There’s a hobby/ttrpg store nearby that hosted game nights every week. They’d try out a new game.
There wasn’t a big crowd, but went out wife my wife to dinner and there were definitely people chatting from different groups at the bar. Dont know if they knew each other though, its not that big of a city.
I think there are still places to go, its just harder for a lot of people to go out. Even my wife and I, we haven’t had a dinner just us in a few years (kids).
Oh that’s unfortunate, thats not how they run things here. I haven’t been in a while, but its more like a bunch of DMs and everyone gets randomly assigned to a table. Games are 30 minutes, and then rotating tables. Its more about trying out some different games than anything else.
They did have a separate night they’d host, but those were reserved rooms (like a conference room setup, TV available for map display). More like a night for regular players to have a regular space to play, but its kind of obvious (with the reserved signs on the rooms and all).