If you're looking for a unique after-school activity for your kids this fall, Main St. Board Game Cafe is now unveiling Afternoon Board Game Club. The after school program is a 2-hour drop-off session that allows kids to learn a range of strategic games like Mancala, Takenoko, and Imhotep with expert staff who are passionate about sharing their love for board games. The cafe opened in Huntington in late April and is unveiling its after school program this fall.
Main St. Board Game Cafe is dedicated to offering an enriching, educational, and fun experience to kids, families, and people of all ages while fostering an environment of inclusion, learning, and social interaction without technology. Their motto is “unplug your game,” as Main St. Board Game Cafe Owner Neil Goldberg says, who opened up the company after working as a broadcast TV Sports News Producer for New York 1.
Goldberg, who had seen board game cafes in other parts of the country and already had a growing collection of board games in his basement, decided he wanted to bring this type of enrichment to Long Island. He uses the term “intelligent joy” to describe the feeling he gets from playing board games himself, because, ”they’re joyful, but you’re using your head, and to me, that’s the best gift you can give a child, that experience,” says Goldberg.
He noted how there tends to be a misconception with board games, as people don’t give them the level of credit they deserve in its educational value.
“Board games today… are miles and miles more deep and complex and interesting and honesty fun than a game of yesteryear,” Goldberg says. “[Playing board games] will be an incredibly enriching, educational experience that’s fun, that doesn’t involve a videogame, that involves talking to other people, socializing, [and] understanding and functioning in a social setting, which I think a lot of kids have trouble with because their face is in their phone all day and they don’t have to talk to anybody… I think this program can be a terrific thing for your kid for something that is both educational and fun and they will look forward to.”
For more information about the Afternoon Board Game Club, visit the Main St. Board Game Cafe's website.
