When alumni Coty Giannelli and Hayley Bennett started deciding on an idea for their business, they both thought there was a need for a family-friendly environment where adults could bring their children and have fun with their whole family.

Board and Bevy, a tabletop and board game lounge located on 141 E. Summit St. in Kent, was born out of that idea. After years of planning, the spot opened April 6.

“I’ve always wanted to own my own business and provide something to different people,” said Bennett, who is one of the co-owners of the lounge along with her husband Giannelli. “We have a 3-year-old and a seven-year-old and they’re both obsessed with board games. There are a lack of things in the area that are truly family-friendly where you can take your children and they can be just as entertained as you are. We realized there was a need for someplace like this.”

While being a family-friendly environment, the lounge does have a fair share of college students that come in and play games, especially on the weekends.

“I think it’s a nice stop for college students earlier in the night before they make their way downtown,” Bennett said. “People can come here, play games, have a few drinks and unwind before the rest of the night. We have just over 300 games for people to play.”

The stop offers a wide variety of alcoholic beverages, several snack options and non-alcoholic beverages like soda or mocktails and mead for people to enjoy while gaming. 

“We are a bar, but we’re not trying to focus solely on that aspect,” Giannelli said. “We also want to focus on having non-alcoholic alternatives. It’s safer too than just offering alcoholic beverages.”

Bennett said they wanted to provide young audiences with beverages to enjoy just as much as the adult crowd.

“We knew that we wanted to make an environment for kids to enjoy, so we’ve tried to come up with a large selection of different craft sodas with quality or organic ingredients instead of things that have high fructose corn syrup or preservatives,” Bennett said. “We’ve also partnered with Bent Tree Coffee, which is out of Kent, and serve several of their coffee selections.”

Giannelli said one of the best parts of going somewhere new is getting to try something new, so on top of different drink choices, they have lots of snack baskets for people of all ages to enjoy. 

“We’re hoping to expand into having sandwiches and stuff at some point, but for right now we have pretzels, chicken fritters, croissants and different snack baskets,” he said. “We have different seasonings, so you can season your pretzels however you want and even create a combo like cinnamon maple and donut glaze, which is a very popular combo.” 

Giannelli said there’s something for everyone to enjoy. He said for their snack baskets, they offer different choices like chips and candy. 

“I think there’s a little something for everyone to enjoy,” he said. “Yesterday for 4/20, we were even selling THC seltzers, which we still offer.”

Getting it going

When the couple was in the process of creating the lounge, they faced a lot of pitfalls in getting it ready and finally opening it up to the public. 

“We just gutted the whole building and started over,” Bennett said. “It had been left for dead for

years after its run as a grocery store and doctor’s office. There was water coming down from the ceiling, the walls were caving in and we just had to redo everything.”

Bennett said they had to get the ceiling back to its original height and then clean and paint it.

The couple painted the whole building and did the work of remodeling it themselves.

“We had to put all of our efforts into this,” she said. “It just took us a lot longer because it was basically just me and my mom, and we drove a 26-foot truck to Columbus and picked up the pews we’re using. We upholstered the seats, painted them and even made the wooden tabletops.” 

Planning for the future

Bennett said they have a lot of room for expansion and plan on getting a frozen drink machine for slushies and other beverages. They’d also like to be included in Kent’s DORA boundary, so people can enjoy alcoholic beverages outside the lounge. 

DORA stands for Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area and allows people to grab a drink from participating restaurants and carry the beverage outside within a certain distance. Kent has participating DORA restaurants and boundaries located on its webpage. 

“I think having a DORA would help us not only financially, but get more people to come in and check us out,” she said. “I know DORA has been really successful so far in Kent, so I’m hoping that’s something we can become included in.”

Bennett wants to adopt a consignment-type situation at some point and allow student artists to hang their works in and around the lounge for sale. 

She said while the process of opening the lounge has been long, it’s been worth it. 

“It’s been so rewarding to finally get back into the rhythm of life — it’s only our second weekend, but it already feels so much better,” Bennett said.

Molly Hoffer is a campus editor. Contact her at [email protected].