“Cozy” was a word that kept coming up as Nolan Petersen and Sean Finn were discussing Diversions, the tabletop game lounge they have just opened in Coralville. The partners and co-owners want Diversions to have a welcoming feeling for newcomers and casual gamers, as well as longtime veterans of Catan or role-playing games (RPGs).
“Sometimes it can be hard to find a place to go with friends that’s casual and comfortable,” Petersen said. “Someplace that’s not a bar.”
The area hasn’t had a tabletop gaming cafe or lounge since Fortuna on the Ped Mall in Iowa City closed at the beginning of 2023.
“Fortuna was always warm and inviting,” Petersen recalled. “It felt like a home away from home, like a living room. You walked in and it never felt like you were in a business. It just felt cozy.”
After years of working at various nonprofits and other places (Petersen even once worked on the business side of Little Village, doing sales and marketing), Petersen and Finn were already thinking about opening their own business when Fortuna closed. They talked to Justin Ford, Fortuna’s owner, and then made an extensive tour of board game cafes throughout the Midwest, speaking to owners and asking them what advice they wished they had received before they opened their businesses.
“Everyone was incredibly generous with their insights and suggestions,” Petersen said.
One piece of advice they heard repeatedly was to start by hosting pop-up events. The pop-ups would help them gauge local interest in a brick-and-mortar board game lounge, and start to build a community around the new project.
Diversions first appeared as a pop-up at the Green House in Iowa City in January last year.
“We were doing three to five events a month around Iowa City in 2024,” Finn said.
People were interested. A community started forming, supporting an online fundraiser for Diversions.
The pop-ups were all open-play events, not built around a particular game and not featuring competitive tournaments. They were designed to appeal to people just looking to have fun, not those ready to launch a six-hour marathon gaming campaign. That’s the atmosphere Petersen and Finn want to create now that Diversions has a permanent home.
“We certainly welcome hardcore gamers, we’d love to have them, but we’re really more focused on casual gamers and non-gamers,” Petersen said.
Diversions has a game library of 400 board, card, dice and role-playing games, as well as games of manual dexterity. The lounge will hold regular learn-to-play evenings to introduce people to new games.
“For role-playing games, we’ll have experienced gamemasters (GMs),” Petersen said. He added, “We’re hoping to have a GMs’ guild, where gamemasters can come in and network, discuss best practices and tips and tricks, about how to run a game more effectively and enjoyably.”
There’s also a private room with a custom gaming table that can be rented by the hour.
For the main gaming hall, the cost is $7 for two hours, during which you can play any of the games in Diversions’ library. For $14, you can play all day long, instead of two hours. Snacks and drinks are available, including free popcorn.
A wall in the gaming hall serves as a gallery space, showing works by local artists, which are available for sale. Diversions also has a retail area that sells tabletop games.
“Over 90 percent of the games we have for sale are ones that we have in our game library, so you check them out first to see if you really want to buy them,” Finn said. “We have art prints, stickers, magnets, pins and stationery. We’ll have some things that are unique, that you really can’t find elsewhere in Iowa City or eastern Iowa.”
The retail selection, like the rest of Diversions, reflects Petersen and Finn’s dedication to making their space welcoming to and supportive of the LGBTQ community and neurodivergent people.
“Is it queer, is it neurodivergent, is it nerdy?” is how Peterson described the question he and Finn asked themselves when selecting items for sale.
Above all, Petersen and Finn said they want Diversions to be “a comfortable space for gaming.”
“If it’s not cozy, then we’ve kind of defeated the purpose of why we opened it in the first place,” Petersen said.
Diversions Tabletop Game Lounge in Coralville (119 2nd St. Suite 300) will hold its grand opening on Saturday, April 12, from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Regular hours are 4-10 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, 1-11 p.m. on Friday, and 11 a.m.-11 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
