I love board games. I love sitting and playing with friends for hours with snacks. Which means board game cafes are one of my favorite things. There’s actually several in my city and when a friend came to visit I made sure we went to one since she also loves board games.
We went to the Red Button Board Game cafe which is vastly different from the last one I went to and different then the ones my friend has been to. It was much more private which I thought was nice. Essentially we came in, talked to the staff, they gave us a chip with a number for our room, then showed us our room. Then we ordered something off the menu, I got some tea, and then picked out our game. So room first then buy a drink or snack then get a game then go pick up the snack when your buzzer rings.
They have a decent menu which reminded me a bit of a movie theater. And they had a lot of ways to suggest games from very easy to hard to pro gamer and then would break it into which groups usually preferred what type of game and then what kind of game it was.
But all of their games are in Korean. So it’s best if you know how to play before hand the game you want to play or if your Korean is good enough. I thought since my friend’s Korean is really good that we should go for one of my favorite games Arkham Horror. But then we quickly learned that with all of its moving parts that even if she could read a lot of it, it was too much for her to read so we quickly had to scrap that game and she went and got a game she knew well enough to teach me, Catan.
There really were just a lot of little details I liked. Like the self-service supplies bar for clipboards, pens, papers, and hammers for games underneath the board. Or that you could pick which style of booth you wanted. You could sit on the floor which we picked. We were given slippers to wear around the shop.
Or you could sit at a table.
Every table had a button to call staff over, a menu so you could pick out new drinks and an ipad with the instructions on it. It was really cool. Then when you’re ready to leave you return the game and hand over your seat chip to pay for however long you stayed.
Red Button is a chain of board game cafes in South Korea. Though most seem to be in the suburb cities outside of Seoul. The one I went to in Sanbon is open from 1pm until 1am from Monday through Thursday and from 1pm until 2am on Fridays. On Saturdays they open at noon and close at 2 am and on Sundays they open at noon and close at 1am.