I’ve been interested in opening up a board game café in DC for a while. While I estimate that there is enough interest in board games in DC to sustain 10 or more board game cafés, I’m concerned about the difficulty of making a game store financially sustainable while it is getting established. Advertising a new store is going to be hard and it is going to be a while before the cafe earns enough to cover expenses.
In Virginia, I’ve noticed multiple game stores close, including Compleat Strategist and Game Parlor, and rents tend to be cheaper than DC.
This post is a rough estimate of how much it will cost to run a board game store in DC. It will be a lower bound as it does not consider taxes, or miscellaneous costs such as paying for electricity and permit fees. Also, I’ll be using lower bound values for a likely best case scenario.
-Monthly rent: $4.5/square foot
-Size of place: 400 square feet.
-Yearly rent : 4.5*400*12 = $21,600
Salary costs
On weekends, I’d like to keep the place open from 9am to 12pm, and from 4pm to 12pm on weekdays, which is 70 hours. When factoring in 2 hours per day for opening, closing, and maintenance, 84 hours are needed. While many restaurants close earlier, I do want to keep the game store open until midnight. This gives people an opportunity to stay and socialize for a while instead of having to quickly leave due to an early closing time. Assuming that 2 people would be working at all times, that is a cost of $20,160 a month, or $241,920 each year.
- Minimum monthly salary: $25*40*4 = $4000
- Monthly health insurance cost: $800
A lower bound on the costs of rent and salaries would be $263,520 per year. This number is likely to be significantly higher when considering the other costs. I’m not willing to compromise on customer service, paying employees, or employee benefits.
I would rather see policy changes that reduce the costs of running a small business, such as a vacancy tax that would lower rents.
One possible solution may involve several other people trying to start board game cafés at the same time. Due to the amount of interest in board games, they aren’t going to be competing with each other or other board game stores or cafés. On the other hand, we can work together in many ways including sharing advice on running a board game café or negotiating bulk discounts on games.
We could also work together to advocate for policies that make a board game café more sustainable. One example would be increasing financial penalties for vacant storefronts in DC, which would encourage landlords to rent space to small businesses at lower rates. I’ve seen many storefronts that have been vacant for years that are in great locations near Metro stations.