The Bard and Bear Games Cafe

The Bard and Bear Games Cafe Hamilton's downtown board game café. Please contact us by phone or through our website.

Tuesday the 13th, come find folks to play games with here at The Bard and Bear ♥️We’ve got the games, the snacks, the ta...
10/11/2026

Tuesday the 13th, come find folks to play games with here at The Bard and Bear ♥️

We’ve got the games, the snacks, the tables, and even the friends — you just have to bring yourself!

The second Tuesday (of most months) and the last Thursday (of every month), we set aside our biggest tables as a gathering space for folks looking to find new board game buddies ♟️♟️

Come grab a seat and pick out a game!


On James North

✨5th Anniversary Draw✨ Prize 11: Private Dungeon Crawler Carl One-Shot!The eleventh (and penultimate!) prize for our 5th...
10/10/2026

✨5th Anniversary Draw✨ Prize 11: Private Dungeon Crawler Carl One-Shot!

The eleventh (and penultimate!) prize for our 5th Anniversary Draw is a private one-shot for you and 4 friends to enter The World Dungeon! See how long you’ll survive facing down mobs, an insane AI, and reality TV ratings 📺

DRAW DETAILS
From December 10th 2025 right up until December 9th 2026, any time you completely fill a Bard and Bear stamp card (with all 10 stamps 🐻🐻), it automatically becomes an entry into the Anniversary Draw! Whenever you finish a card, the team here will walk you through turning it into a ballot and dropping it into the fancy box at the counter 🗳️

What can you win? Great question! Every month from December 2025 to November 2026, we’ll announce another prize on the 10th of the month (and a reminder of all the prizes already revealed) 🏆🥇🎖️

On December 10th 2026, we’ll draw for all the prizes, and 12 lucky winners will get something super cool 🤩

The best part? All you have to do for a chance to win is play a bunch of games ♥️

(This post isn’t AI — a real life human named Megan slapped this beauty together in Canva using Grade A royalty-free illustrations, then wrote these words with her own two thumbs. Big thanks to the automatic AI detection for the label 👍 /s)

On James North

10/09/2026

It’s Costume Crawl 🎃👻🦇

All of our board games are dressed up as brown boxes!

See you on the sidewalk ♥️

All Leyline’s Eve: Chaos Draft 🤪💥‼️November 2nd | 7pm$10 per person | Tickets on EventbriteWizards told us to make it a ...
10/07/2026

All Leyline’s Eve: Chaos Draft 🤪💥‼️
November 2nd | 7pm
$10 per person | Tickets on Eventbrite

Wizards told us to make it a chaos draft – challenge accepted!

What could possibly be more chaotic than drafting with Dollarama packs that could contain just about anything (but probably nothing all that good)? How about giving every single one of those completely random cards Flash?!

See what you sort of deck you can pull together in the draft, then sling those spells quick as you can for a night of Instant fun!

The first 16 players to register will receive official Leyline of Anticipation promo cards that are yours to keep. (If we open up a third drafting pod, any additional players will receive a placeholder from past promos.)

$10 per person. Tickets available through Eventbrite — see our Events story highlight or the Events page of our website for the link.

Questions? Not sure exactly what this will look like? Send us a DM or drop your query in the comments below ⬇️

On James North

Lots to be thankful for ♥️We’re open our usual hours Friday the 9th (for Costume Crawl!), but wrapping up a little early...
10/06/2026

Lots to be thankful for ♥️

We’re open our usual hours Friday the 9th (for Costume Crawl!), but wrapping up a little early at 8pm on Saturday the 10th, then closed Sunday the 11th (and no event running Monday the 12th).

Head on over to our website to make your reservation — Fridays and Saturdays can fill up quick!


