Trader’s Chronicle I: An Idea and a Pop-Up Night

Hi everyone!
This is Nate Morsches, Co-Founder of Trader’s Cache and table-top gamer. Welcome to the first blog post for our new website.
Trader’s Cache is a tavern, set to open in September 2019, whose primary source of entertainment will be a library of about 800-1200 Tabletop board games.
We plan on having mead on tap, sound proof booths for those wanting a private gaming experience, versatile membership subscriptions for easy access to our services. The pub will host community events, such as panel forum discussions with leaders in the gaming industry, beta-testing of new products, and tournaments of your favorite games.
But this post isn’t just about who Trader’s Cache is.
This is also the first post in a series which will chronicle the development of Trader’s Cache from our very meager beginnings all the way up to opening day.

An Idea in the Making

This past December, the thoughts in the four of our heads began riling around, brainstorming a way to serve the Lawrence community. The four of us are myself, Matt, Betsy, and my wife, Meghan.
Coupled with our love for Tabletop board games, it was a no-brainer. We saw a trend on the East and West coasts for these Board Game Bars popping up all over the place. Not many in the Midwest, however.
Trader’s Cache began to take form.
Between then and now, it has been a mad rush to put together the official registry of the business, developing a business structure, and a timeline before opening.
Going to game nights hosted by really great MeetUp groups and Facebook groups, we’ve gotten to know a lot of awesome people who share the hobby with us.
We’ve been buying board games, designing a food and drink menu, and bootstrapping it all.
Obviously, going the entrepreneur route, we’ll be raising funds and making all of our dreams a reality, which in turn will provide Lawrence with its first gaming bar.
It’s a really a win-win for all of us, no?
But most recently, we came up with the idea to do our first pop-up night.

Our First Pop-Up Night

We wanted our first introduction to the community to be a good one.
As it has been our goal from almost the beginning to have Lawrence’s first full-line of mead on tap, we partnered with Rabble Queen Meadery, who themselves will be opening up in the next half year or so.
Together, we designed a game night and mead tasting.
The community building was easy to reserve and a great central location for the happenings of Downtown.
So we busted our butts handing out flyers, and sharing the Facebook event and MeetUp event. Meanwhile, the group of us worked to organize everything from a raffle, to handing out SWAG, sign-up sheets, and other logistics.
The event was a HUGE success!
We had approximately 100 people show. You could feel the excitement in the air when we raffled off some great board games and a handmade dice tower. Scythe, a coveted game in many circles, ended up on the list of raffle prizes when our fans showed their support. We promised that if we reached 100 likes on Facebook, that Scythe would be entered into the raffle.
And you did it! We’re so grateful for the support. You guys are the best fans!
Everyone enjoyed a great night of playing games, tasting mead, and meeting new people.
A group of D&D broke out. As an avid D&D player, it just warmed my heart.
We even had a co-creator of a new game on the market show up to demo his game, Dice Throne. Keep an eye out for that one – we may be making a bigger deal about it at our next Pop-Up Night.

My Take-Aways after the Pop-Up Night

A few days has past since the Pop-Up Night, and I’m left evaluating the whole thing.
These are my thoughts after spending some time reflecting:

1. The Tabletop community in Lawrence is active and this is something to proud of!

We couldn’t have done this without you guys and your passion to build real community around fun games. It was a great turnout, and we only have you all to thank for that.

2. The individuals involved in the Tabletop community in Lawrence are amazing!

I met a ton of really cool people there. I enjoyed conversations with many of you. I especially enjoyed the diversity represented that night. It just goes to show that gamers are among the most accepting and caring people I’ve ever met. You truly value face-to-face interaction in this day of technology. It’s rare, guys, but you rise above it.

3. Next Pop-Up Night is going to be even better!

With the success of this event, you better believe we’ll be doing plenty more before we open in September 2019. We’ll rent a larger and cooler place. We’ll have more games. More lines of mead to try. More SWAG (did anyone else think those lapel pins were super rad?). More raffle prizes.

And more fun!
We hope that your take-aways are that you enjoyed the night with us. We hope that you are as excited for our opening as we are.
Tell all your friends about us. The more word gets around, the more cool features we’ll be able provide for everyone.
But we hope that your biggest take-away is that we can’t do this without you. We are as much a part of the Lawrence community as you are. And it’s going to take all of us to make this dream a reality.
Thank you again! We love you!