Evanston Games and Cafe

I have been in here in and out for about a month now with my son. The workers have been very helpful in explaining different sets and how to play Pokemon and MTG as someone who had little to no experience prior. They are also nice to my son. Like everything in TCG market nowadays, you will pay extra on top of MSRP for packs and what not. That said, it’s nice that they implement a purchasing limit so that I know, within reason, I can walk in and buy packs and singles with my son any time and have a fun time. 11/10

Went for a pre release event and had the worst experience. I hadn't done any magic event in years and thought it'd be a fun way to make new friends and reconnect. I went a day before to make sure I knew what to do since it's been a while and a nice guy told me to just download the app. When I got there I was told I needed to sign on on the app which was being very difficult and I didn't have an account yet because I didn't know id NEED to use the app. Well they were very condescending about that to me and I'm just trying to figure it out and their connection sucked. One of the guys dark hair and glasses literally said to me "I can't help you troubleshoot" when I asked for assistance since it wouldn't fing their event. After wasting my entire deck building time with that they start the event and it their system crashed so they had to have everyone write down their names and forget to app so we can do this manually after they refused to even help me set up the app. All this to say their attitudea even when their own app failed was horrible. It ruined my relationship with magic, I will never go back there again, and honestly destroyed any fun vibe I had there trying to get back into the game. Do not go here if you want any help or connection from the employees except the one nice guy with a beanie the day before the men running the event for lorwyn eclipsed pre release were mean spirited and the joke was all their attitude and their system still crashed and didn't work so it was extremely embarrassing for them. I know it's been a while since that event but it left such a bad taste in my mouth I've debated for months if I post this and I decided to share my experience after I had a good one somewhere else with the strixhaven release and it made me realize I should share my experience here.

Went in recently to try to play the one piece game - reserved a spot but there was a secret second requirement that no one knew about. Owner said it was posted on discord....but how was anyone supposed to just know that?? It wasnt posted anywhere else! Saw other people get turned away for the same weird secret requirement. Owner apologized saying it was due to people canceling. Well now it seems they lost a group of 3 who very much wanted to play! We'll go somewhere that doesn't play games with reservations and customers...pun intended!

We really enjoyed the games and environment here! I took some kids on an adventure to a train ride and had some extra time around in the early afternoon. Out of curiosity we went into the quiet game cafe. It was conveniently right across from the Metra. It was a superb bonus to our day! There weren't too many games for these little people that can't read but the games suggested were great and we adjusted games as needed.

Really nice board game/card shop with schedule activities/events. The place also operate a small coffee shop. Stoped by to have a look and had a great conversation with Eli. He told me about the place and gave me an hour+ explanation of MTG (super interesting). Will definitely be back for some playing.