Top 5 Bars with Games

In a city that’s as hectic and fast-paced as Buenos Aires, sometimes what you need is to take a break and spend a quiet night with friends.

While the term ‘board game’ may sound too wholesome, many bars in Buenos Aires have latched onto the idea of drinking and playing games, a winning combination that has become popular with porteños all over the city. The games on offer vary from board games, video games and traditional bar games like darts and pool. The bars with board games make for intimate and relaxed settings, while the bars offering more sports-based games resemble jazzed up youth clubs or student unions.

Although Buenos Aires can sometimes feel massive, our Top 5 selection have a very local feel to them, with groups of both young and old wiling away hours in them. What unites each of these bars is the incredibly friendly and social atmosphere that greets you at each one. These are definitely bars to come to with a group of your friends, but also places where you’ll find yourself mixing up the teams and socialising with others.

Jobs Bar, Recoleta

Name any game you can think of and Jobs Bar will most likely offer it. Spread over three floors, this bar is mammoth. Here you can play pool, table football, darts, air hockey, ping-pong, and PlayStation, as well as board games like Jenga, which you can play for free.

The bar’s biggest attraction is the archery, and a six arrow turn will set you back $15. While alcohol and inexperienced customers with arrows may sound like a recipe for disaster, in its 20 years of existence, there has apparently never been an accident.

The prices for the rest of the bar are reasonable, standing at $15 for any game of half an hour. The bar is open so it never feels overcrowded and with such a wealth of games and as many as four different bars, you’ll never be stood waiting.

Each floor has sections dedicated to different games. The archery is in its own room on the uppermost floor, and ping pong and pool are closed off unless you’re playing. Here the players are left alone to get serious, so these rooms feel more intense than the relaxed atmosphere of the ground floor.

This is the perfect bar to head to with a big group of friends. Any member of your group will find something to do here, and with cheap drinks and late night pizza, it’s a refreshing alternative to your usual night out in Buenos Aires.

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Acabar, Palermo

Located on Honduras, Acabar is one of Palermo’s biggest success stories. Talk to a porteño about playing games in a bar, and they’re likely to respond with “Acabar!”

This bar-cum-restaurant is huge, spread over three different rooms and has a garden as well as tables outside. The decoration is random, colourful, mismatched and extremely kitsch, all adding a certain charm.

The games on offer here are strictly board games, ranging from giant Jenga, Connect Four, Ludo, Pictionary, Memory and Agente Secreto. The games themselves sit on a rather wonky set of shelves, are old fashioned and a little bit battered, matching the bar’s kooky nature. They’re free to take for any customer, and the only rule is that you put them back where you found them, with all the parts intact.

Acabar is a fun, easy and unpretentious place to hang out. It’s worth going later than you think, however, as such a huge space without a lot of people takes away from the intimacy and atmosphere found once the place fills up a little.

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Café San Bernado, Villa Crespo

Café San Bernardo, on Avenida Corrientes, is an institution. It feels far more you’re having a beer in an old sports hall than in a bar.

Formerly a bank and one of the oldest bars in the Villa Crespo barrio, the pool tables were installed in the 1930s, and the bar hasn’t changed a lot since. The place has a distinctly shabby feel to it, with paint cracking on the walls and ceiling. Cigarette butts litter the floor, while ironic ‘No smoking’ signs are plastered on each wall, and the wooden tables are scattered around haphazardly.

The atmosphere here is light-hearted and social and it’s popular among groups of friends who often meet here to play games, drink beer and eat empanadas. The beer is ludicrously cheap, and if pool’s not your thing, board games are also on offer.

You won’t find a single tourist here. Instead you’ll come across loyal Argentine customers like 66-year old Horacio Navie. He has been coming here every Sunday to meet up with a group of friends he met at the same bar years ago and is testament to just how local the bar is.

Av. Corrientes 5436, Villa Crespo, Buenos Aires, Tel: 4855- 3956, for more information visit Facebook

Krakow Café, San Telmo

This relaxed Polish bar in the heart of San Telmo serves a wide variety of food and drink.

Piled high on shelves, the bar offers traditional board games such as Scrabble, Monopoly and Jenga. The main theme here however, seems to be games that would be funny to play when you’ve had a few: think Operation, Twister and Wii.

Polish owner Tomáš Pytel notes that “People love to get drunk and play Wii, it’s hilarious to watch.” He also states that with board games and Wii, there is no “bullshit” – in other words, no drunken fights like there sometimes is with pool. He appreciates the sociability that games add to a bar, allowing groups to mix and meet new friends.

The bar itself is beautiful – with high beamed ceilings, deep red walls and a tiled floor. The food and drink is reasonably priced, and there is an extensive selection of alcohol, arranged immaculately behind the bar. On weekend afternoons, parents can also catch a break, leaving their kids to the games, while they have something to eat.

The board games are free, and to play on ‘Wii Resort’ you have give your  DNI or a bank card in exchange for the controls. There is also a screen playing films and TV with subtitles, and the music in the bar is at a perfect level for socialising and playing. All in all, a very relaxed, fun and unpretentious place that’s well worth a visit.

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36 Billares, Centro

One of the bars covered in our 54 Bars series, and one of the oldest bars in Buenos Aires, Los 36 Billares has been open since 1894. On street level, there’s a restaurant where you can catch dinner and a tango show in the evenings, but if you descend downstairs, you’ll find something quite different.

In a male dominated environment I was certainly the odd one out, but that’s not to say the bar isn’t a friendly place. There are only a couple of tables, and men sit around talking on red plastic chairs, rather like ones you’d find in a stadium.

Despite its name, the bar has never had 36 pool tables but it is one of Argentina’s most important venues for pool, and national stars of the game come here to play tournaments.

Like Café San Bernardo, it feels like an all-Argentine experience. There is certainly a local feel to the bar, and the customers are clearly friendly with the bar man, who notes that 85% of the people there are regulars.

Tucked away in the back of the bar is a room full of men playing board games, dominoes and card games, while having a drink or a coffee – far more relaxed than the competitive atmosphere found in the billiards room. A game of pool with set you back $20 for an hour.

For more information, click here.