I went to The Mind Cafe recently, and having visited Settlers Cafe previously, I had the opportunity to compare the two.

On paper, Mind's Cafe is cheaper than Settlers Cafe, and they even undercharged us by a bit, yet just as with Enzer products, you get what you pay for.

At Settlers Cafe, the staff member assigned to your table helpfully explains the rules of the game before you play, and even goes through an example round to familiarise you with the flow of the game. There's even a button at the table to press when you want to summon a serving wench. At The Mind Cafe, they either do not explain the game to you or do a bad job of doing so, such that you get confused; we tried Saint Petersburg, for example, but no one understood how the game was supposed to go, so in the end, we ended up playing games which at least one person at the table knew how to play already. Above all, they were slow - to refill our water (even when asked), serve our food, get our bill and basically do everything else.

At Settlers, the food was alright, if nothing to write home about. At The Mind Cafe, the food was similarly mediocre (the chicken wings I had were horrible - neither crispy nor tasty, though the keropok garnishing them was good), but Johnny Malkavian asked for them to replace his salad with extra fries, and they didn't do so. Also, they didn't refill our water when ours cups were empty, and we had to prompt them.

Furthermore, at The Mind Cafe, some of the games we played had missing rule booklets and/or game pieces. At Settlers, even if the boxes and pieces were somewhat battered, everything you needed to play the game was there.


On a side note, playing many board games makes one realise why they invented the computer - to automate the troublesome gameplay mechanics so that they may be made more complex without sacrificing playability, and everyone can concentrate on having fun. Though I must say that there's something to be said for rolling a 20-sided die.