Finally, somewhere to put your drink that isn't the carpet.
4.9 from 119 Steadi reviewsA flexible-finned base that holds your drink steady wherever tonight's game actually leaves it — the tray, the couch arm, the rug beside your chair. No dedicated gaming table required.
Get yours before next session — from $14.95Free shipping · 30 real sessions to prove it · molded in Orange, California — not more shelf-of-shame junk.
Will tonight's drink fit? A sticky note off the score pad answers it — the test is below ↓
How it goes
Every game night exiles the drink somewhere — and every somewhere is worse than the table.
A table hog of a game claims every flat inch before the first round even starts — board, tableau, discard pile, the sprues left over from tonight's punching. Whatever you're drinking doesn't get a seat, so it goes looking for one, and every spot left standing is soft, uneven, or already moving.
Board, tableau, discard pile, dice tray — a game in full swing claims every flat inch, and the house rule at plenty of tables is simply no drinks near the components. The glass doesn't get a seat, so it goes looking for one.
This is where the banished drink actually lands — forum posters describe parking bottles on the rug next to their seat all night. It's below eye level once you're sitting down, invisible from above, and sitting exactly where a foot lands when somebody stands to refill or take a turn.
Bigger groups spill onto the couch, and a couch arm is rounded, padded, and gives a can nothing level to rest against. Cushion foam does the rest — a flat-bottomed glass tips the moment somebody shifts their weight nearby.
A standard table runs 34 by 34 inches, which leaves four seated players about 5 or 6 inches of table beyond the game — and that sliver sits on thin, flexing legs. A bumped knee or a leaned elbow jolts the whole surface, drink included.
The standard advice is a folding side table for every drink, and it's the recommended solution that fails the same way the problem did — reviewers report trays wobbling under a full glass and tipping outright on carpet, and it's one more skinny-legged thing to remember is there when somebody stands up.
None of it is a crisis. It's a decision the whole table makes without discussing it — where the drink goes once the game has claimed everything else — and every option left on the list is soft, uneven, or already moving.
Sound familiar
The nights every regular group already recognizes.
Board, decks, and a stack of meeples get sorted onto the table before anyone's really settled in, and by the time the teach wraps, the whole table is full — everyone's holding a fresh drink with nowhere flat to set it. Most of them end up on the floor before the first turn.
You lean across to place a piece on the far side of the board, sleeve passing directly over the one can somebody risked keeping on the table edge.
Dice thrown with a little theater skip off the tray lip and scatter across whatever's in range — the same instinct that got the dice tower invented in the first place.
A tile-layer like Carcassonne has grown past where the board started, annexing the last strip of table a can was standing on since setup.
Somebody stands up fast — for the win, or just for another drink — the card table jolts on its folding legs, and their foot finds the glass that's been parked on the rug beside the chair since round one.
A first-edition HeroQuest doused by a full beer, renamed 'Beerquest' by its own owner, and cards ruined in the years before anyone thought to sleeve them — the hobby's two founding spill stories, retold whenever a new player reaches for a drink near somebody's shelf.
The paper test
The whole fit test lives in the game box's spare sticky notes.
lands in here
A square sticky note: 3 inches, exactly — pulled from the score pad, same as the ceiling of what fits.
The classic square is exactly 3 inches on a side. That's a fact about sticky notes — and it happens to be the exact ceiling of what fits.
Do it at the score pad, not the play area. Look at the bottom, not the rim — pint glasses flare and tumblers taper, and the base is the only measurement that counts.
Base sits inside the square? It fits. Hangs over the edges? Too wide. A little puck lost in the middle — under 2 inches? Too narrow.
No ruler, no spec sheet, no app open next to the rulebook — one sticky note off the score pad, one glance, with whatever's actually in your hand tonight.
What fits
The bottom inch decides what stays in play.
One line decides every verdict below: a container base 2 to 3 inches across settles in.
- Standard 12 oz can fits
- 16 oz tallboy fits
- Beer bottle fits
- Pint glass fits
- Stemmed wine glass fits
- Rocks glass fits
- Solo cup fits
- 40 oz Stanley-style tumbler fits
- Coffee mug, handled handle in the way
There's a floor as well as a ceiling — under 2 inches the base sits too loose. The handled mug is the honest exception: the base fits, but the handle lands exactly where a fin needs to grip.
The full fit database — Stanley, Red Bull, Yeti, and 30 more, with sourced base measurements →
The simple physics
Built for the surface the game left you.
