Originally published in the Denton Record-Chronicle.
With or without dice, the d20 Tavern is ready to roll.
Nestled between West Oak Coffee Bar and Tried and True Salon, the tavern held its soft launch opening last Friday, welcoming dozens of board game and beer enthusiasts inside for the first time.
“It’s a very unique kind of niche place, and I think it folds really well kind of into the bar scene here that I feel is pretty thriving,” d20 Tavern co-owner Mark Michnevitz said.
The inspiration behind opening the tavern came from Michnevitz and his wife Melissa, the other co-owner, and from sessions of daydreaming, wishing their favorite game spots also served alcohol.
“We spent a lot of time in local game shops, and then kind of sitting there playing for a bit, then, ‘Man I wish we could get a beer’,’’ Michnevitz said.
There were times both of the Michnevitz’s would find themselves consistently going from a Magic the Gathering tournament to a restaurant next door to drink beer before going back each round, said Michnevitz. While hopping back and forth, they wished there was a place with both games and drinks.
“It started off as, ‘Oh that’d be cool, that’d be cool,’ and the more we talked about it, eventually we were just ‘Let’s do this,’” Michnevitz said.
Michnevitz started gathering funding for d20 Tavern in 2018 and were set to start building when the pandemic hit, postponing it until 2021.
“Basically, the middle of last year when things started to kind of loosen up a little bit, we were able to get in contact with our original lenders again, and they had all their filings,” Michnevitz said. “We just needed to update everything and then we were funded and ready to go.”
Four years later, the board game and beer spot is officially open and home to more than 200 games for guests to play, all placed neatly on a shelf against the wall. Choices range from classics such as chess or Uno to popular strategic games such as Settlers of Catan or Clue, all nestled in view of tables ready for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
The games collection will only grow as time goes on and more Kickstarter games Michnevitz backed years ago start to arrive. Accompanying the hundreds of games is a selection of more than 20 beers, all proudly from the North Texas area.
“Pretty much any beer you drink here, you can take a 40-minute drive and get to the brewery,” Michnevitz said.
Customers unfamiliar with which beer to choose or wanting to leave it to chance can choose to pick up a die and let their luck choose for them, dropping a 20-sided die or one or two eight-sided dice into a skull waiting on the bar.
For example, a “nat 20” does not mean a direct hit against a monster but instead an imperial stout with coffee from Grapevine.
There are also wine options, gluten-free beers and non-alcoholic drinks available, said Michnevitz. Another feature of the Tavern is its employees – especially those working as a “concierge” for the games waiting on the shelves.
“[The concierge’s] focus is to kind of help you facilitate you playing games and if it’s D&D we have some early learning things for people who’ve never played before but are curious about it, but don’t necessarily want to make a big investment in the game,” Michnevitz said. “That’s where we fit in.”
Michael Freeman, one of the concierges, sees his job as a facilitator between the games and the people coming to play them.
“My favorite part of getting to work here is getting to build that sense of community for gaming culture, that the nerd culture, the world playing culture, getting to contribute to building that kind of cultural society is the most exciting thing,” Freeman said.
Ever since the pandemic, more and more people started getting interested in gaming, he said. Even before the pandemic, the “nerd culture” people were made fun of for has been slowly going away and become more widely accepted and popular in mainstream culture, Freeman said.
“Now the tables are reversed, and it feels like outsiders looking in are kind of hesitant and shy to get involved in nerd culture aspects like Dungeons and Dragons, or board games that aren’t just Monopoly,” he said.
After officially opening the doors for the soft launch at noon, the tables were all filled around 9 p.m. last Friday as people chatted, sipped their drinks and enjoyed their game of choice.
One customer, Denton resident William Moody, 26, was surprised there were not more game lounges like d20 Tavern in Denton already.
“I like it a lot,” Moody said. “It’s already super busy.”
Video game lounges like Free Play have already done well in Denton and likely helped open the door for a board game lounge like d20 Tavern, Freeman said.
“Free Play was a huge boon in that aspect,” Freeman said. “Now that we have the video game side, we also have the board game side and tabletop role playing games.”
The d20 Tavern fills a niche all on its own, said Michnevitz.
“It just adds to the kind of the scene here and I think our fun uniqueness and the D&D vibe here also fits the square,” Michnevitz said.