderly people, and tourists. It has previously provided space for Bronies NYC and school

chess club A chess club is a club formed for the purpose of playing the board game of chess. Chess clubs often provide for both informal and tournament games and sometimes offer league play. Traditionally clubs host over the board, face to face chess more t ...

s, and hosts regular events for

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

s as well as tournaments for ''

Magic: The Gathering ''Magic: The Gathering'' (colloquially known as ''Magic'' or ''MTG'') is a tabletop and digital collectable card game created by Richard Garfield. Released in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast (now a subsidiary of Hasbro), ''Magic'' was the first ...

''.

History

Opened in 2013 by founders Greg May, Jeff Cassin, and Henry Chang, and inspired by Canadian chain

Snakes and Lattes Snakes & Lattes is a board game café chain headquartered in Toronto, Canada, with three venues in the city and five US venues. The chain is often cited as the main inspiration for other board game cafés in the western world. It is sometimes inco ...

, The Uncommons occupied the space of the former Village Chess Shop. It was funded in part by a successful

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

campaign. Upon its opening, visitors could pay $5 per hour to stay and play games as long as they like. In August 2014, the café held more than 475 games. Uncommons Storefront 2021

By September 2022, the cafe's business model had changed to a cover charge of $10 for three hours of access to the venue's alleged library of over 1000 games. However, many of these games were on a "semi-permanent loan" to Hex & Co., another board game café in Manhattan co-owned by Greg May. The Uncommons has been featured on television shows, including NickMom and '' Take Me to Your Mother''.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uncommons, the 2013 establishments in New York City Board game cafés Greenwich Village Restaurants in Manhattan