For many of us, mahjong was the game our moms would host on Wednesday evenings, or that our grandmothers would play at the senior center. But 100 years after it fi rst made its introduction in the United States, it’s seeing a resurgence—and Boca Raton is no different.
Kari Long founded Mahj on the Beach when she moved to Boca Raton in the summer of 2025. An avid player when she lived in Birmingham, Ala., she was disappointed to see that there weren’t groups meeting outside of country clubs. So she founded Mahj on the Beach, a way to teach the game to newbies as well as make connections in her new city.
“My first class was June 26, 2025 in Boca, a group of eight women, and then from there it just kind of took off by word of mouth,” Long says. “By August I was pretty much fully booked.”
A year later, she has hosted mahjong parties and private lessons and been hired by resorts and companies to host team-building events. Mahj on the Beach has made it to The Boca Raton, The Seagate, The Breakers, The Country Club at Mirasol, Break House, Replay Club, Emily’s Garden, and more. “Post-COVID, we were really, really searching for the opportunity to have face-to-face interaction,” Long explains about mahjong’s appeal. “People are just so sick of being on their phones and being tied to it.”
And with players at her events ranging from 25 to 55 years old, Long says, “the younger generation is seeing what our parents and grandparents have known for so long: that you need to have the community.” mahjonthebeach.com
A brief history of mahjong
Mahjong was invented in China in the 1800s as mainly a gambling game for men. When engineer Joseph Park Babcock visited in 1920, he knew it would be a hit back home. He sold the game to Abercrombie & Fitch (back when it was a sporting goods store), leading to thousands of sets sold for parlor games enthusiasts and American housewives planning their next girls’ night. Fun fact: The Flagler Museum has a mahjong set on display that belonged to Mary Lily Kenan Flagler. To create uniformity in the game, a group of five Jewish American women created the American Mah Jongg League in 1937 to regulate the rule cards and official standard hands. Today, mahjong remains embedded in Asian American and Jewish American culture, with a comeback we’re now watching unfold.
This story is from the May/June 2026 issue of Boca magazine. For more like this, click here to subscribe to the magazine.
