Secret Adventure

I visited Secret Adventure– formally the Princess of Wales pub in Stratford– last Saturday for its launch party. The original grand opening was scheduled for the beginning of November, but the date came and went without any fanfare. I’m local to this venture and was following it on social media, which provided me with the only indication that they were open for business, so we chanced it.
The business is a sister branch of The Loading Bar in Stoke Newington, which is billed as ‘a space for gamers and non-​gamers alike to drink, relax and play’ and has proved a popular concept. Don’t mistake this for a trendy board game café, however. Secret Adventure is currently mostly (read: almost entirely) geared towards video games– we were slightly led astray thinking that it would be a common space for video and board games in tandem. A lacklustre effort had been made to represent some board games, but the meagre collection of about ten offerings in the corner was disappointing. We were advised that more games were on the way.
There were five screens lined against a wall for gaming– these appeared to be hooked up to PCs, but there were screens for console games as well. Only two systems were in operation on the night, but they were drawing in crowds (and causing some congestion around the bar). The games that were showcased were apparently in development, and they offered hilarious frustration when we were finally able to play one.
Few changes appear to have been made to modernise the old boozer and the drinks selection was uninspired– there were no local or craft beers in sight, and I couldn’t get a wine spritzer (just a glass of white wine and a bottle of soda water, okay?). There were party-​sized Haribo and chocolate bars strewn across the bar, which proffered a strong indication of the crowd demographic: university students. Mostly male. I wish I could say we hadn’t been joined by an overenthusiastic group of role players while attempting to master the rules of Exploding Kittens– the most successful Kickstarter-​backed game ever (so the package heralds) — I wish I could.
Aside from general awkwardness and feeling a bit old for the gimmick– we were thankfully outdone by the punters who had obviously wandered into the pub out of habit, having overlooked the signs of its rebirth. Stratford is in need of something like this, but this is a venture best left for the students– the staff were all very pleasant, but the pub still needs to be dragged out of its squalor and the drinks selection reconsidered if it wants to pull in the trendier throngs.
There’s obviously still a lot of work to be done– as the pile of tools and boards adjacent to the bar suggested– but at least the doors are open. We’ll happy give this place a reboot visit in a few months to see whether we can be persuaded to become regulars, but we’ll stick with Draughts until then.
*Disclaimer: I am not, nor have I ever been, a gamer.