On James North

The hour draws near… 🦇Play Blood on the Clocktower in The Den! October 26th | 7pm$30 per person | Tickets on EventbriteI...
10/03/2026

The hour draws near… 🦇Play Blood on the Clocktower in The Den!
October 26th | 7pm
$30 per person | Tickets on Eventbrite

It’s our third annual Halloween Blood on the Clocktower bash, and this time we’re playing in The Den, our brand new event space! The vibe back there is perfect for our all-time favourite hidden-identity game 🎃🕰️

We’ll be running both Beginner and Advanced groups – get your tickets on Eventbrite and join us for an unforgettable evening of suspicion, lies, demon slaying, and VERY active ghosts 👻

Questions? Not sure exactly what this will look like? Send us a DM or drop your query in the comments below ⬇️

On James North

10/02/2026

This year’s AGH x Bard and Bear collab is 100% Hamilton 🛠️

We’re thrilled to be showcasing Made in Hamilton: The Glen Faulman Collection as the exhibition at the heart of this year’s escape room-style Mystery Event

Tickets available now on the AGH website!


The Art Gallery of Hamilton The Bard and Bear

🎃🍁 October 🍁🎃Monday nights are back, baby!🕰️ 5th - Beginner Blood on the ClocktowerThe ideal opportunity to learn (or ju...
09/29/2026

🎃🍁 October 🍁🎃

Monday nights are back, baby!

🕰️ 5th - Beginner Blood on the Clocktower
The ideal opportunity to learn (or just play) our favourite spooky social deduction game! | Tickets on Eventbrite

✂️ 19th - MTG Alter Collage Night
Create one-of-a-kind alters of your favourite Magic cards — materials provided! | Tickets on Eventbrite

💀 26th - Blood on the Clocktower: Halloween Edition
Kicking off a full week of spooky game fun with murder and mayhem IN THE DEN! Advanced and Beginner games running | Tickets on Eventbrite

A week of spooky events, you say? That’s right! We’ve got FIVE! TTRPG one-shots lined up for your first chances to play in The Den:

Daggerheart - 27th & Nov 1st
Vampire: The Masquerade - 30th
D&D - 29th & 31st (plus a non-spooky one-shot in the cafe on the 15th, and a teen one-shot in the cafe on the 18th!)

All one-shot dates for October are marked with a star ⭐️ Join our D&D Waitlist to get the invites — see the link in our Events highlight, or on the Events page of our website to sign up 📧

Plus! We’ve got both Board Game Meet Up Nights this month, on Tuesday the 13th and Thursday the 29th, plus our weekly Magic: the Gathering EDH Commander Night every Wednesday at 7 (with ongoing opt-in event variety!)

Good stuff is happening beyond the cafe, as well — we’ll see you on the sidewalk for Costume Crawl on the 9th 🧛🏻 and over The Art Gallery of Hamilton for the first dates of this year’s puzzling Mystery Event on the 30th and 31st! 🔍

❌ Note that we’re closed on Sunday the 11th for Thanksgiving 🥧

It’s never too early to make a reservation — head to our website and click the “Reserve a Table” button to get some game night plans in the books ♟️

09/29/2026

A peek inside last year’s Mechanical Puzzle Competition Kit 👀

Register by September 30th to compete here with us at The Bard and Bear on November 28th!

Find the link in our Events highlight on Instagram or the Events page of our website (link in bio)

World Mechanical Puzzle Competition

Reality’s Fractured — and so is our product arrival…Our Collector boosters won’t arrive until after the weekend, and we ...
09/25/2026

Reality’s Fractured — and so is our product arrival…

Our Collector boosters won’t arrive until after the weekend, and we don’t have a precise timeline yet for the Bundles.

BUT!
Play Boosters are here!
Draft Night boxes are here!
Commander decks are here!
(The new Foundation Starter decks are here, too!)

And Prerelease Kits are here!!!

Preorders are ready for pickup, the product we have is on the shelves, and we’ll see you at noon tomorrow for your first chance to jump into Jace’s Echoverse 🪞

Address

237 James Street N
Hamilton, ON
L8R2L2

Opening Hours

Tuesday 4pm - 11pm
Wednesday 4pm - 11pm
Thursday 4pm - 11pm
Friday 4pm - 12am
Saturday 12pm - 12am
Sunday 12pm - 10pm

Telephone

+19055230739

Website

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