Established 2010 Dress code Casual | Current owner(s) Ben Castanie City Toronto | |
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Food type Coffees, teas, draft beers, sandwiches, snacks, desserts Street address 600 Bloor St. West;
489 College St. | ||
Snakes and Lattes is a board game cafe chain in Toronto, Canada, with two venues located at 600 Bloor Street West and 489 College Street. Guests pay a small cover charge to play board games for as long as they like, choosing from the cafe's collection of about 3,000 games. There was no wifi available at the original cafe when it first opened as the focus is on playing games and socialising with friends, however, public wi-fi was installed in both locations to accommodate the morning business and student crowd. The cafes serve light food and beverage items, including some draft beers.
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History
Snakes and Lattes was opened on August 30, 2010 by Ben Castanie and Aurelia Peynet, at what later became known as Snakes and Lattes' Annex location. The couple had moved to Toronto from France four years earlier, and came up with the idea for Snakes and Lattes, which they named after the Canadian children's game Snakes and Ladders, from a visit to a Chicago area game store in 2008. Over the next two years, they slowly built up their sizable game collection to prepare for the 2010 opening.
As the cafe gained popularity it quickly outgrew its seating capacity. In 2011, the adjacent property was purchased and the wall between the two properties was demolished, adding roughly 2,000 square feet to the existing café and increasing capacity from 45 to 150 seats. With 7,500 square feet of space, Snakes and Lattes was, according to its managers, the biggest board game café in the world in January 2016.
In January 2014, a second location was opened, a board game bar called Snakes & Lagers. Also in 2014, Snakes and Lattes became a sponsor of the Toronto International Film Festival, offering a board game concierge for interested visitors.
In July 2015, The Globe and Mail reported that a sitcom, Snakes and Lattes: The Show, would air starting in September as a fictionalized account of the cafe's early years.
In September 2015, Snakes & Lagers closed, but immediately reopened in a larger space across the street under the name Snakes & Lattes College in the space that was formerly occupied by the Andy Poolhall bar. The new location features space for 240 guests, a collection of more than 1,000 games, and a combination of the Lattes and Lagers concepts, offering beer, wine, and assorted coffee based beverages.
Games
Snakes and Lattes Annex location began in 2010 with approximately 1,200 games, and its collection, under the guidance of a game curator, had grown to about 3,000 games by 2015, all of which are available to the public to be played for as long as desired for a small cover charge. The cafés sell a wide variety of games, at both locations and through an online store. Trained 'game gurus', some with teaching backgrounds, are on hand to help newcomers learn games they are unfamiliar with.
Snakes and Lattes features a monthly Game Designers Night, where game designers offer prototypes to be tested by the public, as well as regularly hosting tutorials and tournaments. It also records a weekly board game podcast, called the Snakecast.
Global influence
Snakes and Lattes has been cited as the inspiration for the opening of many other board game cafes around the world, such as Victory Point Café in Berkeley, Draughts in London, Thirsty Meeples in Oxford, the Tabletop Board Game Café in Cleveland, Loot & XP in Oklahoma, The Castle, near Boston, Boxcar Board Game Café in Calgary, Chance & Counters in Bristol, Small Print on Prince Edward's Island, and the upcoming Bonus Round Games in Chicago.
Snakes and Lattes also pioneered the proliferation of board game cafés in Toronto, which has more than 20 such businesses operating across the city.