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Chikout wrote:
You guys are all crazy. 4000 square feet is bloody massive. You could fit my house into it 7 times! If the venue has two floors you could comfortably fit in 40 or so gaming tables. Plenty of space for medium sized events.
As has been said, they are not trying to make warhammer world 2 or trying to compete with the Lvo and adepticon venues. This is just a cafe with a smallish event space.
In fact if you look at last year gw attended Lvo, (West coastish), Adepticon (north) and Nova (east).
If they have a small open day in the south (100 or so tickets), they will give the opportunity for people from most of America a chance to attend gw seminars and meet the team.

Aren't japanese houses like... extremely small?

The Warhammer Cafe will be the size of two "average" USA houses.

4000 sq. ft. is about 1/3 the size of my usual game shop/cafe. And no, I'm not kidding. Granted, Mox Boarding House (formerly Card Kingdom) carries more than just one line of games, but it's easily 12000 sq. ft. Not all of that is game space, the actual cafe part is probably about 25% of the space.

It will be interesting to see if it can stand on its own and thus prompt opening in other areas, but I honestly have my doubts.

Edit: I apparently can't estimate space. Mox is actually 25,000 sq. ft. So it's 6.25 x the size of the planned GW Cafe.

https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/33038/icv2-visits-mox-boarding-house

You guys are all crazy. 4000 square feet is bloody massive. You could fit my house into it 7 times!

Really tiny house? My flat is 50% bigger than that and has only 2 rooms.
1m² is roughly 10 sqft. This is going to be less than twice as big as my dad's house (roughly 220 m²), and that isn't even that big a house where I come from - which is not a particularly rich region.

Really? Grapevine Mills? That mall is ass my dudes. Anyways it's nicely situated to pull in from Fort Worth and North Dallas. Sleepy suburbs and non-stop highway construction.

Guess I got lucky. Cafe is gonna be a real quick drive down the road for me.

 avantgarde wrote:
That mall is ass my dudes.

Nowadays, aren't all malls ass? They are in my area at least.

DFW... Wow! What a horrible horrible horrible location choice. TX is great and all, I love it there, but DFW just isn't viable. Other than DFW itself, Houston, San Antonio and Austin, there are no other major populated areas to draw from. No one will ever travel to this Warhammer Cafe who doesn't already live in TX in one of these nearby cities - which are themselves even 5+ hours drive away.

If I were to even attempt visiting this store...
1. I would need to set aside no less than 3 days to travel (Fri-Sun), which means: using a vacation day from work; two days of travel and ultimately having ONE day of gaming.
2. Round trip airfare will be no less than $300.00.
3. A hotel room for two nights will be another $300.00.
4. 3 days food & drink would be another very conservative $100.00.

3 days and $700.00 to have ONE day of gaming = NO FETHING WAY!

And I imagine this will be the case for most others.

Chicago could have drawn in people from Minneapolis, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, Detroit. That's 6 major cities in 5 states. It's a massively populated region of the country.
And the east cost... It's basically one continuous megalopolis from Boston to DC.

I looked at flights. About $450 for return for me. I could see if I was going for a two day event and then planned on spending a couple days or more doing Texas things.

Also, there are like 20 million people in this region:



Do people actually in Texas call it the "Texas Triangle"? From space:

 EnTyme wrote:
For baseball fans, the Texas Rangers also just broke ground on a new stadium. And there's FC Dallas for those who don't know what real football is . Also the Stars for our Canadian visitors, and the Mavericks for the self-loathing. Lots of sports destinations for those who may want to combine their wargaming trip with some feats of athleticism.

Wait...NEW one? When I lived there the one they had was already huge. What the hell are they going to do with the old one?

 Chamberlain wrote:


Do people actually in Texas call it the "Texas Triangle"? From space:

No. I lived in Houston for 15 years.

 avantgarde wrote:
Really? Grapevine Mills? That mall is ass my dudes. Anyways it's nicely situated to pull in from Fort Worth and North Dallas. Sleepy suburbs and non-stop highway construction.

Guess I got lucky. Cafe is gonna be a real quick drive down the road for me.

