“We gave the N/A (non-alcoholic) idea a good shot. We’d great notions in January and February, and sure enough we believed in it, we were super busy etc.”
Board in Dublin 8
A sober board games café in Dublin is now offering alcoholic drinks to “appeal to a wider amount of people.”
Board in Harold’s Cross, Dublin 8, opened its doors earlier this year just in time for Dry January.
The newcomer offers a wide selection of board games that customers can use free of charge, such as Monopoly, Risk, Cluedo, and chess.
But what set it apart from most venues in the capital was its large offering of non-alcoholic beverages including non-alcoholic beers, wines, and mocktails.
This week, the owners announced that Board, which is run by the same team as Wigwam and The Bernard Shaw, would be adding “low alcohol” drinks to its menu from Thursday, November 21.
They will now be serving drinks with a lower alcohol by volume from beers under 8pc alcohol to wines under 3pc alcohol.
Explaining the reason behind their decision, the Board team told its customers that they were “going half-board”.
They wrote on their website: “We gave the N/A (non-alcoholic) idea a good shot. We’d great notions in January and February, and sure enough we believed in it, we were super busy etc etc.
“But over time as the year elapsed, we just couldn’t get the model to work. Either we charge people to use board games (something we might have to consider in the future to be honest) or we try expanding what we offer to appeal to a wider amount of people. For the moment, we’ve decided to go with the latter.
“Cheers to change,” they added.
The Board team reassured their customers that their new boozy venture doesn’t mean they’ll be scrapping their non-alcoholic drinks menu, which they claim is the “most comprehensive” in Dublin.
“We’re keeping 50-100+ N/A and mood-altering drinks, and we’ll continue to explore and expand on that in 2025.
“50pc of our menu will be such, hence the hilarious new name for the place.
“We will continue to have notions and ideas that may or may not work. To paraphrase a great man – Sail we may, fail we must…”
