- McKenzie Crist is opening Dice on Draft, a board game bar at 20 E. 5th St. in Covington, featuring more than 200 free-to-play games, drinks, and a private room for tabletop RPGs.
- Inspired by the closure of Cincinnati’s The Rook, Crist wants to create an accessible, welcoming space where the Northern Kentucky community can gather around tabletop games.
- The bar, set to open this fall, will host learn-to-play events, connect players with groups, and offer both family-friendly and adult-oriented atmospheres depending on the time of day.
McKenzie Crist wants to bring people together through tabletop games.
What began as a fun college hobby grew into a community-building business opportunity that merges her passion for tabletop gaming with her love of bringing people together. For her, tabletop games, like Dungeons and Dragons, provide a way to escape reality through your imagination to adventure through a new universe for a few hours.
“It’s a good carve out time to kind of be together and hang out and feel like a kid again–just using your imagination,” she said. “I’ve always loved the community around that, and I feel like there’s been kind of a resurgence in it.”
Crist is in the process of opening a board game bar called Dice on Draft at 20 E. 5th St. in Covington. The bar will offer over 200 free-to-play board games, a private room for tabletop RPGs, and a variety of drinks, including beer, wine, cocktails and non-alcoholic options.
Part of Crist’s inspiration to start a bar came from the closure of The Rook, a board-game bar that used to be in Cincinnati’s Over-The-Rhine neighborhood and shut down before the COVID-19 pandemic. Crist wants to bring that idea south across the Ohio River to Covington, a city she believes is undergoing tremendous growth.
“We’re just trying to slot into such a rapidly growing community and trying to find our place,” she said.
With Draft with Dice, Crist aims to show her customers that she’s making a personal investment in the local gaming community, rather than a strictly business-focused play.
“Part of it was just how deeply entrenched we are in the community,” she said. “It’s disappointing to have a place open that is of your interest, and the owners just kind of saw it as an investment opportunity.”
Crist explained that tabletop games can be both time-consuming and expensive to play, which creates barriers for casual players or beginners. To make the games more accessible, Dice on Draft plans to host learn-to-play events, connect people looking for gaming groups, and offer a rentable, private room for longer game horizons.
Crist’s husband, DJ Stanley, is also a dedicated tabletop gamer, enjoying everything from casual board games to weekly Dungeons & Dragons sessions. Although Crist is the sole owner, Stanley has taken it upon himself to help her with some of the business’s operations, such as bookkeeping, and has provided labor for the bar’s renovation in advance of its opening.
Like Crist, Stanley believes the bar will be a friendly and open space for the gaming community.
“I enjoy a full range of things, from simple family board games like you’d think of, all the way through advanced strategy games and tabletop RPGs,” he said. “We play Dungeons and Dragons almost every week. McKenzie is actually a dungeon master for our group, so she’s the one who runs the games. As far as what this is going to provide, I think it’s going to be a really nice, friendly, open space for the community to play all kinds of different games.
Currently, the bar is projected to open in the fall, Stanley said. Renovations are well underway, with the bar equipment being installed and framed. The couple is now focused on staffing, with interviews completed and job offers expected soon, while plumbing work is scheduled to start within the next two weeks, pending final permit approvals and minor architectural revisions.
Once open, Crist wants her bar to have a welcoming atmosphere that’s inclusive of both game and non-game fans, with a family-friendly feel before 8 p.m. and a more adult vibe afterwards.