Seemed like a well maintained strip mall, to me. Very family friendly and gak tons of people walking through all the time.

So...

It'll be interesting to see how this does. As it stands, I don't live anywhere near Texas, so this is worse than useless for me. It's hard to get excited for something that is so far away. I feel the same way about Warhammer World in the UK. Yeah, it's cool and all, but I'm not flying to the UK to visit. IF it does well and IF they build more in my area... then I'll get excited.

For context, the drive from my house in Delaware to this new cafe is roughly the same drive a Londoner would have if they decided to drive to a cafe in Minsk, Belarus. The round trip would take about 48 hours. To mirror above comments, even taking the cheapest flight options would involve a two days of travel, rental car, airfare, hotel stay, vacation time from work and $500-1000. Travel within the US over large distances can be somewhat impractical... and also somewhat unnecessary. The Dallas Fort Worth area offers very little that my local area doesn't also offer.

 oni wrote:
DFW... Wow! What a horrible horrible horrible location choice. TX is great and all, I love it there, but DFW just isn't viable. Other than DFW itself, Houston, San Antonio and Austin, there are no other major populated areas to draw from. No one will ever travel to this Warhammer Cafe who doesn't already live in TX in one of these nearby cities - which are themselves even 5+ hours drive away.

If I were to even attempt visiting this store...
1. I would need to set aside no less than 3 days to travel (Fri-Sun), which means: using a vacation day from work; two days of travel and ultimately having ONE day of gaming.
2. Round trip airfare will be no less than $300.00.
3. A hotel room for two nights will be another $300.00.
4. 3 days food & drink would be another very conservative $100.00.

3 days and $700.00 to have ONE day of gaming = NO FETHING WAY!

And I imagine this will be the case for most others.

Chicago could have drawn in people from Minneapolis, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, Detroit. That's 6 major cities in 5 states. It's a massively populated region of the country.
And the east cost... It's basically one continuous megalopolis from Boston to DC.

This store is not a tourist attraction. There are MILLIONS of people in that area and a very strong Warhammer scene.

A lot of people seem to think that the only reason to go to Dallas is for wargaming. I don't think that even GW thinks this will be a vacation destination. They chose an area with multiple attractions ranging from theme parks (Six Flags Over Texas) to zoos (the Ft. Worth Zoo was one of the most memorable trips we took when I was a kid) to a thriving music scene (Denton) to sports (see my previous post). Unless your city had been named as the location, literally any other city would have had the same problems people are claiming about Dallas. Oh, and for those who are wanting to have a drink as you game, Texas has one of the largest craft brewing industries in the world, and just about every coffee shop in my area (the Texas Panhandle) now has a liquor license these days. I would expect the Metroplex to be the same.

Why does anyone think that this is a destination, and that it has to serve the purpose of being a destination? It's a game store that will sell pastries and coffee. Big deal if it isn't in your neighborhood. It clearly seems like a pilot that they'll roll out to other places if successful. Settle down people.

 mace_ace wrote:
Why does anyone think that this is a destination, and that it has to serve the purpose of being a destination? It's a game store that will sell pastries and coffee. Big deal if it isn't in your neighborhood. It clearly seems like a pilot that they'll roll out to other places if successful. Settle down people.

From my understanding its also a destination for the dev team and events which makes it more interesting as murica doesn't have those nice games days to go chat them up.

if its just coffee and cryptecs then meh.

 Alpharius wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
4000SF is fine for what their planning. That's twice as much square footage as my house and you can easily fit a cafe in half my home the other have being offices/storage and 2k SF for gaming area. That's more than fine if you don't cut the space up crazy.

I mean the stores here is maybe 20x20sf. So 400sf. Plus 600sf of storage plus 1k of cafe and 2k of gaming area.

Yeah, my house is just shy of 2000sf, so 4000sf would be a good size. It won't be big enough to host a grand tournament, but it should still fit half a dozen gaming table easily after accounting for the cafe and store.

Sadly, that size does suggest it'll be a fairly minimal cafe like the ones they have in Target and such. Pity, I really was hoping for a Bugman's in order to make it a real destination type place.

