'Unique' new Wolverhampton café invites gamers and geeks to enjoy coffee 'better than Costa'

Howling Wolf Gaming officially opened on Cleveland Street in Wolverhampton at the end of February, offering a place for people to go and play table top games such as Warhammer, Magic: The Gathering and Risk.

It also acts as a cafe, with a full range of snacks including toasties and wraps and a selection of hot drinks from a professional coffee maker, plus a number of special drinks, such as the “Crowley special”, which is six shots of espresso and is a tribute to the Good Omens character.

The shop is owned and run by Joshua Collins, who said he had got into Warhammer and Magic: The Gathering while doing a film course at university and decided to follow through with an idea he’d joked about with a friend.

He said: “In 2021, I started playing Magic The Gathering, which is a card game, and I got into Warhammer at university as I was doing a film course and I was using it as a hobby to avoid staring at a screen all day.

“I did play video games, but after staring at a video screen editing all week, I didn’t want to go home and stare at a computer, so playing these games was a good way of not doing that.

“The shop came from a joke I had with a friend of mine where I said that if this failed, why don’t we set this up, and then after 12 months of looking for work and getting nowhere, I realised there wasn’t a place like this in Wolverhampton, so decided to go and do it.”

Mr Collins said he had wanted the cafe to be the sort of place he would want to go to, from offering food that wasn’t greasy to having ready made packs of games for people to try, rather than having to bring all their own pieces in.

Howling Wolf is open throughout the day for people to come in and play games and also hosts weekly play events for games such as Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons, which fill the tables.

The cafe and shop will also be open during the Easter holidays to encourage younger people to bring in their own board games and also learn about the different games on offer.

Since opening, Mr Collins said the reaction has been really good, with a lot of people being surprised to find the shop and cafe open and becoming repeat customers and said he hoped that more people would try it out and enjoy a game.

He said: “There are other stores in Wolverhampton that offer hobby spaces, but not one that offers a gaming space, so if you’re part of a club that is looking for somewhere to come and partake in your table top gaming, we’re here for that.

“We also function as a cafe and I think we make better coffee than Costa as I don’t think I’ve tasted coffee any better than what we do here.”