New gaming cafe opens in Peoples Plaza

“We are always having people over playing anyways. We might as well bring it to the community and share our love of gaming with others,” Elisa Villaruel said.

The gaming cafe opened on May 13 in People’s Plaza, between Heart and Home and Dollar Tree.

“Here in Delaware, everyone wants a place to meet, and there’s just nothing here in this area,” Mike Villaruel said.

Save Point is meant to be a hybrid between a gaming center and a cafe, offering customers both a space to play games as well as food and drinks to keep them fueled.

“If we can provide food here, people will stay and game here without leaving,” Mike Villaruel said.

The business is separated into a number of sections. One section is devoted solely to PC gaming and features row after row of tricked-out desktop PCs that customers can pay a small fee to sign-in and play any game in their library on. The front of the building features a lounge area with booths and tables where gamers can take a break from the action to eat or play one of the many board or tabletop games Save Point has in a bookshelf.

Stretching down one long wall is a series of TVs and couches where gamers can kick back with controllers and play various console games. Similarly to the PC setups, gamers can pay an hourly fee to use the consoles. Prices start at $5.99 for one hour of game time and decrease when buying two or more hours of time. All-day passes can also be purchased for $29.99, and Save Point runs weekly and monthly specials.

At the back of Save Point is a projector and screen setup, along with a healthy number of chairs, to allow the business to host movie nights.

The Villaruels hope to open up the cafe portion soon.

Save Point USA hosts anime meetups on Wednesday nights. Friday nights are “Fight Night,” where fighting games such as Street Fighter or Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros., are given the spotlight. Saturday night sees tabletop gamers gather to play sessions of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game.

However, Save Point’s most popular night is Sunday, when it hosts a Super Smash Bros. tournament. According to Mike Villaruel, many of the top-ranked Smash Bros. players in Delaware attend the Sunday tournaments, and Save Point is exploring options to create its own E-sports teams.

Among the participants this past Sunday was Jon Herrera, of Newark, who has become a regular at Save Point USA.

“It sounded like something awesome,” Herrera said. “I just come and have fun.”

He said his love of gaming started when he was 4 years old.

“My uncles all bought me a Super Nintendo, regular Nintendo, the Sega,” Herrera said. “They kind of kickstarted everything for me, and I just fell in love with it.”

Connor Griffin, of Wilmington, is happy that Delaware has a place for people to come and play in a fun, relaxed environment.

“I’m so happy that this state finally has an E-sports venue after all this time,” Griffin said. “I’ve been coming here almost every Sunday since. Sometimes Fridays for Street Fighter, and I’ve been liking it ever since. It’s a closely knit community, treating you like you’re family.”

Daniel McCann came from Pennsylvania to participate in the Super Smash Bros. tournament.

“I noticed how there’s a growing community for the game,” McCann said. “This happened to be a place where you can meet people with similar upbringings and interests.”

Mike Villaruel said he and his wife hope the gaming cafe fosters a sense of community and togetherness.

“One of my favorite things that I’ve seen here a lot actually is someone will come for a tournament and they look around like, ‘I remember you from high school, it’s been a long time’,” he said said.