hey, i'm opening an arcade bar!!!

[mjmjr25]

aaron, I have some ideas - shoot me a pm when you have time.

The pics - where is that now? (maybe I missed it) is that the establishment or is that one of your houses?

Have you secured a liquor license?

[KalessinDB]

We should take up a collection here so we can jointly submit for a Racketboy table.

So... are we gonna make this happen?

[CD AGES]

Interesting. The Barcade concept has really taken off around the US, and my area (SoCal) is absolutely no exception to the trend.
The true old school arcade concept out here has nearly vanished from existence sadly (FFA, Denjin, AI, Japan Arcade, All Amusement etc.), while slowly but surely being replaced by ventures with an expanded business model, Japan's Round 1 here in the states, X-Lanes, More DnB expansion, Ultimate Gaming Center and of course the Barcade.
82 is such a place that recently opened in the art district of LA. The place has very trendy and classy vibe to it. A humble collection of Classic arcades, pinball machines are the name of the game and of course, Booze . Arcades are 25¢ and pinball 50¢ for the majority. The place really taken off!
Even more recently is a new Barcade that just happend to open just this past Friday in my area. The 1UP. As a matter of fact, I was just there last night to see what it has offer. A similar concept to 82 but with some changes. This place has a kitchen so they offer various types of foods. The most significant difference from its competitor lies in its selection of arcades. Not only is it fairly small at first glance but also, all their cabs are running on emulated software. Their SFII Dash cab was honestly a joke. The game was running on a low framerate, housed in a bootleg Namco Noir Cab with Tekken decal art. Whats worse was that the buttons weren't properly mapped. opening weekend snafus?
Nervertheless, I had a good time and didn't mind the poor build quality of the machines and Emu software for1 simple reason. Freeplay! Now keep in mind, I have zero problems dropping quarter after quarter on genuine arcade cabs at 82 especially on their sweet SF II Turbo cab lol! Had 1UP charged for its selection of games, I'd simply pass...
I wish you the best of luck.
All I would recommend at this point is... DO NOT eliminate a source of revenue from your establishment. 25¢ to play on a genuine arcade cab is a heck of deal these days

[8bit]

Very cool Aaron. I've been to quite a few barcades in Dallas, Houston, Austin, and Seattle. Most will have a free play night each week, on like a wednesday or tuesday, when it's traditionally slower, but otherwise they charge to play the games the other nights. To me this makes perfect sense because on a Friday or Saturday night people at out to spend money and are happy to do so on something they are having fun doing (whether that is drinking or playing games). Plus you need to be making some money on the square footage, electricity, and maintenance the arcade units are going to be consuming. Side note, be sure to install cup holders on the sides or fronts of each of those machines. Otherwise there will be spilled beer on the machines and floor every single night. Again, please do not be afraid to charge for the games, even if its just a quarter or two per play. If the beer and atmosphere is good, people will come just for that, stay, and drop some quarters into the machines.

Last suggestion, from my time out at the barcades I've seen those places have a lot of success with games like skeeball, basketball, and similar arcade experiences. I think especially for women these games are not as intimidating and will munch up quite a few quarters as friends to to best each others scores.

[retrosportsgamer]

One potential model - you make the machines free to play but charge a $10 cover and get a wrist band or something. Then you can play as much as you'd like all night, don't need to worry about bringing a bag of quarters and you make $ on top with the bar tabs.

[fastbilly1]

Red Tent!

For those saying you need to charge a quarter or nickel to play you run into an issue with permitting office. In many major cities the cost is $100-200 per cab per month to operate on coins (tokens/swipes come in differently but introduce a different set of issues). The work around is a cover charge or a per hour charge to play games. Have yall grabbed a liquor license or just a beer and wine one? Id opt for beer and wine over liquor since it will keep overhead low.


Proud of you Aaron, and if you ever need a sounding board drop me a line. And if yall ever want to get rid of that red tent, call me. Ill be there shortly. My tent needs a buddy.

[aaron]

thanks everyone for the replies. we've been ultra busy picking up new machines, restoring the ones we have, gearing up for a huge promotional campaign, moving machines, being at events, doing local interviews, etc, so i haven't had a ton of time to respond to these questions/comments.

regarding free play, we thought about it long and hard and after examining the concepts used by places like 16-Bit in Columbus, OH and Headquarters in Chicago, we're sticking to our guns on this one. indiana law requires all amusement machines that collect money or tokens to have a license, which can range from $50 to $200 per machine, per month. the extra money we might make from the quarters wouldn't really help us out in the long run. then there's change services since most banks won't deal in change, changer maintenance, etc... we're confident that if you want to hog The Simpsons and play it all the way through with some buds, you'll probably have a couple beers while you're doing it. we have some other creative ideas on how to combat hogging and keep things civil and fair.

we're at 29% funded already and so far it's awesome. if any of you here have donated or are considering donating, THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart. this is a labor of love for me, and i don't anticipate making a ton of money from this venture. i just want people to play some classic games and have a good time.

if you're still interested in donating anything, you can do so here: http://igg.me/at/tappers $1 or $1000, anything will help immensely. thanks again everybody.

[Hazerd]

I would go there for the arace games, but i wouldnt be drinking any beer, ewwww...

[Ack]

Hey aaron, do you plan to offer any food or anything?

The bar near me that is similar to this, Joystick Gamebar, does serve food: burgers, fries, burritos, that kind of thing. It's a menu that has slowly evolved over time, but the food is actually pretty good. And they offer a separate lounge area to sit in, eat, and play things like card or board games.

Here's the website: http://joystickgamebar.com/

And a word of warning: that place gets packed, and they rent out their machines from someone apparently, so repairs aren't always as timely as I would like. Their MVS has a button that sticks...not good for Metal Slug.

[aaron]

Hey aaron, do you plan to offer any food or anything?

The bar near me that is similar to this, Joystick Gamebar, does serve food: burgers, fries, burritos, that kind of thing. It's a menu that has slowly evolved over time, but the food is actually pretty good. And they offer a separate lounge area to sit in, eat, and play things like card or board games.

Here's the website: http://joystickgamebar.com/

And a word of warning: that place gets packed, and they rent out their machines from someone apparently, so repairs aren't always as timely as I would like. Their MVS has a button that sticks...not good for Metal Slug.

yeah we're going to start with simple bar food type stuff but i don't think we will have a full kitchen at first. it really depends on how much funding we are able to secure.

we're doing all of our repairs in-house currently, since we own all of the games. i'd like to eventually hire someone to do full-time repairs, but that's just me riffin' and not indicative of the actual business plan.