Mexican restaurant merges with board game café

Yahoo

08-02-2025

People can play board games and tuck into food from a city Mexican restaurant under one roof after two city centre businesses have merged. Piñatas Burrito Bar has been in Swansea city centre for five years.
In November 2023, Kieran Ivett, who runs the restaurant, also took over the running of Social Dice, a board game café at 43 Wind Street, together with his partner Harriet Risby.
And now, the pair have decided to combine both businesses together inside Social Dice. Customers will be able to eat, with the choice of 450 board games and Nintendo switches. For the latest restaurant news and reviews, sign up to our food and drink newsletter here.
Mr Ivett, 35, said: "We'd been on the Strand for coming up to five years, and the eventual plan was that hopefully we'd buy the building, but we took on the building two days before the coronavirus announcement, so for the first two years we were in lockdown and catching up constantly. We've survived the five years, but have never had the funds to put aside to buy the building.
"We were coming to the end of our lease, and it was a case of either buying the building, or finding a new home. In November 2023, myself and my partner, Harriet Risby, took over Social Dice. I was one of their very first customers, I went in on the day they opened. I wasn't looking for another business, but it was too much of an exciting opportunity for us to say no to.
"We thought to ourselves, why are we paying two lots of rent, two lots of insurance, electric, when we've got the room to merge the two together. A lot of places are doing it now, Argos is inside Sainsburys, Game is in Sports Direct, and so on. With the cost of living, it makes more sense if they can occupy the same space.
"We decided to move Piñatas into Social Dice, and the feedback has been amazing. Board game cafes are popping up every where and are starting to become popular, but they only tend to do basic cafe-style food, like paninis and that sort of thing. People are loving they here they do both, play games and have some nice food."
Mr Ivett added: "At Piñatas we focus on Americanised Mexican street food. All of our staff are very passionate in our kitchen and they are all really proud when it's exactly as it is meant to be. The staff honestly care that they are sending out a good product. They take it seriously, they want it to be fresh and they want it to be good. I'm proud of the effort they make.
"There's not many places where you can have something to do whilst you wait for your food to come. A lot of the time you're sat there waiting 20 minutes for your food to come and most people are sat on their phones or awkwardly trying to make conversation, but by having board games to play, it forces you to engage with each other, playing games with someone. If you're on a first date for example, there's no awkward: 'So what do you do' and things like that. It makes it easier for people who are shy or meeting up with old friends. Having them both together is a unique experience."
Social Dice/ Piñatas will be holding a pre-loved sale on February 15 from 10am, where people will have the opportunity to purchase board games. All the money raised will go towards restocking new games. You can follow updates at its Facebook page by clicking here.
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