Carpet pile, a couch cushion, a card table that's mostly clutter — a narrow glass balances on a sliver of any of it and leans. The wide, low base lays flat across the surface instead, low and steady rather than perched.
Flexible fins hold the drink from the sides, not by balance, so a nearly empty can grips the same as a full one — useful on a night where nobody's topping off the same glass twice.
A foot brushes the tray, an elbow lands mid-teach, the couch shifts under a new arrival — the wide base keeps its weight low, so it rocks instead of letting the bump turn into a spill, and brings the drink back level.
Where the game leaves you
The game gets first pick of every flat surface in the room. The drink gets whatever's left.
Nobody's being careless. Once the board claims the table, every surface still open is soft, uneven, or already moving — exactly the ground this base was built for.
Soft, uneven pile that tilts anything with a flat bottom, and below your sightline the moment you're seated. A wide, low base settles into the pile instead of teetering on it.
Rounded and padded where extra players and between-turn loungers end up. Cushion foam tips a flat-bottomed can the instant weight shifts nearby — the fins hold the drink from the sides instead of asking the foam for footing.
Thin tabletop over skinny steel legs — it flexes and bounces with every shuffle or dice throw, and the little table space left beyond the game moves right along with it. A wide base rides the wobble instead of sliding on it.
Light and narrow-legged, and exactly the surface reviewers describe tipping under a full glass. A stable base on an unstable tray still keeps the drink upright when the tray itself sways.
Snack bowls, the game box, a spread of punched cardboard, and now every drink the big table evicted — reaching over the clutter for a glass is exactly how bowls and drinks collide. A drink that settles on its own is one less thing to reach for.
Why drinks tip at game night — and why the carpet is where they actually land — the full story →
The competition, honestly
What the table's already tried, and where each one stops.
| A folding TV tray | The Game Night Cup Holder | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it sits once the table's full | Needs its own spot on the floor | Sits on the tray, the cushion, or the carpet itself |
| Under a full glass on carpet | Reported to wobble and tip when loaded | Wide base grips the pile, resists tipping |
| When somebody stands up for the win | Easy to forget it's there, gets knocked over | Sits low, holds steady when it's bumped |
| Holding more than the drink | Full tray — snacks, phone, the scorepad too | Just the drink |
| One more stand in the room | A stand per player, its own footprint | No stand — uses a surface that's already there |
| Between game nights | Folds, but stores as its own piece of furniture | Packs flat, tucks in with the dice |
| Cost | Another piece of furniture to buy | One small piece, nothing to assemble |
A coaster protects the wood under the drink, not the game beside it — it does nothing when a sleeve catches the glass, and on a flexing card table it slides right along with everything else.
The community's own recommended fix — and reviewers report it wobbles when loaded, tips outright on carpet, and gets forgotten and knocked over mid-game. It also means one more piece of furniture per player in a room already full of chairs.
Reviewers describe openings too small for a standard can or bottle, weak spring tension, and clamps that slip off a thick edge under anything heavier than about 20 oz — and a card table's thin, flexing rim is close to the worst case for a clamp to bite.
The real fix the hobby invented, and it runs four figures and a delivery truck before a single drink is holstered — and even owners report groove-hung holders tilt enough that smooth cans slide right off when the table gets bumped.
From the reviews
What buyers say.
Recent reviews of the Steadi, from every room and rig it lives in.
I have a tendency to spill my drinks and have two cats. This is one of the best things I’ve ever impulse bought. It works. It actually works. It’s a heavy, wide enough base that it is actually stable. My “spot” in the living room is near a somewhat-cushioned fabric ottoman, which is where I usually put my drinks. It’s
Dixie · 2026-08-30I love mine. I just wish the price was more appropriate. $15 seems a lot for a small plastic item. Reduce it to $9.99 and free shipping and I'll buy a few more!
Carolyn G. · 2026-08-27Excellent!
Brian S. · 2026-08-27Thank you for your service!
Brian S. · 2026-08-27It’s great love it
gilbert a. · 2026-08-24I never knock over my water at night anymore!
Customer · 2026-08-21All 119 reviews are for the drink base itself, collected across every place people use it.
Why more than one
Two identical pint glasses. One question nobody wants to stop the game for.
A host running a matching set of glasses for the table ends up with several that look exactly alike by round two, and nobody wants to pause the game to sort out whose is whose. It's a small thing until a full glass lands in the wrong spot and the argument outlasts the round.
