A fresh roll of the dice for board game cafe

A board game cafe which kept its community going for more than a year after being forced to close, finally has a physical home again.

Nerdy's in Shrewsbury shut in May 2025 because of rising costs and the owner, Katie Petrovic, said "walking away would probably have been the easier option".

But she believed the cafe had become a "home from home" for many people and she kept it alive by running pop-up events for its supporters around Shropshire.

After a fundraising campaign raised more than £8,000 to support the reopening, the cafe is back in new premises on Mardol Gardens, close to its old home.

Now known as N3rdy's, the cafe continues to offer customers the chance to play with its stock of board games while having a drink.

It has become a not-for-profit Community Interest Company - a type of limited company run with a social purpose.

Petrovic said this made the cafe more accountable and money would go back into events and support for the local games community.

It also helps the business secure funding and she said it would give it a more stable future.

Petrovic said she had discovered the original Nerdy's after the coronavirus pandemic, when it was a place to "hang out, play and feel welcome".

"We were part of the family there," she said.

Later she joined the staff and eventually became owner of the business

She said it was especially important to "those who have real difficulty finding anywhere they feel they can be themselves".

Petrovic said that was especially true for people who are "neurodivergent, LGBT+, socially anxious, isolated, or just plain different".

"Now more than ever, we need spaces like that," she said.

During the 18 months the cafe was closed, the Nerdy's team attempted to keep their community together with events at venues including Shrewsbury Unitarian Church, Hickory's Smokehouse and The Bell Inn at Tong.

During that time, she also raised funds to pay for their new home and said the £8,000 raised was "absolutely humbling".

As well as being a substantial sum, she said it was also important to her, because she believed it showed people were saying "we want it back, it's important to us".

But while one board game cafe in Shropshire is back with a new home, another which won a BBC Make a Difference award for its community work is facing a less certain future.

The Boardroom Cafe in Wellington is also a Community Interest Company and it said it had been told its landlord was looking to sell the building, so it was exploring its options.

Co-owner Jenni Drew said included "the possibility of purchasing the building or finding a way to do that as well as looking at alternative locations".

She said and her team were "not panicking", however, and nothing would change immediately.

To help attract grant funding for their next move and to help them plan, she has asked people to fill in a survey, to say what the cafe means to them.

Drew said: "I'm proud of what we've built together and we'd want to do everything we can to secure the future of Boardroom."

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