A Pelham business scheduled to open this summer will allow visitors to hoist their mead among fellow gamesmasters as they vie for the prize - or at least, a tasty sandwich.
Valhalla Board Game Café will open this summer at 2408 Pelham Pkwy Suite 400, in the Campus No. 124 development, located at the former Valley Elementary School off U.S. 31,
The brainchild of Nick Hammett and Adam Valentine, the café will serve locally sourced coffee, beer and mead, with sandwiches, charcuterie boards and pastries. But it will also be a forum for games - board games, card games, role playing and other friendly contests.
“Nick and I are everyday normal people,” Valentine said. “ We graduated from Oak Mountain, and we want to build something the community loves and that people enjoy coming to. We just want to have a place where people can come and enjoy themselves.”
The two business partners have always been fans of Norse mythology. About four years ago, they hit on the concept of a shared space for people seeking to play games. But they wanted a viable business model, so the idea of a café space with a menu fit for a Viking struck them as an option.
After the pandemic, they began staging one-off gaming nights around the Birmingham area, testing the concept, making inroads with gamers and looking for investors, raising money for charity.
And they took the name from a slightly distorted amalgam of their last names - the name for the Norse realm for dead warriors, who feast nightly and play games.
This theme will be reflected in ethically-sourced horn mugs and a look fit for long boat riders. Valentine said the concept is based on similar businesses in Europe and Canada.
“There’s not a lot of them in the South yet, and we wanted to be one of the first ones in Alabama.”
“Our priorities are camaraderie, fun, and food. We endeavor to be a place where people can unplug and get lost in games and adventure opposed to getting lost in social media,” Hammett said.
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