A café which hosts Marlborough’s board game passions is now in need of community support after winter months saw its usual turnover drop by two thirds.
Tabletop Café on Scott Street in central Blenheim hosts game events each evening stretching from Marlborough’s Chess Club and their collection of board games to Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons, but are in rent arrears as they endeavour to keep the doors open to provide a valuable community space.
Operator Lillian James says that they’re hoping they can buck the trend of similar table-top gaming shops and café’s recently closing shop across the country thanks to the valued space they give people to play and share passions in a homely space found nowhere else in regional New Zealand.
“The cafe is what keeps the community going. We know the names of all of our regulars, we’ve supported them through ups and down, seen relationships flourish, families grow, kids come out of their shell and parents who are comfortable letting their kids come and get a coffee and some Pokémon cards and know that they’re safe here.
“We’re niche, but there’s nothing like us in regional New Zealand and board game cafes across New Zealand have been closing, specifically in Wellington - Counter Culture closed this year and Caffeinated Dragon just last month.
“We want to encourage people to come and enjoy our space and not have them feel like they must spend loads of money to be here because we understand people have less recreational spending. They’re tightening the bootstraps - regulars are losing days at work and being made redundant.”
After two relatively successful years at Tabletop, Lillian understands that they’re not the only ones struggling, as their regulars tell them, but the sudden dive over winter 2025 has left them scrambling.
“Winter ‘23 and ‘24 were honestly amazing, better than our summers, so we were in for round three of that adding more events, but foot traffic is decimated, and all spending is so slim.
“It’s a massive drop as each year you build up stock – things like Final Fantasy or Magic release games made us keen to go bigger and better but with the costs of our rates and insurance increasing, and then everything else like tariffs to deal with from our retail aspect, or the cost of milk and cheese being astronomical.
“In the last month, we have seen an increase but that enough to counteract months of operating at a third of what incomings we had.
“Honestly, we’ve done well to keep going, we’ve started opening later as our staff were finding themselves twiddling their thumbs and rejigging our menu’s, but the Givealittle is a last resort attempt.”
