In a quiet part of Tatabad, is a co-working space offering something different. We step into Sabol Co-Works on a busy workday as people are bent into their laptops. Opened a little over a year ago, the space, that can hold 54 desks, is the kind of place that can make a stressful day at work bearable, even fun.

“We’ve created a concept that we call WOCABO,” says Karthic Kumaran, who runs the place along with his mother Subashini Ramesh. The 26-year-old, who is also professional tennis player, explains that WO stands for work, CA for café, and BO for boardgames. “We have office spaces alongside a café and over 300 boardgames to choose from,” he explains.

The idea, says Karthic, is to show people that “working at a desk needn’t be stressful.” His father M Ramesh, who is also his mentor, explains that people can come in for a work meeting to their café and spend over an hour holding a casual meeting over a cup of coffee without the pressure of having a waiter looming over one’s shoulder.

Sabol’s office space has been done up aesthetically. Cubicles are not suffocating, grey spaces. At the ground floor for instance, there are outdoor and indoor meeting rooms with plenty of natural light. “Corporates make use of these rooms for Zoom meetings as well as interviews,” points out Karthic. The rooms can be booked on an hourly basis for ₹150, and Ramesh says that they can also be used as a podcast studio.

At present, Sabol Co-Works is being used by 15 MNCs, including start-ups, that take up the space for months together on contract. “People can choose to bring their laptops to work here for even a few hours or half-a-day,” says Karthic. There is complementary coffee and tea, not to mention printers, air-conditioning and internet. “They can also sit at our café space to work as well,” he adds.

The café, that is a little over four months old, features comfortable low benches and tables, perfect for working alongside a drink and a sandwich. There also is an outdoor seating arrangement nearby, that leads one into a room that features their boardgames collection. Even as the workaholics are consumed by work in their cubicles, Karthic picks a game for us to try at yet another meeting room that can double up a boardgaming lounge.

We play something simple to warm up, Flip 7 With a Vengeance, a card game. Karthic is a board gamer himself, and is clued in to all the trending games. “During weekends, we get plenty of serious board gamers who spend almost four hours playing as a community,” he says, adding that they also host children’s birthday parties for which he picks age-appropriate games.

“We have grandparents and grandchildren bonding over a boardgame; we’ve seen complete strangers turn friends over a game they just cannot stop playing,” he says. Their popular games include Blood on the Clocktower, Catan, Root, Merchant of The Dark Road, Brass: Birmingham, among others. “Several board gaming communities have held tournaments here,” he adds.

Karthic brings out another game called The Chameleon as the food arrives: the popular cookie milk and a paneer croissant sandwich, paired with the Thai raw papaya salad. The thoughtfully-curated menu features buns, sandwiches, and wraps, keeping in mind their customers who come for a quick meal as work plays on at the back of their mind. The cookie milk, the recipe Subashini came up with, reminds one of the summer holiday staple from the 90s: think cookies soaked in milk and whipped to a cold, smooth consistency. “This drink has become a crowd favourite,” says Subashini.

As Karthic explains the rules of the game, Ramesh recalls how when he was in his 20s, he started a similar space in RS Puram. “It was called Sabol Business Centre, and several companies, such as TCS and IFB had their offices in it,” recalls the 60-year-old. “This was around 1990, and telephone connections were in demand. We offered connections at the work desk, which was among our biggest draws,” he says. While they had to shut down as pagers and mobile phones took over the world, his son has visualised Sabol Co-Works as a place that will be in tune with the times. Why should work be confined to just one space?

For details, visit them on Instagram @wocabo_cbe, call 9344520266. Located at 65, 6th Street, Tatabad.

Published - July 30, 2026 02:52 pm IST