I hear there is a pretty sweet chess club, rather new, in St. Louis, Missouri. A friend has been there. I should go. I'm only two hours away.
Chess atmosphere
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There was this great place in Syracuse, NY when I started college called "No Borders," a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop. Lousy coffee. Didn't matter.
You see, it was at about this time, in 1998, that I started studying chess as opposed to being a "wood pusher." I read books, Jeremy Silman books. And this coffee shop was a great place to test my knowledge.
Dim lighting, kinda dirty, walls lined with overloaded bookshelves. Chess tables dotting the floor. Creepy regulars playing at all hours of the day. Occasionally live, local bands. Oh yeah, and you could smoke. This was on the eve before nationwide crack down on indoor smoking.
So friends and I would go before, during or after classes, hunch over the boards and play each other amidst the dark, smokey atmosphere. Good times.
A year or two later, a Starbucks, the first Starbucks in town, moved in around the corner. The place shut its doors soon after. (No way their coffee could compete!) Alas, I have yet to find an underground chess club such as that.
The end.