Nicosia’s Tablo café brings board-game players together across generations

Nicosia, Cyprus. Tablo Board Game Café is bringing together regular players, colleagues and families around a collection exceeding 200 games. Its owner, practising lawyer Andonis Michanikos, opened the venue in March 2025, turning his enthusiasm for tabletop gaming into a community space.

A Friday evening around the tables

At 7pm on a Friday, Oleg, a 33-year-old Ukrainian working in finance, was eating a club sandwich while waiting for colleagues to join him for Settlers of Catan. His group consists of experienced enthusiasts who gather each weekend and were planning to play a more advanced version.

Outside, six young men from mainland Greece were also playing Catan, joking together in a more casual session. Another group, from Cyprus, was absorbed in Trails of Tucana, linking matching-colour hexagons on their cards.

Michanikos explained that Trails of Tucana belongs to the “roll and write” category, in which dice rolls determine what players record.

The café has roughly 10 tables, with additional room upstairs. That area is mainly set aside for games needing larger playing surfaces or longer sessions, including Dungeons & Dragons. The premises previously operated as a café, but without the board-game focus.

From designing a game to opening a café

Michanikos has played every game on Tablo’s shelves and committed their rules to memory. His personal collection is considerably larger, numbering about 650.

He said he continues buying games while also learning those he already owns before adding them to the café’s selection. Tablo is a passion project rather than his full-time occupation; he continues to practise law.

His longstanding interest developed further in 2016, when he created Rhyme the Rap Challenge. The game gives participants three randomly selected words to incorporate into a rhyming verse resembling a rap.

To promote it, he attended several fairs, including SPIEL in Germany. The event, the largest board-game trade fair worldwide, attracts approximately 200,000 visitors.

Those visits exposed him both to the industry’s growth and to families gathered around games. He found that shared activity more appealing than parents and children sitting together at a restaurant while each used a separate phone.

A growing hobby with familiar entry points

Approximately 3,500 games are released annually, reflecting the expansion of board gaming over the past two decades.

Catan, first released in the 1990s, occupies a position between that newer wave and titles familiar from Generation X childhoods, including Monopoly, Cluedo, Risk and Trivial Pursuit. Its accessibility makes it a popular introduction to the hobby, including at Tablo, while more experienced players can explore advanced versions.

The café’s Friday gathering illustrated that range: seasoned weekly players, a more informal outdoor group and customers trying a different style of game shared the same small venue.

Children, parents and a wider community

Before opening Tablo, Michanikos introduced games in schools and youth clubs and organised gaming events. He said he had seen children become particularly excited when their parents participated alongside them.

At the café, games intended for very young children, including toddlers, occupy a low shelf where they are easy to reach. One regular visitor is a three-year-old girl who repeatedly chooses the same game and plays quietly alone. Whether she understands its rules is unclear, but she enjoys the activity without using a tablet.

The account highlights the educational value of games, including helping children learn to handle defeat as well as success. It also challenges two misconceptions described as persistent in Cyprus: that gaming is primarily for children, and that board games still mean only older titles such as Monopoly and Cluedo.

At Tablo, the emphasis extends beyond children to the community formed through playing together.