Kristian Knutsen
Aware of Madison's active gamer community, Cain wants the space to be inviting to all, especially those looking for new venues for events.
"I wanted an affordable, but cool place to come play games" says Jonathan Cain. He hopes Madnet CyberCafe will be that place. The bi-level store front located at the intersection of State, Gilman, and Broom streets will play host to casual players and tournament pros alike when opens its doors in early September.
Walking in the front door, one is greeted by a pair of 52 inch televisions equipped with Xbox360 systems and a selection of games. Beyond that are a few stations equipped with high end gaming PCs. But a trip downstairs reveals the heart of the operation: A total of 30 gaming stations, equipped with flat panel monitors and a well stocked snack bar specializing in soda and energy drinks ideal for late night twitch gaming.
This comes as a labor of love to proprietors Cain and Fletcher Kurtz, who have been working on Madnet since April. They've been working constantly to assemble PCs, install programs, and test the store's capacity. "We really want to form a community" says Cain, noticing the gap left on State Street when Ping Time and Aftershock Retrogames closed up shop several years ago. "We moved here because Madison is awesome"
To help nuture that community, they've gotten licensed with some of the biggest names in the business. Madnet is part of PC game portal and can reserve seating for play. The space will also be available for private parties and events.
Aware of Madison's active gamer community, Cain wants the space to be inviting to all, especially those looking for new venues for events. "We know there are people out there holding tournaments, we want them to know this is available for them," he declares. They'll also be recruiting local gamers to beta test the network and machines to work out any kinks. They're also ready to listen and adapt the business based on requests, mentioning anything from dedicated servers to snack suggestions being open for discussion.
Madnet CyberCafe is tenatively scheduled to open its doors first weekend of September, pending construction. Amidst the continued road work on State St, at the corner of Gilman and Broom in front of Madnet, Cain and Kurtz just want to get the an upstairs bathroom finished. "Apparently we need another one because of the number of people we could potentially have here" notes Cain.
Kurtz and Cain are looking to be open from noon until midnight during the week, and until 2 a.m. on weekends. The ultimate goal is to grow enough business to be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The shop is located at 449 State Street, Unit B, and can be reached by phone at (608) 250-1725 and by email at jc at madnetcafe dot com.