What a wonderful second anniversary we have had this week! Keep your eyes peeled for our raffle winners—Matt is home sick, so it’ll be mid-week. Thank you all for your love and support these last two years!

You may have heard us say that we hope for Free Parking to grow into a Third Place, but what is that? We don’t mean three locations, though if y’all keep bringing your friends and group meetings, we can! No, a third place is not your home (first place), not your work or school (second place), but a social and connecting place, one where you don’t have to bring people with you because there are always people there you want to be with. Third places can be bars, coffee shops, or libraries. They might be campus locations, nonprofits, or hair salons. Back in the day, it might have been the post office or the general store. The sense is that you become known there—like Norm in Cheers!—you make connections outside your usual ones, you might develop conversation around community needs outside the place, but you are always welcomed and challenged both, you are able to drop your mask and simply be. A third place becomes your “local.” If you’re interested in learning more about this idea, check out The Great Good Place.

It takes time for a third place to become that. It takes the creativity and welcome of the place’s staff, and it takes the desire and willingness of you fine people! We love seeing y’all excitedly greet next-door neighbors and friends you haven’t seen in years. We love when people say, “yes, we’d love a green flag on the table so new people can sit with us and play!” We love when families who have come for a casual dinner and game adopt someone whose friends couldn’t come. We love seeing our regulars and new people alike!

Alice C., board game librarian

Play Scout or dnup or even Tether!

These three games I’ve grouped because they all use what’s called a “mirror deck”—the cards read one number when held one direction and a different number when held the other. For all three, when you are allowed to rotate the cards and what you do with them when you do is everything.

Scout and dnup* are by the same designer and have a similar, but distinct gameplay. In Scout, your hand cannot be rearranged once you pick it up, but you may rotate it once at the beginning. Then you play a set or run of cards that must be better than the previously-played one, which you then take into your score pile. Alternatively, you can “scout,” take a card from the set or run that someone else played and place it into your hand wherever you like, which might make your potential plays better, but if you do this, the person you scouted from gets a point.

In dnup, your hand can be rearranged once you pick it up, but it cannot be rotated. You’ll play sets of cards (no runs) that must be better than other sets already on the table, with the goal to empty your hand entirely. If the play comes back to you and you’ve still got a set in front of you, you can discard it. You can also get rid of cards more slowly by adding them to other people’s sets on the table but only one card per turn. There are some other restrictions, but both of these games have a nice puzzle-y vibe—how to efficiently get rid of your cards while trying to force others to keep theirs.

Tether is a very different animal and a really interesting take on the mirror deck. Here players sit opposite one another and one plays cards only vertically while the other plays only horizontally. You can freely rotate your cards in hand and want to play consecutive sets of cards in your direction, ideally attaching to other cards already in play on the table. Between the two of you, you make multiple “clumps” of cards that can get connected to each other over the course of the game and are scored when they hit certain sizes. It’s an interesting visual puzzle that I often find myself squinting at, as though that will help me play better.

*no, I don’t know how to pronounce it and the designer is closed-mouth about it

Try our boneless wings!

They’re tender, they’re gluten-free (which leads to more crispiness before saucing), and they come tossed with the sauce of your choice—above it’s our delicious and fragrant garlic Parmesan sauce. Served with crisp celery and ranch, they’re an excellent shareable for your next visit to Free Parking. Just don’t forget to wipe your hands before you play your cards in Scout!