Yeah, I think the size strongly points to what this is intended to be -- a really nice Battle Bunker store with some food and drink, and not a U.S.-based Warhammer World with a gaming hall and Bugman's. Which is probably why the thing is called a cafe and not WW-US, lol.

I'm sure GW would *love* to have people flying in from all over the country to see it, but that's not going to happen, and this still looks to me like a test of a concept that could be applied in other major metro areas. Larger metro destination stores/hubs are actually what some of us in the U.S. have been calling for ever since they went to the one-person concept. If it works out, I think it's a really good thing and better approach for the U.S. market.

Exactly!

I was hoping for a Warhammer World US, but it looks like it will be a slightly bigger GWUS store that sells...snacks and drinks? Maybe?

I don't think many people are going to travel any significant distance for that.

Hell, it could even be them doing a trial run for a new way of doing Warhammer/GW shops here in the US period.

One of the biggest complaints you always hear about is that the shops are so small and dingy and crowded--but this would have to be a bit larger just as the concept. It would also require a few more staff than the normal 1 man shops, unless their way of providing snacks & drinks is just to add vending machines.

I have a million people within a 6 hour drive of me. In my city we have major event centres, a big board game cafe that has expanded twice, a 8000 sqft eSports themed night club and more.

This location has close to 20 million people within the same distance. And given how closely GW watches sales performance and spending, I think this location is going to do just fine.

 EnTyme wrote:
A lot of people seem to think that the only reason to go to Dallas is for wargaming. I don't think that even GW thinks this will be a vacation destination. They chose an area with multiple attractions ranging from theme parks (Six Flags Over Texas) to zoos (the Ft. Worth Zoo was one of the most memorable trips we took when I was a kid) to a thriving music scene (Denton) to sports (see my previous post). Unless your city had been named as the location, literally any other city would have had the same problems people are claiming about Dallas. Oh, and for those who are wanting to have a drink as you game, Texas has one of the largest craft brewing industries in the world, and just about every coffee shop in my area (the Texas Panhandle) now has a liquor license these days. I would expect the Metroplex to be the same.

That's not entirely true. The U.S. has several "Destination Cities" that people travel to just to see the city. Dallas isn't in the top five of them. Most of the coastal populations have much easier local access to everything you just listed as a reason to visit Dallas.

I've yet to find a list that named Los Angeles as a top 10 place to visit either, yet it's one of the most popular suggestions. If they'd asked me, I'd have probably recommended Austin, but the local population is roughly 1/10th the size of DFW.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
A lot of people seem to think that the only reason to go to Dallas is for wargaming. I don't think that even GW thinks this will be a vacation destination. They chose an area with multiple attractions ranging from theme parks (Six Flags Over Texas) to zoos (the Ft. Worth Zoo was one of the most memorable trips we took when I was a kid) to a thriving music scene (Denton) to sports (see my previous post). Unless your city had been named as the location, literally any other city would have had the same problems people are claiming about Dallas. Oh, and for those who are wanting to have a drink as you game, Texas has one of the largest craft brewing industries in the world, and just about every coffee shop in my area (the Texas Panhandle) now has a liquor license these days. I would expect the Metroplex to be the same.

That's not entirely true. The U.S. has several "Destination Cities" that people travel to just to see the city. Dallas isn't in the top five of them. Most of the coastal populations have much easier local access to everything you just listed as a reason to visit Dallas.

Agreed. People talk about wanting to go to NYC or Vegas or Boston. People generally don't talk about traveling to Texas for a quick vacation. There are theme parks everywhere in the US. There are zoos and aquariums all over the place. Every area has a "thriving local music scene". As to sports... well... people tend to prefer the home team. I used to live in Texas. It's a generally decent place. It's not any better than the majority of other places in the US. I'm definitely not traveling 1500 miles to go to a slightly different theme park or see a different tiger at a more distant zoo.

Let's call a duck a duck. Games Workshop's US retail operations are run out of Dallas, Texas. The cafe's location is just outside of Dallas. They're building it close to home as an experiment they can easily keep tabs on. If it's successful, maybe we'll see more in other areas. I'm curious to see how it does. The idea of food/beer with a game is appealing, but I'll pick an FLGS that hosts a wide array of gaming options over a GW shop any day of the week.

 avantgarde wrote:
Really? Grapevine Mills?

