The walls of the Boardroom, Burlington’s only board game café, are covered in local art for sale, knickknacks and witty signs. One in particular captures the ethos perfectly: “NO WIFI. Play Boardgames. Talk to Each Other.”
On a recent Saturday afternoon when I visited the café with my son Leo, 16; my brother Sean; and my nephews Grayson, 13, and Finnegan, 11, that’s exactly what we did for two laugh-filled, snack-packed, phone-free hours.
The two-floor café and retail shop on the Burlington side of the bridge to Winooski is spacious but cozy, with low ceilings and wood furnishings. It’s both clean and cluttered, the latter for a good reason. The Boardroom is home to more than 650 board games, ranging from classics (Risk, Monopoly) to epics (Catan, Pandemic), plus everything in between. A simple sticker system, rating the games on a five-point scale from “very easy” (green) to “good luck” (pink), makes exploring the library easy and encourages new discoveries.
For $6 a person, you get all the gaming you can handle. A menu of comfort-food favorites keeps your belly full as you play. The menu is a mix of apps and sandwiches, featuring 14 different types of grilled cheese — and an entire section dedicated to peanut butter sandwiches. Everything about the Boardroom extends the same invitation: Relax and stay awhile.
Our five-person crew started the fun with Blorp!, a “very easy” game designed by local board game designer Garth Kauffman (see “How Do You Make a Game?,” page 15). As we laid out the tiles and reviewed the rules, we ordered up a big bowl of popcorn ($8) and a giant pretzel ($12). The fresh-popped popcorn was warm and buttery, and the 10-by-10-inch pretzel was fluffy and soft, served with a side of melted cheese dip. Each of the three kids also had a milkshake ($8), served in classic fountain shop glasses and topped with whipped cream and a Rice Krispies treat wedge.
Even on a sunny Saturday afternoon, the Boardroom buzzed with conversation from other gaming groups. Giggles from a kids’ birthday party bubbled upstairs from the basement, while a quintet of animated adults on the other side of the café laughed as they played. It was easy to imagine a more raucous atmosphere on a busy Friday night, when the taps are flowing with local brews.
After Blorp! we moved on to Beat the Parents, a kids-versus-grown-ups trivia game that upped our volume as we competed for victory. Midway through the game, we ordered a pickle plate ($7), which featured a trio of sweet gherkins, dill spears and spicy dill chips. As we polished off the pickles, the kids did the same with their adult opponents, high-fiving their well-earned victory.
Clad in neon-green T-shirts with “Employee of the Month” on the back, the two-person staff was helpful and attentive, giving us the rundown when they learned it was our first visit. One of them was owner Steve Joachim, who recently purchased the Boardroom and is now its sole proprietor. He sees the café as an escape from our phone-obsessed world, taking pride in the fact that when customers leave, he always asks if they had a good time, and they never say no, he said.
As our bellies filled and it was time to go, we were already planning future visits. Leo, who loved that the Boardroom had “something for everybody,” wanted to try the brunch menu as well as some of the café’s more challenging games. Finnegan hoped to return with his friends, saying playing board games “has more opportunities to talk than online gaming.”
For parents looking for an engaging family activity, and a café offering locals screen-free fun, I’d call that mission accomplished.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Your Turn! | Visiting the Boardroom, Burlington’s only board game café”
This article appears in Kids VT Winter • 2026.
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