Vigilante is the latest evolution of the mainstreaming of nerd culture. Formerly niche hobbies are becoming major profit centers: comic books are now movie blockbusters, video games outperform those blockbusters, gadgets are ubiquitous, geek chic is fashionable and (most pertinently) we are in the golden era of the board game. Board game cafes have proliferated nationally as hybrid game retailers/coffee shops. However, these concepts do not adequately serve craft beer and bar enthusiasts who prefer a well-designed atmosphere, full menu, wide beverage selection and tableside service.
Vigilante Gaming Bar held the first of its Sneak Peek Week events last night. Our guests enjoyed great food, drinks, and a huge selection of games in our new space. We officially open Friday the 17th of February!
Vigilante is a full-service bar and restaurant for people who enjoy socializing over board games. We combine local craft beer and game culture with a quality-oriented experience featuring a contemporary bar atmosphere, custom furniture and fixtures, a 150+ title game library and a food menu of reimagined bar classics.
Vigilante is the latest evolution of the mainstreaming of nerd culture. Formerly niche hobbies are becoming major profit centers: comic books are now movie blockbusters, video games outperform those blockbusters, gadgets are ubiquitous, geek chic is fashionable and (most pertinently) we are in the golden era of the board game. Board game cafes have proliferated nationally as hybrid game retailers/coffee shops. However, these concepts do not adequately serve craft beer and bar enthusiasts who prefer a well-designed atmosphere, full menu, wide beverage selection and tableside service.
The enthusiastic response we have received from potential customers indicates that there is huge unmet demand for the Vigilante concept. Engaged potential customers have submitted hundreds of responses for exciting features, events and drinks. This response has given us the data we need to pre-test our ideas to ensure they resonate with future regulars; our team’s unique blend of hospitality, marketing, and engineering expertise positions us to deliver the new bar and restaurant experience they have demanded.
We are proud to present NextSeed investors with the opportunity to provide Austinites a place to socialize over beer and board games.
We look forward to gaming with you
Preston, Flip and Zack
Vigilante’s 3800 square foot location will seat 148 patrons. With operating hours Monday to Sunday, 11 am to 2 am, we will be the first late night bar in our area. Located with convenient access to TX-183, IH-35, North Central Austin, The University of Texas and downtown via the Austin Light Rail, Vigilante will be able to serve local Austin neighborhood residents as well as Cedar Park and Round Rock (each are among the fastest growing small cities in the country).
Vigilante’s market differentiator is how we seamlessly combine a restaurant experience with a gaming experience through custom furniture, fixture and service solutions. We are elevating our patron’s home game nights into a complete service package out on the town. This includes:
Library access will cost $5 per patron for the entire evening, and Vigilante Secret Society members will enjoy free library access as part of their membership ($14/month or $120/year). Patrons will also have the opportunity to bring their own games if they so desire.
We will offer a highly focused, simple menu featuring quality food and locally sourced beer, gourmet sodas by the bottle, a well-rounded wine list, and a food menu featuring such fare as:
The Vigilante team regularly asks our customers what they want to experience, and engaged potential customers have submitted hundreds of responses for features, events and drinks. This campaign has given us the data we need to pre-test our ideas to ensure they resonate with future regulars.
Partnering with local conventions, Austin’s largest local game retailer, and local game designers as well as hosting events is creating significant pre-opening interest. We will leverage our online presence post-opening by communicating a rotating set of weekly gaming events (based on feedback) to give patrons a reason to return week after week.
Austin is the perfect starting location for this concept. Forbes has ranked Austin as the #1 fastest-growing city in the nation for the fourth straight year, and the #1 “City to Watch.” The city has a large population of young professionals constantly seeking new and extraordinary experiences: over 600,000 people aged 25-50 live within a 15-minute drive of our location.
Vigilante has leased 3,800 square feet at 7010 Easy Wind Drive, in a mixed-use project called Midtown Commons. Located at the intersection of major Austin thoroughfares Airport and Lamar Blvd, we are the center of a heavy growth area in Austin. Including the Crestview Light Rail Station, Justin Lane Transportation Oriented Development Zone, the upcoming Highland Austin Community College Flagship Campus, and blocks away from the exploding Burnet Corridor.
