Today is May 1st! The cafe has officially been open for 6 months! YAY! I promise after we reach the 1-year point, I won't keep counting by months.
The past couple of weeks have been fun! We've had a lot of new customers. I love seeing new people find us. The reactions when they see the games and the space, it's perfect... especially kids.
Our Magic the Gathering March of the Machines draft tournament was on the 21st. It went really well. There was a hiccup with getting the cards, but it all worked out.
Congratulations to our 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners.
Since our Social Deception Night, Blood on the Clocktower has been much requested. So much so that we made a Facebook Group for Social Deduction/Deception Gaming. We have 2 more Blood on the Clocktower events coming up, this Saturday, May 6th, and Saturday, May 20th, at 7pm.
Our first Gaslands event was a HIT. Everyone who played had such a great time, there's going to be another one on Sunday, May 21st at 10am. It's open to the public and new players are always welcome. The more players, the more fun it is!
Kids D&D was a hit the first week we had it but it wasn't as big of a turnout last week as we'd hoped but it's not going anywhere. Kevin had to go back to France for work and won't be around for a couple of months but we'll still have DMs here to run Kids D&D on the 2nd & 4th Fridays. We're going to try to keep with the Fateforge system for consistency, but if we need to switch to standard 5e, it will be a smooth transition.
Our independent designer spotlight was a lot of fun. We had 4 game designers here with their games and quite a few people came out to check them out and provide some feedback. We're going to start doing this event quarterly so games in development can be updated and replayed, and people who couldn't make it to this one with their game can try another time. So, mark your calendars for Saturday, August 26th. If you have a game you'd like to submit for that event, fill out this Google Form: https://forms.gle/1v29g245Vv2Mmu7g6
Sunday, we had some clever kiddos join us for a Kids Create Games event where they got to design their own board game. There were some great ideas and I got to play through a couple of them.
We're planning on hosting a Summer D&D Club on Mondays and Fridays from 11am - 2pm and I'm looking for DMs right now. If you are, or know someone, in High School or College who would be interested in DMing for other kids this summer, please reach out to me at dana@criticalgrind.com. Let me know your name, pronouns, age, experience with DMing or playing, and what session you'd be available for.
Please confirm you have no conflicts with any dates in the session you choose.
The age groups for the parties will be 5th-8th Grade & 9th-12th Grade.
Session A: Mondays June 5th-26th
Session B: Fridays, June 9th-30th (We have DMs for this session)
Session C: Mondays, July 3rd-24th
Session D: Fridays, July 7th-28th
This Sunday is our next Live Music event. This month we're featuring Derrick Benson. His voice is beautiful and he has a rich folk sound. You can find him on TikTok: @dbenz95
NEXT Saturday, May 13th is our next Nerdy Knowledge Trivia event with Liquid Kourage Entertainment. Last month there wasn't an open seat in the house so, if you wanna play, come early!
Mother's Day, Sunday, May 14th will be our next Bakery Pop-up. ZINful Confections will be here with their delicious french macarons.
External Events:
Every Tuesday Night we host a Game Night at Hailstorm Brewing Company in Tinley Park. Game Master: Nick
2nd Wednesday of every month we host Game Night at Flight Tasting Room & Bottle Shoppe in Yorkville. Game Master: Josh
Starting in June, 1st Thursday of every month we'll be hosting Game Night at Oswego Brewing Company. Game Master: TBD
Speaking of Game Master: TBD, we're looking for Game Masters.
