BROOKFIELD — Spend just a few minutes at Beyond the Board and you'll quickly realize their passion for board games.
The business describes itself as primarily a board game cafe — a place where people can connect with others over a shared love of games.
"We're a place that you can come out and like connect with other people. You play board games, any of the 900+ we've got out here," Alex Sharp said.
The most popular games depend on the crowd, but some titles consistently draw players.
"It depends on like the group of people. Monopoly and Clue get some of the most plays as well as you've got like your Catan Ticket to Ride, which are more your entry," Sharp said.
The board game community is growing, and Beyond the Board has built programming around bringing people together.
"Tons of people in this community. It's definitely growing, but we have, for example, our open game night, we have a night that's designed for people to come out and find more people to play with," Sharp said.
That open game night draws a consistent crowd each week.
"And for that we have like 30 people that come out every week just to play games with other people in the community," Sharp said.
I noticed something special about watching people connect beyond their screens and social media — and Sharp says that face-to-face connection is central to what Beyond the Board is all about.
"Kind of designed around you having good moments with friends and building deeper connections, um, spending that time face to face and having those interactions and cool moments over the the board game as well as like catching up on life that that we build an environment that's great for that," Sharp said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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