Furthermore, Midtown Commons is in what we affectionately call “The Austin Gamer Hub,” which holds many long- established hallmarks of Austin’s gaming culture: Dragon’s Lair, Pat’s Games, Emerald Tavern, Great Hall Games, Austin Books & Comics, Pinballz, Capstone Comics, and the recently-opened Seventh Room. Each of these businesses has experienced exceptional success over the past decade: we are building where our core audience already exists.
Based on 600+ survey responses, we have a strong picture of where our patrons live:
As a destination bar where patrons can spend an evening playing games, socializing and partaking in our events and menus, Vigilante is ideally located to provide simple and swift access to patrons across the city of Austin and its largest surrounding suburbs.
Preston Swincher is the CEO and Founding Visionary of Vigilante. His obsessive attention to detail, deep commitment to the patron experience and passion for hospitality and gaming have defined and guided the Vigilante vision.
Mr. Swincher graduated from Texas Christian University with a BBA in Entrepreneurial Management and a BFA in Theatre. He was one of the inaugural Front of House Managers for the award winning AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas, Texas, a $350 million dollar multi-venue facility. He helped design the customer service policies and procedures of the center, created the arts center Docent Program, hired and trained over 40 part time employees and 5000 volunteers, managed Front of House operations for a 2,200 seat opera house and 600 seat theatre, and transformed stressful customer service situations into positive, memorable experiences for million-dollar donors.
For the past four years Mr. Swincher has worked across the country as an independent professional keynote speaker and consultant on Generation Y employees and markets. His invaluable insight into consumer thought processes and the desires of young employees has improved hundreds of businesses and organizations across dozens of industries.
Mr. Swincher now passionately seeks to redefine how patrons socialize over food, drink and games. He coordinates Vigilante's design/build, originates customer policies and procedures, is the face for Vigilante's social media outreach and drives the crucial community partnerships needed for Vigilante's success.
As President, Philip "Flip" Kromer leverages his professional background to provide invaluable insight into startup operations, fundraising, and investor relations. He is also designing the ingenious custom fixtures and furniture of Vigilante, elevating our patron's experience through novel electronics, programs, and mechanical designs. Driven by a vision for practical magic on the restaurant floor, his work enables Vigilante to fully integrate gaming culture with bar culture.
Mr. Kromer was co-founder and CTO of Infochimps, a pioneering startup in the Big Data / Cloud Computing arena. He has spoken at many industry conferences including South by Southwest, Strata, Velocity, Hadoop World Europe, NIST and CloudCon. Following Infochimps' acquisition by CSC, Flip moved into the office of the CTO and was named one of CSC's inaugural Distinguished engineers. He wrote "Big Data for Chimps" (O'Reilly 2015), a guide to data science in practice, is a contributor to numerous open-source projects, and has led several projects to community adoption.
He advises several Austin startups on technology and product development, which is how he fell in love with the Vigilante team and vision. His current fascination with 'Internet of Things' and rapid prototyping technologies, and his ongoing passion for building a data-driven business, provide Vigilante with unique differentiation from standard restaurant concepts.
Zack Daschofsky is the mind behind Vigilante’s marketing and branding strategy, and oversees the social and online promotion of the business, building a local, excited and active fan base for a bar that has yet to pour its first beer.
Mr. Daschofsky holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Texas’ prestigious Public Relations/ Business Foundations Program, and has years of experience in the worlds of PR and marketing, where he’s worked for Phillips & Company, AMD and One Source Networks. His current 9-5 is at Chaotic Moon Studios (part of Accenture Interactive) in Austin, Texas, where he serves as Marketing Manager for the marketing and R&D department and focuses on digital marketing operations, including website management, video and content creation, inbound lead nurturing, drip marketing and email campaigns, digital advertising, event management, sales collateral and more.
Besides his experience and technical know-how, Daschofsky - as an excellent communicator, true people person and self-proclaimed “nerd” - brings a knowledge and understanding of Vigilante’s target customers and a demonstrable ability to relate and appeal to an audience and community that he, himself, is a proud part of. This, combined with his excitement for the business and true passion for gaming, makes him the perfect pointman for spreading the Vigilante gospel and sharing the brand with Austin and, eventually, the world.
