Last weekend, I visited the Dice Cup in Nottingham for day of Lacerda games, and unfortunately, I’d love to recommend the Dice Cup, but I can’t.
Now, don’t get me wrong. The day of games itself was great, but the venue was probably the worst part of the day.
Maybe you could say, “Ah, Aaron, but they were busy.” Aren’t all Saturdays or Sundays normally busy?.
Or “Ah, Aaron, maybe you just had a bad experience. ” Maybe I did.
Or “you were playing board games, there’s no issue with a wait.” Okay, so I guess all cafes should offer board games to make excessively long wait times acceptable?
After two super long waits for two separate orders served by two different staff members and questionable customer service over an 8 hour period, it’s hard to recommend.
Let’s talk about lunch. When they forgot my food order, eventually, on the 3rd or 4th time of asking, asked, “Why, what happened to it?” It seems like a weird question to ask if I’m asking where my order is.
And that’s even though we (as our game group) asked every time they brought food to our table about where my food was and after asking again as the last dish arrived they said oh it’ll be 3 minutes. It never arrived, so then I had to ask again. To which I got “why what happened to it?”. And not an apology in sight, just a “what was your order”. My food then finally arrived, and you could tell it was rushed, the chips were somewhat overdone, and the toastie was molten (I guess a toastie in all fairness, needs to be molten!). It was a two hour wait for a panini!
I had ordered second in our group, and food slowly trickled out, but everyone had finished eating before mine even made an appearance.
But anyway, I continued to spend money in the venue as we were there all day, I then got up to order and both staff then went to go speak to the plumber. Leaving me stood waiting for some time just to order. Again, there is no apology when they returned.
And, then, having been in the venue all day, ordering drinks throughout, where they had bought drinks to the table all day. Apparently, that was incorrect of staff, and we had to stand and wait for drinks. Sadly, nobody told our entire group. I had ordered hot chocolate and water, after an hour it hadn’t arrived. When I asked, I was told that you had to stand and wait for the drinks, but they had forgotten to tell me, and it was normal practice to stand and wait for hot drinks. Oh, and they ran out of bottle water.
But weirdly, strangely, another order for our table was placed for hot drinks shortly after, and it was brought to our table, without mention of needing to wait or bringing it to the table. When the drinks were brought and I said “I’m sorry, but I’m really confused is it wait for drinks or do you bring them as you just told me, when I queried the delay, you just told me that it’s a stand and wait“. Staff said it was all about prior agreement, but the expectation was that you stood and waited for drinks. When we pointed out that nobody had said anything about either, there was an eventual sorry and an offer of a hot drink. But overall, it’s disappointing. In total, that was over a 3 hour wait for a panini, a hot chocolate, and a bottle of water. What’s more interesting is that others suggested “it seems like it was only when you ordered Aaron there was issue, it was like it was almost intentional” (not my words). To add to insult, the Dice Cup replied to my Google review to add that “others at our table asked if drinks could be brought to the table”, which sadly doesn’t quite fit with the recollection our group had or the reasoning they provided on the day.
Yes, the store was busy, but the venue wasn’t full, and it’s a Saturday, which you’d expect to be busy! And it doesn’t really cover the overall negative experience.
If that was my first exposure to a board game cafe and/or our hobby. I’d probably never come back. And that’s the key thing, if that was your first time in a board game environment, you wouldn’t come back. But that was ultimately my experience.
You could say, but Aaron you haven’t commented on the venues interior, selection of board games to play and so on. But okay, here goes. There’s a good, if not potentially great selection of board games you can stay and play for £8 per person per day, however, the majority of the games looked sun damaged. Yes there’s a good selection though. The selection you could buy was pretty diverse and larger than the selection my local gaming store carries, however it wasn’t as wide or diverse a collection as Patriot games or fan boy 3.
What about lighting and table space? There are 40-50 tables, which were decent sized, and the venue is well lit, apart from when the sun starts to streak through, which turns the venue into either a neck burner or you’ll need sun glasses. We’ll not talk about the leaking roof. I and others did need to sit with coats on in September, the venue was cold until the sun started streaking through the windows at which point it was like a greenhouse.
But what about the toilets? Yes, the toilets were clean. And were all unisex, however, there are only 3 toilets for 50 tables.
Now you could say Aaron you’re being harsh throughout, so I’ll summarise. Dice Cup is a vegan board game cafe with a relatively good selection of stay and play games, good amount of tables and space, but the venue does feel a bit tired.
One person suggested I should have told them who I am, but I’m not sure of the relevance. Yes I create content online and yes I have roughly 25,000 followers but I shouldn’t need to introduce myself to get a good experience. Everyone should get a good experience and I’m not really a board game celebrity by any means. I just post about board games!
Now, what I think is more interesting is the online discourse in regards to negative experiences at board game retailers, I’ve already begun to talk online about this particular experience. And already, individuals are leaping to the defence or excusing the service or saying it wasn’t that bad. But my experience was my experience, and in what world is a 2 hour wait for a panini acceptable (which included asking for the panini multiple times), in a normal cafe or restaurant that would be considered unacceptable. Or the really interchangeable or seemingly made up waiting or bringing you drinks rule.
However, I’ve previously posted my negative experiences with board game retailers. On each occasion, there has been a leap to a) defend the venue, b) invalidate my experience, and c) make me out to be the bad person.
On one previous occasion, I purchased a game from an online store. It arrived damaged and shipped in a black bag after I emailed, messaged, and received no reply. I posted about my experiences online, the board game community leapt to their defence, and apparently, according to the stores response to my review. I was comparable to someone who buys a booster pack of trading cards and complains about the cards in it.
As you know, I rate games on a scale of
Buy or play
Wait for sale or play if you like game XYZ
Avoid
For a board game cafe, my rating is:
Must visit
Visit if you’re nearby
Avoid unless it’s your only option
Avoid
The Dice Cup gets a firm “Avoid unless it’s your only option.” From the questionable wait times, disappointing customer service it’s somewhere I’m not sure I’ll ever visit again, unless I really have to because it’s the only option.