Build your set
Give everyone their own.
Pick a pack, then give each one a color — so nobody has to ask which drink is theirs.
Fair questions
You're probably thinking…
No crowdfunding hype, no countdown, no stretch goals — one piece of material molded in small runs in Orange, California, with 30 real sessions to prove it before it's stuck on a shelf either way.
The site says what it doesn't do, too — handled mugs don't fit, it's not a sealed cup, and an out-of-print or particularly valuable game is still worth keeping the house rule for. It resists tipping and settles back down when it's bumped; that's the claim, not spill-proof or guaranteed.
That's the named failure mode: light, narrow-legged, and easy to forget until someone standing up knocks it over. This has no legs to wobble — it sits low and grips the surface itself, tray, carpet, or table, and settles back down when it's bumped.
It's framed honestly: it makes the rule easier to relax, not obsolete. For an out-of-print or particularly valuable game, keeping the rule is still a fair call — that's restraint, not a sales pitch.
Check the base, not the rim, with a sticky note off the score pad — about 2 to 3 inches settles in, and the 40 oz Stanley fits. Nothing wider than that range gets promised, because it doesn't hold.
Good to know
Asked mid-teach, answered here.
Does it actually work on carpet, or just on the table?
Carpet is closer to home turf than a hard table is. The wide, low base spreads across the pile instead of tipping on it, and lets the drink settle back down when a foot brushes it or somebody shifts nearby.
My group ends up on the couch for overflow seating. Does it work there?
Yes — cushions and couch arms are soft and uneven the same way carpet is, and that's the terrain this base handles. It grips the drink from the sides with the fins instead of relying on the cushion for footing underneath.
Will it survive a sleeve reaching across for a card mid-teach?
That's close to the exact motion it's built for. It resists tipping and settles back down when it's bumped — a sleeve during the teach, a jolt from someone standing up, a die that skips off the tray. It's not a sealed cup, so on a heavier-pouring night a lidded tumbler adds a second layer.
Will my pint glass or tumbler fit?
Check the base, not the rim. A container base 2 to 3 inches across settles in — the 40 oz Stanley does. Handled mugs don't; the handle lands right where a fin needs to grip.
Does it need a table at all?
No. No rail, no vault, no fixed attachment point sized for a dedicated gaming table. It sits on whatever surface tonight's game left you — dining table, card table, tray, cushion, or floor.
We run a 'no drinks near the game' house rule. Does this change that?
It's exactly the kind of thing that makes the rule easier to relax — the drink stays where it's set instead of becoming something the host has to police all night. For an out-of-print or particularly valuable game, keeping the rule is still a fair call.
Does it leave a ring on the tray or the box lid?
The drink stands in the base, so a cold can's condensation lands there instead of on the wood, the tray, or the cardboard underneath — rings can start on bare wood in as little as 5 to 10 minutes, and this keeps the drink off it entirely. The base itself rinses clean in the sink.
Six players, six different drinks — do I need more than one?
One per drink in play, same as any cup holder. It doesn't care what's in the glass, only what shape the bottom is, so beer, wine, and seltzer all sit in the same base.
How do I clean it after a sticky game night?
Rinse it, wipe it down, or put it in the dishwasher. It's one piece of flexible material with nothing to take apart — unlike the components you're trying to keep dry.
Who makes it, and where do I buy one?
It's called the Steadi — molded in small runs in Orange, California, by Steadi Labs, veteran-founded and patent pending. Every order ships free from steadilabs.com, with 90 days to send it back if it's not for you.
Ninety days at the table.
Bring it to the table for a month. If it doesn't do what this page says — through the teach, the big rolls, the late-game sprawl — email hello@steadilabs.com and it gets made right. No forms, no fight.
Veteran-founded · Patent pending · Made in Orange, California
Behind it
Molded closer than your FLGS.
The maker is Steadi Labs, a small veteran-founded company in Orange, California. It's injection molded in small runs, and nothing about it travels far — the mold, the material, and the color runs all sit within about three and a half miles of the shop, closer than most people's FLGS. The people who make it read hello@steadilabs.com themselves — same crew that packs the box, not a call center standing between you and them.
Give the drink somewhere better than the rug.
Wherever tonight's game pushes the drink — floor, couch arm, or table edge — it stays upright, and the only thing that ends up on the cards is how the game goes.
Give it a seat — ships freeCheckout is on steadilabs.com — Steadi Labs is the company that makes it.