The Round Table Board Game Café

The food at The Round Table is built to be eaten with one hand. Wings you can work through without looking down. Poutine that holds together between turns. A milkshake that asks nothing of you but a straw. This downtown Guelph board-game café runs its kitchen around the thing in the middle of every table, which is almost always a game, and the menu's quiet job is to keep a group fed without pulling anyone out of play. The shelves hold more than 150 titles, from a ten-minute filler to a campaign that eats the whole evening, and the food is paced to match whichever one the table picked.

The menu reads like a roll call for the people it expects. X-Wings come by the pound, the sauce list running from honey garlic to dry cajun, with fries, soup, or salad turning the order into a meal. Ra Ra Ras-Poutine is the comfort anchor — seasoned fries, cheese curds, gravy, easy to share between rounds. Around it sit Nacho-Ral Twenty, the Army of Antojitos, a Grilled Cheesus, IM-peck-able Tenders, and the Utinni Panini, a savoury spread built more for grazing than for a single plated entrée. The sweet end runs to Chell's Cheesecake and Mr. Milkshake, which comes in chocolate, vanilla, raspberry, salted caramel, cinnamon chai, and chocolate Earl Grey — a finish that suits a kids' table and a late-night one alike.