Metal Galaxy

When Pascal Espinosa decided to open a board game café during a recession, he knew he couldn’t expect families to pay an hourly rate or a cover charge to come out and spend a few hours playing a game together. Instead, he built Metal Galaxy – a retail store with a café and lounge component – to offer a destination where people could experience board games and enjoy them free of charge.

“This store was really my vision when I started my first business fifteen years ago,” Pascal says. “To me, this feels like what I’ve always wanted a game café to be – fun, mainstream and open to everybody.”

With the help of his wife Dorota Ulkowska, Pascal opened Metal Galaxy in 2012. Pascal says Dorata was instrumental to the process of establishing the store, which quickly outgrew its original 600-square-foot space. In January 2016, the store relocated to a larger spot along Macleod Trail. Back in 2012, Pascal explains, there were no board game cafés in Calgary. Having spotted some in other metropolitan cities like Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, Pascal realized it was something that was overdue for Calgary. “Ultimately, I think we’ve lost touch a bit with the social aspect of life in many ways – and board games help bring that back,” he says. “It’s a no-pressure social interaction where you can discover things about people you maybe didn’t know before, like kindness or competitiveness.”