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When people walk into Groundswell Brewing on a Wednesday evening, they will find plenty of chessboards. But they will also find people playing Uno and backgammon, talking over drinks and meeting others they may never have known before that night.
That is the idea behind San Diego Chess & Social’s Chula Vista chapter, which launched in July and now draws about 30 to 40 people each Wednesday from 6:30 to 10 p.m.
For co-founder and CEO Mark Laturno, bringing the club to Chula Vista is personal. He grew up in the city and graduated from Mater Dei High School, and said he wanted to contribute to the activity already developing along Third Avenue.
The organization also holds regular gatherings in North Park, Encinitas, Pacific Beach and Vista, collectively drawing more than 300 people each week, according to Laturno.
The Chula Vista gathering begins with people arriving around 6:30 p.m. and continues building until about 8 p.m. The cost for drop-in admission is $12, members are free.
The atmosphere is deliberately casual rather than competitive.
That makes the club accessible even to people who have not played chess in years — or have never played at all. Other attendees are generally willing to teach beginners the basics, Laturno said, and visitors are welcome to spend the evening playing games other than chess.
About 80% of the people attending the club’s events arrive alone, according to Laturno. The goal is to make that less intimidating by giving people an immediate reason to sit down with someone else.
“Someone sits down for a game, gets introduced to somebody else, and then you see them back the next week with the same people,” he said.
Some of those connections have continued well beyond the chessboard. Laturno said members have become friends, gone to concerts together, taken trips and made plans outside the club.
He counts himself among them, saying he has met some of his own best friends through the organization.
The Chula Vista group is largely made up of people in their late 20s through early 40s, although attendees range both younger and older.
Because the events are held at a brewery, participants must be at least 21. Laturno said attendees work in fields including health care, education, business and technology.
The broader organization has grown quickly. What began in 2023 as a Reddit meetup between two people looking for others to play chess with has become a countywide social club. Its paid membership surpassed 500 eight months after the membership program launched in January 2026.
Laturno believes the growth is connected, in part, to the amount of social interaction that now takes place online.
“I think a lot of people want to meet more people, they just don’t have that many natural opportunities to do it anymore,” he said. “Games solve a lot of that.”
