I dunno if it's in your wheelhouse, but I recently discovered a "game cafe" locally that allows folks to check out games by the hour (like a very specialized library), but they also sell beer/wine/coffee/pastries plus running the events like you said. I am so incredibly sad I didn't think of that first - that forehead slapping moment is my definition of a "good idea"
We've let people rent on and off - the issue with renting is there's not much we can do scalably about verifying missing components, rules, good working condition (when non-board game people are running the store) - I charge about $10/wk for a game rented but it's definitely not a service we advertise actively.
