Bonus Round Game Cafe — Restaurant in Lake View Township

I have been coming here consistently since just after it opened, and come under a multitude of circumstances (solo, with my girlfriend, with a larger party, just getting tea to-go, etc), so I would consider myself somewhat of an expert on the in's and out's of this place. I cannot speak highly enough of this place.

The $5 per person table fee is ridiculously cheap considering the probable overhead of maintaining the 200+ board games they keep on a daily basis. For that $5, you literally get a full-service experience. The staff will take your orders at the table, make recommendations for games to play based on your personal styles, and TEACH YOU THE GAMES IF YOU DO NOT KNOW THEM. I can't even imagine consistently remembering how to play so many different games! The drinks and food are great, and pretty cheap for the quality. They have their own brand of coffee (Bonus Ground, hold for pun groans), and most of their alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks are from local companies. On the weekends, they even have pie from Bang Bang Pie! The staff are cognizant of the atmosphere in their establishment. You don't have to worry about large groups taking over the place and making it hard for you to enjoy your own game; the owners are quick to stop things from getting out of hand. They also have a small retail section if you want to buy that game you just played and loved.

If you plan on coming consistently, get the membership. It pays for itself if you visit 3 times in a month.

The only customers who won't have a good time are the ones who aren't self-aware. While it has "Cafe" in the title (because of the kind of food/drinks they serve), it is closer to a restaurant because of the full-service nature of the business (how many coffee shops do you know that take & serve orders directly to your table?) So if you only order a single drink per person in 3 hours, you're probably going to be asked to leave like you would in a restaurant. If you consistently don't tip the waitstaff, they're going to notice and stop serving you. The $5 is a cover charge, not an all-inclusive fee. So when you read the negative reviews... that's probably the real story.

Overall, there are so many reasons why this place has become my favorite spot in the city. Really cool idea, excellent execution, knowledgable staff, large selection of games, and a great atmosphere for...

After a couple visits to the Bonus Round Cafe, I have to say it's left me discouraged to come back.

Overview: Nice space, great game library, poor customer service, very overpriced food.

The space itself is a very welcoming and inclusive space with gender-neutral bathrooms, a variety of sitting spaces and a surprisingly large game library with a great variety of games.

One of the initial draws of this cafe over other gaming places in Chicago is that the staff will give you recommendations of games and teach you at the table how to play the game. In my own experience though, I've never had an experience where the game has been explained well enough to just be able to play off what the staff has told me. They often gave the absolute basics and I would have to spend an additional like 20 minutes to go over the rules through the rule book which are in fairly poor condition or just missing in a few games. Now I understand that the staff don't have the time to explain all the intricacies of a game such as Root but even on a more basic game like Santorini, there were mechanics to the game which weren't explained well enough to make the game playable.

Another initial draw is that they have food and drinks available for purchase. The beverages are fairly well priced but the food is far too over priced. I ended up spending $9 for 4 very small quesadillas pieces this time and the previous time $8 for an about standard cereal bowl size of a sweet trail mix. For customers staying over an hour, they have a $15 per person minimum which the food will satisfy quickly but again, the size of the food isn't appropriate to the price.

Finally, the customer services could be improved some. While I understand that it was pretty crowded both times I was there, the staff was pretty sparse in checking up with us. It took a while for someone to came by to help us. Again, it was busy but after about 2 hours there, a different staff person came by to inform us that our customer minimum hadn't been met yet and we just hadn't planned yet to get something so needed a minute to decided on something else to get. After informing us, about 45 minutes passed and no one came by to check if we had decided on something which seemed odd given that they needed us to meet...

Super great place!

A wonderful relaxed and clean atmosphere, very welcoming. We had a little 4th of July meetup with friends and got seated at one of the bigger tables.

All the staff members knew the games and could explain them really well. They were able to suggest some really good games based on our strange whims ("I want a time travel game!" - Temporum!, "I'd like to play something with pieces/non-traditional." -The Climbers)

There were a bunch of different groups there; a family with a younger player, a couple of friend pairs, and our group was 5 people. So there is something for everyone!

The food was also quite good, we had sandwiches which were very tasty (if this were near my work, I'd probably come here for the sandwiches on my lunch break.) The sodas were quite tasty! The only less than perfect thing was that they were out of pie. =_ I know when I am scheduling my next visit...

I'll definitely be back!!!!

EDIT (09/25/2022): Still one of my favorite places! They've re-designed the space so that games on sale are at the front and games in the library are at the back. The menu is still tasty (it's not extensive..but remember you are here to play games, not eat a huge meal! haha) Everything we ordered was very tasty. We came to try some of the new games they got in, and they did not disappoint. We had one game explained to us and our second game was one we had to figure out the rules to ourselves (which was totally fine, and we were told up front that we'd need to do that if we played that game since they had not yet been able to teach all staff how to explain it yet!) Both games were very fun, and I had a great time. 100% the best place to go out with friends on...