BEVERLY, MA — Board game, trading card and 20-sided dice fanatics on the North Shore will soon have their favorite spot back — along with ideally a whole crew of new customers more interested in full dinners and craft cocktails than Scrabble tiles and Cribbage pegs — when The Castle opens its new expanded space on Rantoul Street this weekend.
Branded as “A Board Game Cafe” during its first eight years up the street at 240 Rantoul Street, owner Kevin Grant told Patch on Wednesday that he is looking forward to the chance to expand the coffee shop’s scope at the new location at 140 Rantoul Street.
“We had that casual cafe vibe when we first opened and what we quickly realized was that a lot of people were looking for more of a dining and gaming restaurant,” he said. “When we started looking into turning that space we had into a full-fledged restaurant the space wasn’t right for it.”
Find out what's happening in Beverlywith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Grant said it was when he first heard about plans to develop The Block at Odell Park mixed retail and residential location down the street in 2019 that he “jumped on that quickly” with the official grand opening now planned four years later on Friday starting at 5 p.m. with reservations available via Open Table.
“We really liked what Rantoul was turning into when it came to those restaurant spaces,” he said. “Now we have doubled the size of the kitchen. We can have dinner service with tacos, rice bowls, and flatbread pizzas. Things we weren’t able to do in the old space.”
Find out what's happening in Beverlywith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The new space will include an outdoor patio and a full bar with a staff trained in a specialty cocktail menu. However, Clark said he was cognizant of keeping many of the aspects that drew a loyal following for those drawn to the board game cafe for a weekly dose of Magic, Dungeons & Dragons one of the more than 1,000 board games made available to customers.
“One of the biggest concerns we had is that we always wanted to keep the space one that people felt comfortable going to so we were worried about the corporate feel and being too big,” he said. “We still have the games and the policies we had before. It’s just another space with a whole new range of food and drink that’s amazing where people don’t have to play any games if they don’t want to.
“Nobody is going to hold you down and force you to play a game. But if you want them they are here.”
Click Here: Spain National Team soccer tracksuit
The old location closed on July 20 with the target open date of Aug. 5 for the new location pushed back a couple of weeks to secure all the proper permits and other opening necessities.
Clark said the expanded space could lead to extended hours with morning service added to cater to building residents and those taking the train, and later-night service for those catching a show or looking for an after-dinner drink downtown.
“The downstairs definitely has more of a bar feel with TVs in there so we can kind of hit people who want to have a drink with their friends,” Clark said. “We have a lot of gears in motion.”
(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at [email protected]. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.