“It’s been almost three years since the Kickstarter,” recounts Lee, one of the co-founders of soon-to-open board gaming café and bar Dice Portsmouth. “We almost gave up twice. This location alone has taken eight months of negotiation.” He’s sitting in one of the kitschy booths lining the cigarette smoke-stained walls of what was once the Southsea Conservative Club. You know the place — it almost became a strip club.

Sited at 149 Albert Road, right next to The Wedgewood Rooms, Dice’s long-time-coming home is much bigger than the façade suggests. It might not look like much now, but plans show a totally renovated frontage complete with big windows and a shopfront. “We’re gonna have a dedicated retail space, selling board games, collectables, that sort of thing,” Rikki, another of Dice’s co-founders, tells me as he hammers old wood off the walls.