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Board Game Cafe - amenity=* tag needed?

Posted by mbeyerle on 10 October 2023 in English.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_game_caf%C3%A9

How would you tag a board game cafe? The main attraction is the ability to ‘rent’ a table and play a variety of board games offered by the establishment. Oftentimes these places will sell cafe-type drinks and sometimes alcoholic drinks and food.

In my opinion, “amenity=cafe” and “amenity=pub” are not sufficiently descriptive because the implication is that the primary use is a cafe or pub, respectively. Adding a tag like sport=board_games or board_game=yes, while helpful, only indicate the availability of board games for play at a venue, but do not address the underlying issue that the primary use of the establishment is to play games not consume coffee or libations.

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Discussion

Comment from SomeoneElse on 10 October 2023 at 22:25

Looking at taginfo, there are a few options:

https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/search?q=board_game#values

“cafe=board_game” seems to be the most popular. I was surprised not to see more “theme=board game” (there are lots of e.g. “theme=cat”).

Comment from SK53 on 12 October 2023 at 16:43

@SomeoneElse I suspect theme came along a bit later. Certainly, we needed something when we mapped the two in Nottingham (and I noted some popularity in Estonia at roughly the same time, and cafe=board_game was what we used.

PS Really ought to check they’re still in business. The cat cafe on Friar Lane seems to be thriving.

PPS. JayTurner has been checking!

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