Two nights a week at two of Charlotte's best bars. Speak Easy Dollars. Socratic circles. Pictionary. Improv. Real instruction. Real laughs. Real English — over drinks.
Two hours. Structured enough to learn. Loose enough to feel like a party.
Walk in, grab your Speak Easy Dollars. Speed Railroad kicks off immediately — introduce yourself to 3 new people before the first bell. Earn your opening bonus. The room warms up fast.
Facilitator introduces 5–7 words or idioms for the night. These become the currency of every game. Use them correctly — earn money. Mispronounce a covered word — pay up. The whole room becomes the teacher.
A small group sits in the center and debates a real question. Everyone else watches and earns $50 for every vocabulary word they hear used correctly. Pay a dollar to tap into the inner ring — or just hold the knowledge and collect.
Teams of 3–4. Draw tonight's vocabulary and idioms — your team guesses. Wager your dollars on correct answers. Community Chest jackpot challenge drops to the whole room. Loudest round of the night.
Chance cards floating. Property game running. Pronunciation bounty active. Free Parking pot growing. Facilitator steps back. The room runs itself. This is when the real unscripted conversations happen — over drinks, with people you actually want to talk to.
Top two earners face off. The room picks the challenge — debate, story with 5 random words, accent showdown. Free Parking pot goes to the winner of one last open game. Go collect your winnings.
Real Monopoly money. Real stakes. Every activity earns you something — or costs you something. You decide how you play.
At the top of every night — talk to 3 people before the first bell using only English. No pointing, no switching languages. Opens the room up in 15 minutes flat.
💵 +$50 per conversationFacilitator pulls from the deck. Could be: do an American accent for 10 minutes, teach the group a word from your language, order your next drink in English only, or survive the Jail Hot Seat.
💵 +$100 to +$300A challenge goes to the whole room. First person to complete it wins the pot. Example: make 3 different people genuinely laugh in English before the next round. Pot grows all night.
💵 Winner takes allSix conversation topics go to auction at the start of the night. Own "Sports" — anyone who talks sports with you owes you $10. Smart players buy topics they know deeply.
💵 Passive income all nightVolunteer sits on a designated stool. The room fires questions in English for 60 seconds. Can't stop, can't say "I don't know." Survive the full minute without breaking — collect big.
💵 +$300 if you surviveAny vocabulary word from tonight's Vocabulary Drop gets mispronounced — the person who catches it collects $100 from the offender. Makes the whole room the teacher.
💵 +$100 per catchOrder your drink at the bar in English — without pointing, switching languages, or using your phone to translate. Do it clean and collect $200. Runs all night, every visit.
💵 +$200 per orderEnd of night. Top two earners face off. The crowd picks the challenge live — debate, story with 5 random words, or accent showdown. Hotel status players get a wildcard advantage.
💵 + Free Parking PotThree structured rounds sit at the heart of every night. They are built into the game economy, so you earn while you learn.
Every night opens with 5–7 real words or idioms. Everyday language — the kind you hear at work, in stores, with neighbors. Not textbook vocabulary. Vocabulary you will use tomorrow.
Inner ring of 4–6 people sits in the center and discusses a real topic. Outer ring watches, listens, and earns Speak Easy Dollars for every vocabulary word they hear used correctly. Pay to tap in.
Teams draw tonight's vocabulary words, idioms, and American cultural concepts. Teammates guess. Dollars wagered on correct answers. Skits and role-play rounds rotate in — restaurant, job interview, first day.
Real Monopoly money circulates every night. You earn it, spend it, wager it, and try to walk out with more than you came in with. The economy is the game.
Show up — attendance pays. Walk in, collect your opening stack.
Speak unprompted — volunteer an answer, earn a bonus. Silence costs nothing but earns nothing.
Win a game — Pictionary, word chains, Jail Hot Seat — winners collect.
Catch a mispronunciation — Luxury Tax Bounty. Someone says a covered word wrong, you collect $100.
Teach something — explain a word or concept to another student? That earns double.
Pass GO at the bar — order in English only, no pointing. Collect $200 every time.
Buy back in — made a mistake mid-game? Pay to try again instead of sitting out.
Tap into the Fishbowl — pay a dollar to swap into the inner Socratic circle.
Challenge a classmate — wager dollars on who gets the next answer right.
Buy a hint — stuck on a word or drawing? Pay for a clue instead of giving up.
Skip a turn — not ready? Spend a dollar to pass. No shame, no explanation needed.
Enter the Boardwalk Battle — ante up to compete in the final showdown.
Two venues. Two nights a week. Every three months we rotate to a new home — so the crowd stays fresh and the bars stay excited to have us.
Venues rotate every 3 months — keeping it fresh for the crowd and keeping the bars competing for us. Follow us on social to catch the next announcement when we move to our new home.
Same structure as Speak Easy Columbia — same low prices. Come in, pay at the door, and your drink discount activates for the whole night.
Drop-in = attend one night · Month pass or higher = attend any and all nights · Drink discount activates at the door
No. Complete beginners are welcome. The games are designed so that even very limited English is enough to participate — and the Speak Easy Dollars mean you're always in the game.
Show your Speak Easy pass at the bar and get a discount on drinks for the night. Details vary by venue — but you always pay less than the regular menu price.
Both. The first 90 minutes run on a schedule — Vocabulary Drop, Socratic Circle, Pictionary, games. Then it opens up for social time. You leave knowing something you didn't know when you walked in.
Yes — if you have a Month Pass or higher. Drop-ins are for one night. Week pass gets you both nights that week. Month pass = unlimited nights at both venues.
Columbia is a classroom with game energy — more structured, deeper instruction. Charlotte is a bar with classroom bones — looser, social, still real learning. Same philosophy. Different container.
Come to 3+ sessions and you earn Hotel Status — a colored token, bonus missions each night, and the right to challenge anyone to a Boardwalk Battle duel. The more you show up, the more power you accumulate.
Sign up, get the venue location, and show up with $10. Your drink discount activates the second you walk in. All levels welcome. No experience needed. Just come.
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