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Date: 5/26/2021
HOLYOKE – After beginning a brand new business in the midst of a pandemic, Avalon Lounge and Gaming Cafe in Holyoke is preparing to open their doors to customers for the first time.
One of the owners of the cafe, Neal Robinson, told Reminder Publishing that they first opened their doors for business during the summer of 2020. He said they’ve been only doing takeout, which they initially had not planned to do. “We were not set up to do it, it was kind of an afterthought. The purpose in doing that is to get people familiar with the type of food we’d be doing, get our name in the neighborhood a bit,” he said.
Now, after nearly a year of doing takeout, Robinson said the cafe is preparing to open their doors to customers for the first time. “We’re gearing up to open in summer or later in fall. We were planning on September 1 to be fully open, but we might go earlier depending on what the governor’s restrictions are,” he said.
He explained that the concept for the cafe was for people to gather, eat, drink, play board games and to be able to purchase and/or sell their own board games. This, Robinson said, was what made it difficult to plan for a full reopening of the cafe. “Our main thought is we would like to open without restrictions. Our whole model is designed around people staying in close quarters for extended periods of time,” he said. “The kind of experience we offer doesn’t work well with masking and distancing.”
While the cafe wouldn’t open for the full gaming experience in the late summer or fall, Robinson said they would be taking steps towards guests experiencing their vision. “We're opening inside in the early summer, probably June, with limited games, kind of bar games, card games, things like that,” he said.
When they do open the inside of the cafe he said they would be implementing safety measures such as “capacity restrictions and distancing.” He said, “We’ll have limited seating at the bar and some limited booth and table seating with dividers. Then we’ll have a few card games around for people to play, [but] we don’t necessarily want to encourage people to sit for hours in close quarters.”
Additionally, Robinson said the entire staff was vaccinated and the card games would have individual protectors that could be disinfected easily. “Our staff is fully vaccinated and the cards, people can bring their own cards, and we’ll have slip case dividers on the cards that can be wiped down,” he said. “We’re not going to be encouraging a full game concept, but if people want to play some card games they’ll be welcome to.”
He added that while they would open the inside of the cafe to customers, their “full rental and retail concept” would not open until “late summer [or] early fall.” Robinson said they would open the inside to “eat-in dining at that time.”
Robinson said that the cafe’s liquor license was pending state approval and by the time the inside of the space opened to customers they planned to open with a full bar. “We do have a full liquor license that’s kind of pending on state approval, but I’m not too worried about that. By the time we open fully we’ll have a full bar, tiki revival cocktail menu, micro and domestic beers,” he said.
Another program the cafe plans to resume during the summer is collecting donations and purchasing various games from individuals. “We put that on pause until the pandemic has run its course and passed. We have probably about a fifth of the games we want for a library,” he said. “But we plan to start setting that up in the summer, pending further info and guidelines.”
While the cafe also hoped to do after school programming and various clubs to involve community members in the gaming community, Robinson said that too is on hold for the meantime. “Whatever programming that we do will be in the fall, trying to gather a bunch of people in close proximity doesn’t seem like a good idea,” he said.
While customers and community members wait for the gaming cafe to officially open their doors, Robinson encouraged people to support them via takeout. He described the food offerings as “American eclectic cuisine,” that offers common items such as burgers and chicken sandwiches, they put their own spin on the items as well as offering unique food items such as bas buns.
“One of our goals was to try to bring an experience you can’t necessarily get in Holyoke in the neighborhood. We didn’t want to be getting a bunch of stuff out of bags and frying it later,” he said. “Our items have a personal touch and it kind of shows.”
Robinson said the cafe also “offers an extensive gluten free menu” and that none of their fried products such as their taco shells or chicken tenders have gluten in them. The chicken tenders, he explained, are made with gluten free flour and chips and they make their own gluten free buns for sandwiches and burgers. “It’s a good chicken tender, you don’t even miss the gluten in our items,” he said.
Other popular menus include their friend chicken sandwich, an Asian style pork bar buns, carne asada tacos and a brisket burger with hand-ground burger meat. Food orders can be placed online through the cafe’s website at avalongamecafe.com and picked up at their location on 386 Dwight St. in Holyoke. Updates regarding the cafe’s opening date and weekly specialty food items are also posted on the Avalon Lounge & Game Cafe Facebook page.