Hungry For GamePlay During COVID-19?

An Interview with Nicholas Chen,
CEO and Founder of Tavern of Tales

Since its initial opening, Tavern of Tales has attracted both regulars and curious first-timers eager to step into immersive gaming. New releases have helped keep patrons coming back hungry for more gameplay, and the expert staff has helped keep the experience smooth and novel.

Tell us a bit about your background and how the idea for Tavern of Tales came about.

Tavern of Tales was born out of a passion for sound design and a hunger to put on a spin on traditional board game cafés. As the CEO and Founder, I came up with the idea while tinkering with backstage theater design – a hobby discovered as a high school student in Singapore that grew into the focus of my major at Boston University’s School of Theater.

As a senior, I decided to put a twist on traditional board game cafés and put my efforts towards a business model that would facilitate a more immersive gaming experience, pulling elements from other successful concepts like escape rooms. I graduated in 2017 as one of only two students in the sound design department, and, with the crucial help of my advisors and professors, I began my journey towards launching Tavern of Tales.

Tell our readers about Tavern of Tales’ typical operations.

Tavern of Tales opened in Mission Hill in December of 2019 as an interactive board game bar that offers sound-enhanced, immersive gaming experiences and welcomes both beginners and experts alike. The Tavern carefully curates the games it offers to guarantee they can be paired with excellent sound experiences, and gameplay is supported by GameMasters on staff who cover set up and tear down, intimately know the rules of the games and help establish storylines so players can focus on actual gameplay.

We worked with McMahon Architects to remodel the space to provide an ideal environment for interactive gaming, complete with a café, private sound-proofed rooms for gaming and intricately-placed audio features to enhance gameplay. The location was chosen strategically next to the Roxbury Crossing T stop to be easily accessible for its visitors, and the name was chosen based on the concept of the ‘tavern’ in gaming where players can rest, meet other players, return at different stages of their journey and gather instructions before setting out again on their quests.

The result of the construction and planning is a fully immersive, sound-enhanced gameplay experience, where players can step into the roles of their characters, then swap tales of victory and defeat in the café over drinks and shared plates. Players can record their progress in Quest Logs to unlock discounts through different gameplay achievements and the Tavern rotates games to continuously provide new experiences to its patrons.

What is the focus of your unique business model?

Traditional board game bars provide a single, shared space for visitors to play games. This loud intersection of groups seated close to each other actively participating in different games can create a distracting and chaotic environment, making it tough to step into character. Most bars may have one or two passionate staff members who have experience with a particular set of rules, but the high volume of options these bars tend to offer and the limited staff on hand makes it difficult to rely on persistence guidance for smooth gameplay if players are newer to a game or less experienced at gaming overall.

We focus on a carefully curated set of games and taps into our staff’s experience to create unique, one-of-a-kind soundtracks in private, sound-proofed rooms to help players fully immerse themselves in a new style of gameplay. The Game Masters on staff are experts at the rules and remain in the rooms to navigate players to new storylines. They are dedicated to making sure each player can focus their time on gameplay, rather than worrying about set up or cleaning up after the game ends. The Tavern pairs this all with a menu of shared plates, hearty meals and drinks, some sourced from local breweries.

How has the Tavern pivoted from the current business model and how will you adjust once you are able to open the indoor portion?

In response to the latest guidelines and health considerations for COVID-19, we have closed the interior and private gaming rooms, and instead pivoted to opening a brand-new outdoor patio with seating for up to 30 people. We have commissioned muralist Chavez Design Studio to create a unique mural to help establish a desirable aesthetic for our new and repeat visitors, and we have expanded the menu to provide heartier meals like gourmet sandwiches and summer seasonal cocktails, in addition, they are traditionally offered shared plates and appetizers.

To help keep gameplay safe, all staff will wear masks and gloves, and menus will be accessible without needing to be touched. Visitors will be required to wear masks whenever they are not seated at their tables, and the adjusted tabletop games utilize items from our library that can be sanitized after each use. 

As guidelines change, we are looking forward to gradually and safely reopening the indoor café, then, eventually, opening its private game rooms to return players to interactive and sound-enhanced gameplay experiences.

Can you share any best practices working with Boston distributors?

When businesses originally closed for the quarantine all the distributors we worked with from local brewery, Bentwater Brewing, to national distributor Sysco have been very understanding and helpful in this time. It was very easy for us to put on hold our deliveries while we all focused on trying to contain the pandemic. When it looked feasible to begin reopening again, we were able to reach out and seamlessly begin the process of getting deliveries going so that we could reopen without issue. We spent a lot of time during quarantine experimenting with new dishes for potential entrees to serve and were delighted to find that our distributor was easily able to provide the source quality ingredients and add it to our delivery. As the menu grows and expands, we will continue to look for partnerships that can help support local businesses and provide its patrons with an enhanced experience.

Can you summarize your initial and ongoing concerns of the pandemic’s impact on your business?

When the city was shut down for the COVID-19 pandemic my main concern was being able to support my staff. The GameMasters here at Tavern of Tales are the key factor in how our game experience works. After a few brainstorming sessions, I came up with a way to keep offering the community a way to enjoy board gaming while being stuck at home. Tavern of Tales’ GameMasters began preparing Dungeons and Dragons sessions online for people to enjoy from the safety of their own homes. Dungeons and Dragons has been the classic RPG for generations. There are a lot of online resources for people to play together online. I had my staff begin constructing a world and a unique story for people to enjoy. Since we were moving to online this also allowed us to build our community and reach out to people outside of the Boston area to participate.

In the last 3 months, we’ve had 42 sessions for 52 participants. Many of whom have participated in many of the sessions since the beginning. A majority of them are around Boston but many come from farther away. Now that we’re focused on reopening, we’re looking to transition what we’ve offered online back to our game rooms. Many of the people we’ve met online have expressed interest in coming to the Tavern and finally getting to meet everyone in person.

Even though the pandemic really affected us and closed us down we were able to take a step back and focus on building our community while maintaining social distancing. There’s been a recent resurgence of COVID-19 cases throughout the US and we at Tavern of Tales don’t want to be a part of the issue, which is why we’ve been taking our phased reopening much slower than most businesses. We’re also changing the way our games will be played to provide safe environments for people. We’re all looking forward to seeing people in our game rooms, sharing drinks and going on amazing adventures together soon.

To get the updates about takeout and gameplay at Tavern of Tales, visit their website.