Mind Games Cafe

Let me make this clear: I don’t go here for the food. I made the mistake of ordering the very unappetizing nacho platter in the past, and always come here on a full stomach.
That being said, if you’re here to play games, they have an excellent selection. Also, the staff are great. They’re very friendly, attentive, and eager to explain any games you might be interested in playing.

I’m disappointed at this execution of the board game café concept. Toronto has a number of these now and with the exception of Mind Games they have all been loads of fun to visit.
Mind Games not only has an overall smaller selection of games to play, compared to other similar establishments but the food selection is severely lacking. We ordered nachos, it was a mistake, there was next to no cheese and a paltry smattering of pickled jalapenos. They neglected salsa and olives, it even looked sad.
The night staff seemed generally more accommodating but they were coming in just as we were leaving and they only had the opportunity to wish us a good night.
Overall it’s just worth the trip to another one of Toronto’s excellent board game cafés.

Very disappointed by the prices here. I went to this store to purchase the game ‘Smash Up’ and an expansion pack. On the Mind Games site (
), shown in CAD currency, the game was listed as $ 25.58, expansion $ 17.05. When I got to the store, I was astonished to see the game was $ 39.99, expansion $ 24.99. When I inquired about it, the employee told me that they apparently charge an additional ’20%’ extra in the store because of ‘shipping costs’ to the store. That is just an ridiculous excuse and also, 20% of $ 25 does not make the entire price $ 40.00. The employee then continued to tell me that they also recently raised their prices and that the site does not reflect updated prices. Seriously, a 60% increase in your prices? I don’t know what is going on here, but it is incredibly shady.
Long story short, don’t buy your games here. Overpriced, the site (or the store) lies. I went to 401 Games and got the Smash up + expansion for $ 27.95 and $ 14.95 respectively, which was the same as their site listing. Yay for honesty, 401!

My review about mind games is VERY mixed.
I went one cold night with my friends and the staff were incredibly friendly and nice. We were a bigger group (8 of us) so they showed us this game they thought we might be interested in trying out. One of the employees explained the whole game to us (which was great customer service!) and it was so much fun that we ended up playing 2 whole rounds and staying late.
Now since that lovely evening, we have tried to go back to mind games to have another board game night and introduce new friends to the amazing game that they showed us. Every single time we have tried to go back (SIX TIMES NOW) we have been turned away. The employees say that the owner wants to close the store if it’s not super busy and that it’s too late for them to stay open. We never arrived that late in the evening (like, usually 8ish?) and I’m confused as to how they think they are going to make money being a board game café if they don’t stay open for customers to get to know the store and actually play.
One night, the employees actually felt so bad about turning us away again (they recognized our disappointed faces all too well by this point) that they called the owner to try and CONVINCE him to stay open for us because they knew we would make the store a profit and help them to make some loyal customers. NOPE. The owner told them to turn us away (AGAIN) and the employees had to follow instructions and apologized profusely.
Long Story Short: The staff are very nice and helpful, but the store is always closed when people would actually come and play their board games, which makes ZERO sense. Obviously on a week day the people who are going to show up to play aren’t going to be there during the typical 9 – 5 working hours and would most likely come in the evening. It’s disappointing since we live in the neighbourhood and would prefer to go here rather than then trekking down to Castle or Snakes and Lattes.