The popular Oxford cafe will celebrate its sixth anniversary this month. 

Thirsty Meeples board games cafe, located in Gloucester Green, Oxford, is celebrating its sixth anniversary this month. The cafe claims to have been the first of its kind and still the only board games cafe in Oxford. It welcomes players of all abilities and offers countless rows of shelves filled with board games.

Thirsty Meeples game-guru, Tristan Thomas said: “We have about 1,000-1,500 games here. It is impossible to know them all, and we know that most people don’t play board games a lot and don’t have a lot of them. So we ask our customers a couple of questions and recommend three games to them.”

Typical questions asked to customers are about competitiveness, what type of games they prefer, such as word, strategy or card games, and finally what kind of world they want to explore when they play, such as science fiction, fantasy or historical. Tristan will then choose a selection of suitable games, some far more challenging than others.

Tristan added: “Most people who visit us for the first time don’t really know what to ask for, but sometimes requests are quite specific: I was recently asked for a science-fiction strategy game that would take a lot of time – I consider that to be a very specific request.”

The cost of one session at Thirsty Meeples is £7.50 per player, which is discounted to £6 for customers that order drinks. One session is three hours long. There is no limit to the number of games that can be played during one session, and Thirsty Meeples has games for both smaller and larger parties, with the maximum group number being 16. Children are also welcome, with the easiest games aimed at children aged from four years and above.