Review- D20 Board Game Café - Watford

Tucked away at the end of Queen’s Road in Watford, the D20 Board Game Café is the first of its kind in Hertfordshire. Offering a huge selection of board games to play including childhood favourites (we played Operation, Buckeroo and Hungry Hippos) in-depth strategic board games, card games, memory games, action games plus anything in between.

The concept is that you pay per hour (£2 per adult and £1 per child aged between 3 and 11) and can use as many of their games as you like. They also sell new games, host gaming events (Marvel Champions, Pokemon, Arkham Horror and Star Wars Legion being regular game events) and of course, serve food and drink.

Although popular with serious gamers, this place is very kid friendly, the team there were helpful, assisting us with setting up games we weren’t familiar with and suggesting ones to try. They also offered us the largest table which was much appreciated as many places tend to keep these free in the hope of a larger group turning up.

I visited with both my kids (aged 6 and 1), they are accepting of babies, they didn’t charge for him and provided a high chair, however next time I go I’ll try and visit with just my eldest so we can give more focus on the games and not worry about small pieces finding their way into small mouths!

I did feel a bit sorry for the staff as our table looked absolute chaos when we left, although we tried to put all the pieces away after using each game, there were a few strays, however they seemed unphased and told me they knew which pieces belong with which game- no mean feat when you think they have hundreds of games, meaning there are possibly thousands of pieces to associate with their rightful homes.

Their menu is quite large, with a focus more on sweet offerings. They don’t have a kid’s menu as such so we went for the snacky options- folded pizza with dip (one of their specials of the day), spring rolls and fries followed by the waffle and ice-cream. It’s only having looked at the menu online afterwards that I realised I was only looking at one side of the menu and they also have a HUGE milkshake menu- something to look forward to for our next visit.