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by kkukshtel 752 days ago
Like other commenter said would love to know about how to do this. I've had a similar idea for opening up a boardgame store but it's hard to find any public numbers about expected operating costs/expenses to know how to plan or budget for things and how much of a loan I'd need to take to make it happen.
4 comments

a board game store might be challenging if you are doing it as bricks & mortar retail and competing against online sellers. i think it can work but you would want to be somewhere with a lot of retail foot traffic. you are going to need to set your prices higher than online sellers to pay for rent. i don't have any numbers/insight.

as someone who enjoys playing boardgames, what i would caution against is trying to run some kind of boardgame cafe. the problem with that is you end up with customers like me playing a long game occupying a table for 3-4 hours. maybe everyone buys a drink and half the players buy a meal. the revenue per table per hour will be low compared to a normal cafe or restaurant where you could cycle multiple groups through the table in the same time, and where the expected revenue per customer would be higher.

the places where board game events thrive are where the fixed costs (rent, wages to staff a bar/kitchen, etc) are subsidised by something that isn't board games. i.e. where the venue is open anyway and has spare capacity to fill a few tables with board game players who stay for hours and do not spend money quickly. in australia this is often at a pub/club which has an old spacious venue with lots of tables, where the business is kept afloat by income from a room full of people losing money playing the pokies (slot machines).

Funny enough I am also planning to convert this cafe into a bookstore/board game shop. The best way to find these numbers is to work in a similar shop or be friends with the owner. Naturally, during business brokerage, you will also get these numbers after signing an NDA.
Best way is to go work at a cafe and ask a lot of questions about how things work
if it was me, I’d sit in a café for 12 hours and track how much they earn to get an idea