04 · The lending shelf
The lending shelf
120 boxes you can take home for a week. Every one of them comes back and gets counted.
How Borrowing Works
- Choose from the shelf by the counter.
Up to two boxes at a time with a card, one without.
- Pay the card fee or €3.
The card is €24 a year; without one, a box is €3 for the week.
- Leave the deposit in cash.
€20 a box, or €40 for a box over 3 kg.
- We note the box and the date on a paper slip in the lid.
The slip also carries the weight of each card deck.
- Bring it back within seven days, during opening hours.
Renew once by email if the week was not long enough.
- We count it with you at the counter.
Five to fifteen minutes, then the deposit comes back in full.
Prices and the Card
Table fees, drinks and food are on the visiting page.
The Shelf Map
Eight sections, A to H, all 120 boxes. Length is a typical game in minutes, and a few shelves suit six or more players.
| Shelf | What is on it | Players | Length | Boxes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Two-player games | 2 | 20 to 45 min | 16 |
| B | Quick card games | 2 to 6 | Under 30 min | 18 |
| C | Family games for ages 6 and up | 2 to 5 | 20 to 40 min | 17 |
| D | Cooperative games | 1 to 5 | 45 to 90 min | 14 |
| E | Party games | 6 to 10 | 15 to 30 min | 12 |
| F | Mid-length strategy | 3 to 5 | 60 to 120 min | 19 |
| G | Long strategy | 2 to 4 | Over 2 hours | 12 |
| H | Word and drawing games | 4 to 8 | 15 to 45 min | 12 |
The Count
Every box that comes back is counted at the counter, with you, before the deposit goes back. This is how, in Mira's words.
- Lid off, slip out, check the dates.
The paper slip in the lid has your name, the day you took the box and the day it is due. I read it out loud, partly so we both know and partly out of habit.
- Rule book first, flat, every page.
Rule books go missing more than anything else, and a game without its rules is a puzzle nobody asked for. I turn every page.
- Board unfolded and checked for bent corners.
Opened flat on the counter. A bent corner is nobody's fault, and I note it on the slip so the next person knows it was already there.
- Card decks weighed, then counted by hand if the weight is off.
Each deck goes on a small kitchen scale against the weight written on the slip. One missing card shows up as a gram or two. If the weight matches, nobody has to sit through me counting 110 cards.
- Tokens counted by colour into a sorting tray.
Tipped out, sorted by colour, counted in fives. This is the step people like to watch.
- Dice counted, and each one rolled once.
Rolling them proves nothing, but I have done it since the first week and I am not stopping now.
- Wooden pieces counted against the component list.
The list is on the back of the rule book, and the pieces are counted against it, never against memory.
- Any loose piece goes into the spares jar log.
A piece that does not belong to the box goes into the spares jar, and into the log with the box it turned up in. The jar has saved about a hundred boxes over the years.
- Bags resealed, the insert seated, the lid on.
Everything goes back the way it came out, so the next person opens a box that looks new.
- The slip is signed, the deposit is handed back, and the box goes back on its shelf with a pencil tick.
The tick goes on the inside of the lid. Some boxes have forty of them.
- 1lid off, slip out
- 2rule book
- 3board, corners
- 4decks, by weight
- 5tokens, by colour
- 6dice, rolled once
- 7wooden pieces
- 9insert seated
Counting in front of you matters more than the counting itself. You see that the box came back whole, your deposit comes back on the spot, and nobody is ever told a week later that a piece went missing while the box was with them. It takes five to fifteen minutes, depending on the box, and most people stay to watch.
Mira
What We Don't Lend
- New arrivals, during their first eight weeks in the café.
- Boxes with more than 400 small pieces.
- Anything on the Thursday long game shelf that week; Long Game Night keeps those set up.