The Games Room recently celebrated a business milestone – seven years of laughter, tears, shots, pints, and memories.

The business has gone from strength to strength even with covid disruptions, the Games Room has managed to battle through, welcoming back familiar faces, families, students, "enjoying it as it's supposed to be."

The Falmouth bar was opened by a local couple, Esther Lochrie and Lee Warren, in 2015.

A modern take on the old school pool and snooker bar Games Room offers pool tables, snooker, table tennis, air hockey, darts, and shuffleboard. Alongside televising a range of sports from football, rugby, and boxing.

[H3] General Manager of Games Room Kathy St Quintin sat down with Nub News to reflect on seven years. [.H2]

Seven years is a long time, but I still love it as much as I did when I first started – as do the bosses.

It is a niche, but we have done it affordably, there is nobody like us for affordability. We have great shuffleboard prices, our pool tables are still 50p, we haven't increased our table tennis prices.

We have got plans to continue to grow and put some new games in, add new cocktails, it is about investing back into the business and taking it to the next level.

[H3] What do the next years look like for the Games Room? [.H2]

Hopefully, we will have a refurb coming soon, the toilets need updating, the staircase needs sorting, and we want to sort out the snooker room. We have got ideas, but it is all in the planning stages right now.

We have managed to recruit a great new team, taking on five new people from over 80 applicants. I think we lost many people from the fear of closing again as they thought the industry was most at risk. I get why people moved away from hospitality but seeing so many people come back in wanting to work here is great.

Getting used to the bar being packed again – it has taken a big adjustment from table service, and everyone being sat down to loads of people at the bar. It has been hard getting back to normal and saying to yourself "this is okay".

On a busy Saturday night, it is rammed in here. However, it is not any different from what it used to be, but it is about getting back into the swing of it. We need to give confidence to the team, I'm here every weekend at the moment trying to offer extra support and guide them through it.

[H3] When you started all those years ago, did you think you'd be here for seven years? [.H2]

It was the owner's vision but we work really well together as a team. They have always included me in their decision-making. I don't think we dreamt it would be this successful, it has been a lot of hard work and determination to keep our customers coming back. One of the key things to remember is hospitality is ever-changing, and you have to keep up with it.

We have had such a diverse range of people that have worked here, I've got one backpacking through Australia, a fashion designer photographer, one who's going on to do a Ph.D., locals that have gone on to be parents – such amazing people who have worked here. Some work out, some don't but watching them grow is amazing.

We closed recently to give two long-standing members of staff a leaving party because Nathan (Assistant Manager) is moving on after 3 years, and Rhi (Supervisor) has worked here for 5 years. That is the important side of hospitality, giving your staff a few hours off to say thank you, sometimes it is good to just shut the doors for a few hours and let the team have some fun and spend time together.

Click here for more from Games Room.

Don't forget to sign up for our newsletter below to get the top 10 Falmouth stories of the week delivered straight to your inbox every Friday! No click-bait. No intrusive ads. Just news about Falmouth.

[H3] See the latest news on our Twitter and Facebook pages. [.H2]