A love for the board game Monopoly led Alvin Tan to start The Mind Café, a fast-growing establishment where people come together and play a seemingly endless supply of board games over good food and drinks.
The 39 year-old, who has two sons aged five and two, has seen his business expand to five outlets in less than six years. With such success, one would think that he is contented to sit back and reap the fruit of his labour, but this businessman has great aspirations for his café in mind. inSing.com catches up with the board game enthusiast.
How did you come up with the novel idea of starting a board game café?
It happened by chance through my participation in a Monopoly competition in 2004. After the competition, I was looking around for people to play the game with me at a common place, and that’s when I thought of a concept where people could come together to play whatever board games they liked. And since some time is needed to complete the games, why not do it over good food and drinks?
Which board games are most popular among your customers? Why do you think this is so?
Obviously Monopoly because a lot of people are familiar with the game and game play is always fun and interesting. ‘Taboo’ because it allows a big group of people to participate in the game. ‘I'm the Boss’ because it involves the use of money and ‘Saboteur’ because it lets players sabotage each other. I have a feeling these two games are popular because Singaporeans love money and since they may not be able to sabotage others in real life, they can do it behind a board game!
How do you go about sourcing for new board games?
We go through reviews of new games and our suppliers also recommend them to us.
What is the general profile of your customers?
Students form about 60% of my customers, while 20% are professionals. The rest are tourists and families.
An establishment has to constantly reinvent itself to keep the experience current and fresh. Share with us how you keep customers coming back to The Mind Café?
I subscribe to four key philosophies: Innovation, sincere customer service, fun factor and pricing.
The Mind Café also hosts events such as team-bonding sessions and private functions. What was the most unusual request you ever got for a private event?
We usually get a lot of surprise birthday celebrations but there was one interesting encounter recently where the person who booked the café for his company’s private function requested that all the food served to them to be in double portions!
How do you unwind after a hard day’s work?
I read magazines and watch movies to relax.
You currently have four outlets in town and one in Tampines, are there any plans to open up more outlets in the heartlands?
Maybe, but I am more keen to open up a mega Mind Café right now.
Where do you see yourself five years from now?
I hope to be a key player in the board games industry worldwide. I have a dream of opening a Mind Café Theme Park in Singapore. This would be a uniquely Singaporean production and I hope to be able to bring it to other parts of the world to offer people an alternative destination to places like Universal Studios and Disneyland. I strongly believe in this vision and even if I cannot achieve this goal in my lifetime, I foresee it happening in my son’s generation. The only thing holding me back right now is financial support.
Complete this sentence. “The board game I choose to play with a company of good friends is ________”. Why?
…‘Monopoly’. Given Singaporeans’ obsession with the property market, we put that to good use when we play the game. Moreover, it requires a lot of interaction and I like that aspect of it.
For the location of outlets and opening hours click here: The Mind Café