Yet another example of everything old being new again! At one time, a number of the old, larger GW stores were at malls in the Mills chain.

 mace_ace wrote:
Why does anyone think that this is a destination, and that it has to serve the purpose of being a destination? It's a game store that will sell pastries and coffee. Big deal if it isn't in your neighborhood. It clearly seems like a pilot that they'll roll out to other places if successful. Settle down people.

The answer is in the name. Ultimately, it's a cafe. I'm sure they'll do things to drive traffic there, but I don't think GW really believes a cafe will regularly draw people in from 1000 miles away. But if you're in a metro area that has one, it could be a cool thing.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
A lot of people seem to think that the only reason to go to Dallas is for wargaming. I don't think that even GW thinks this will be a vacation destination. They chose an area with multiple attractions ranging from theme parks (Six Flags Over Texas) to zoos (the Ft. Worth Zoo was one of the most memorable trips we took when I was a kid) to a thriving music scene (Denton) to sports (see my previous post). Unless your city had been named as the location, literally any other city would have had the same problems people are claiming about Dallas. Oh, and for those who are wanting to have a drink as you game, Texas has one of the largest craft brewing industries in the world, and just about every coffee shop in my area (the Texas Panhandle) now has a liquor license these days. I would expect the Metroplex to be the same.

That's not entirely true. The U.S. has several "Destination Cities" that people travel to just to see the city. Dallas isn't in the top five of them. Most of the coastal populations have much easier local access to everything you just listed as a reason to visit Dallas.

I'm gonna agree with this too. Note that's not a dig at Dallas, which I'm sure is a very nice city, nor at is it a shot at the cafe's viability.

tedurur wrote:

 DouglasJB wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:
Yeah that's about 400 m2, so say 20x20 meters... not very big!

Sorry, more like 1150m2.
I may be off by a bit also, but 400 is definitely too little.

If you are going to take your time to correct someone online you should make sure that you are actually correct 4000 square feet is roughly 400 square meter (371 to be exact).

To not get into a disagreement, I guess I am just doing my conversions wrong then.
Sorry.

 EnTyme wrote:
I've yet to find a list that named Los Angeles as a top 10 place to visit either, yet it's one of the most popular suggestions. If they'd asked me, I'd have probably recommended Austin, but the local population is roughly 1/10th the size of DFW.

Really? Disneyland, Legoland, Knotts, Venice Beach, Hollywood, Queen Mary and Universal Studios all within 2hrs drive doesn't crack the top ten? Okay.

skarsol wrote:

 DouglasJB wrote:

Congratulations to the Texans!

You mean congratulations to people in the DFW area. You seem to be having an issue with underestimating the size of Texas as well. That's a 4 hour drive from Houston.

Actually, I meant what I said.
Someone in Amarillo or El Paso will have an easier time getting to this place than I will.

You will have a four drive - why are you complaining?!?
Or are you from back East originally?
If no, as a Westerner, like the rest of us west of the Mississippi and east of the Cascades/Sierra Nevadas, you know that such distances are simply a fact of life for those living in the region.
A very unpleasant fact many times I will quite admit, especially this time of year where at my current latitude Winter is a November-to-April season.
2-4 hours drive is comparatively nothing for many things here in the Rockies where the deer out number the humans 100+-to-1.
I could give more empirical proof, but, in general, the horse is already dead.

On the other hand and specifically, I am looking at a 22 hour drive with all of the costs that entails to go to this venue.
If I want to save some time, but probably not any money really, a three and a half hour drive and a two and a half hour ($250 rt) flight.
Or I can save the most time on a four and a half hour rt flight at $552.
I do not know about you, but that is a LOT of money I am then not spending on toy soldiers, books or paint!
AND that is just on travel costs!!!

