Tuesday, February 18, 2025

New café will let you grab a beer, a bite and a board game

Since 2009, Cape Fear Games has been a good place to score "table top games of all sorts." This year, the store hopes to take things up a notch, with wine, beer, coffee and food. (Port City Daily photo / BENJAMIN SCHACHTMAN)
Since 2009, Cape Fear Games has been a good place to score “table top games of all sorts.” This year, the store hopes to take things up a notch, with wine, beer, coffee and food. (Port City Daily photo / BENJAMIN SCHACHTMAN)

WILMINGTON — Cape Fear Games has been a gathering spot for board game enthusiasts. Starting later this year, it could be a fun place to grab a beer and a bite to eat, too.

Owner Heath Newton said he plans to launch a café in the location next to Cape Fear Games, serving light food, beer, wine and coffee. The planned board game café would be well stocked with board games for patrons to play.

Newton, who founded Cape Fear Games in 2009, moved to a larger space on Oleander Drive back in 2014. The empty space next store got him thinking.

“The key would be the doorway between the two spaces,” Newton said. “You have customers in Cape Fear Games and they could wander next store for a drink or a bite to eat. You’d also have customers at the café, who maybe got interested in the game they were planning and they want to get their own.”

Newton said he’d seen versions of the concept in other big cities, including the Mox Boarding House in Seattle (the pun will come to you in a second).

Scrabble is fun. Scrabble with beer, wine and snacks is also fun. (Port City Daily photo / BENJAMIN SCHACHTMAN)
Scrabble is fun. Scrabble with beer, wine and snacks is also fun. (Port City Daily photo / BENJAMIN SCHACHTMAN)

“It was a similar idea, and I thought it was just absolutely fantastic, with the restaurant and the actual game store. I thought the two worked so well together, it became my model,” Newton said.

Newton said this was his first food industry venture, but that working with a consultant had made the process easier. Newton hopes to start construction in April, with an eye on an early summer opening date.

Newton added that, in order for the project to go forward, he would need to find a suitable general manager for to run the cafe — anyone potentially interested in the position should check out the application here.

You can find more information, including online and in-store offerings, at Cape Fear Games’ website. You can also check out Cape Fear Games’ Facebook page, where Newton expects to have updates on the cafe plans as spring rolls around.


Send comments and tips to Benjamin Schachtman at ben@localvoicemedia.com, @pcdben on Twitter, and (910) 538-2001.

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