But in the end, that is just me, yes?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think a lot folks are missing the point here.
This is NOT just supposed to be some enlarged GW store!
Let me simply quote from the original announcement and then the General Manager job description respectively:

Much more than just a store, the Warhammer Cafe will have a larger footprint, allowing for more gaming tables and enough space to run special events and activities. What’s more, you’ll be able to hang out and fuel your gaming and painting sessions with some tasty snacks and top-notch beverages.

The Warhammer Cafe will also act as a hub for the Warhammer hobby in North America, hosting guests from the Design Studio and a series of unique displays of Citadel miniatures. We (the Warhammer TV and Community teams) are super excited to check out the cafe, and you can bet we’ll be swinging by to help support the venue and report on the quality of the coffee.

and

The Warhammer Cafe will act as a hub for the Warhammer Hobby in North America, hosting guests from our design studio, showcasing unique displays of Citadel Miniatures, offering an extended range, exclusive surprises, and hosting the most exciting Warhammer events in all of North America.

Sounds more like a smaller Warhammer World to me.

And at 4,000 sq ft,, that is nothing here in the US.
I will not bore the non-Americans with the size of grocery stores here, but almost all are bigger than that, even here in the Rockies.
For something that is supposed to be "a hub for the Warhammer hobby in North America", it needs be a lot bigger.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
I've yet to find a list that named Los Angeles as a top 10 place to visit either, yet it's one of the most popular suggestions. If they'd asked me, I'd have probably recommended Austin, but the local population is roughly 1/10th the size of DFW.

Really? Disneyland, Legoland, Knotts, Venice Beach, Hollywood, Queen Mary and Universal Studios all within 2hrs drive doesn't crack the top ten? Okay.

Only relaying my search results, man. San Diego (went there last summer. Loved the city), San Franciso (one of my personal top 5 places I need to visit), etc. made most lists, but not LA. Also, I'm not saying it was the best possible location, I'm just trying to give reasons that it was as good a decision as any other major metropolitan area. I'm sure GW didn't just throw a dart at a map and say "there". They probably did a ton of research and found a lot of the statistics I've mentioned. Combine all this with lower cost of living and their existing offices in the area (and those were probably some of the biggest factors) and the decision makes sense.

 EnTyme wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
I've yet to find a list that named Los Angeles as a top 10 place to visit either, yet it's one of the most popular suggestions. If they'd asked me, I'd have probably recommended Austin, but the local population is roughly 1/10th the size of DFW.

Really? Disneyland, Legoland, Knotts, Venice Beach, Hollywood, Queen Mary and Universal Studios all within 2hrs drive doesn't crack the top ten? Okay.

Only relaying my search results, man. San Diego (went there last summer. Loved the city), San Franciso (one of my personal top 5 places I need to visit), etc. made most lists, but not LA.

Probably due to them having the worst traffic times in the world.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/yep-los-angeles-has-the-worlds-worst-traffic-congestion-%e2%80%94-again/ar-BBIKTsA

ABC Store #4 provides an example of what 4,000 square foot space looks like: Diamond Contracting

Krikes some of you are making a huge deal out of this. I live in mn and I think this is a great idea and location. There is enough space for small events, a store, gaming, and a cafe style eatery. I literally watch this format work on a weekly basis with the ffg game center. It's about the double the size but the store takes up way more space and they have a full kitchen.

Overall it'll work well. It is one of the top 3 places I'd have picked as well. Chicago kin da sucks to travel to due to congestion, toll roads, and costs are higher. Dc area has a lot of the same issues though tolls aren't as bad. Honestly it's probably one of the most reasonable proof of concepts that will give them the best data. Honestly given prices I wouldn't put one on the west coast. I'd just work with flg if I wanted to host an event on the coast.

From how that is worded, i wonder if the 4k is for the event center/gaming space and does not include the retail and cafe/kitchen portion?

edit: also i think this is meant to service the area its in and not be something you go to from back east say. i think the plan is to do them in multiple large metro areas where the local population can float them, region hubs. i'm sure i'll still be way to far away from one, i'm at least 350 miles from the nearest GW store.

Why does everyone assume it will be just one floor? They could have the shop on the first floor, a cafe/ display area on the second floor and a gaming space on the third floor. 4000 square feet just means the footprint doesn't it?