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Barcade coming to Newark


thecoffeecake

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Barcade is opening their 7th location on Broad Street in Newark, I'm guessing in time for the upcoming season. Normally I wouldn't be excited about a franchise coming in and would hope to have only local Newark establishments, but Barcade is a lot of fun. If you've never been to one (they're all in the Tri State area except for the one in Philly. It's close to where I live and go pretty often), they're craft beer bars with loads of vintage arcade games. The one by me has 26 beers on draught and over 60 games. They have a good balance of local and non-local beers, and the owners really like to push having some funky stuff on tap.

It's not going to quite be Prudential Center adjacent as I first thought (someone showed me a Mulberry street address and told me that's where it'll be); it's directly next to the old baseball stadium on the river. It'll catch a lot of people who go to Topps over in Harrison after the games I imagine. Still walking distance for some people, but it'll be a fun pregame spot for sure.

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On 5/19/2017 at 1:02 AM, Onddeck said:

I live in Philly and am super close to that barcade.. definitely a fun spot!! My favorite has gotta be Rampage or Frogger- love just getting bombed and player that sh!t all night hahaha 

Hey neighbor. Those are actually my 2 favorites as well, along with Tapper. I've spent hours at that Frogger machine gunning for the nightly high scores. The all-time highs are absurd. 

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On 5/24/2017 at 1:04 PM, thecoffeecake said:

Hey neighbor. Those are actually my 2 favorites as well, along with Tapper. I've spent hours at that Frogger machine gunning for the nightly high scores. The all-time highs are absurd. 

nice dude! im technically in northern liberties, but definitely a lot of cool spots... i never get to barcade as much as i should though

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1 hour ago, Onddeck said:

nice dude! im technically in northern liberties, but definitely a lot of cool spots... i never get to barcade as much as i should though

 Oh man we're really neighbors, I live a few blocks from northern liberties off spring garden. There are tons of awesome places in our area, it's a luxury. I used to go to Barcade more than I do now, it's been a while since I've gone in there to hang out. The weekends are just packed. I should make a point to try to get there more, they're really nice people in there.

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  • 1 month later...

Just noticed this, and it's kind of a downer that the location doesn't make a ton of sense so far as I can tell.  According to Google maps, it's about a 25 minute walk to the Prudential Center/downtown and about the same to Red Bull Stadium.  I don't want to be the type that dumps on Newark too much, but I wouldn't be that excited to take that walk, especially during the winter, nevermind for safety reasons.  I suppose you could take Light Rail, but when I used to work in Newark it wasn't as convenient as it was it was cracked up to be.

Guess the old Arena Bar was too small for the operation. 

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Neverheard of Barcade, I guess because they're locations are NY/NJ and one in CT, but it looks and sounds awesome.  I'd seriously be interested in franchising and/or opening up something similar down this way.  How does it work, do you just put your own quarters in and pay as you go?  Does each location have the same amount and type of games, or are they different?  I imagine some of these games being rare and unique might make it hard to replicate in various locations.  Curious where they get them from and for how much.  Does anyone know how many games they started with at each location?  I assume they are always adding more, but I'd imagine you'd need a good selection to draw people in when you first open your doors. 

Yeah, needless to say, I'm very interested in this lol.

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On 5/26/2017 at 5:02 PM, thecoffeecake said:

 Oh man we're really neighbors, I live a few blocks from northern liberties off spring garden. There are tons of awesome places in our area, it's a luxury. I used to go to Barcade more than I do now, it's been a while since I've gone in there to hang out. The weekends are just packed. I should make a point to try to get there more, they're really nice people in there.

Btw I was there on sat and rampage is gone!! Couldn't believe it 

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23 hours ago, NJDfan1711 said:

Neverheard of Barcade, I guess because they're locations are NY/NJ and one in CT, but it looks and sounds awesome.  I'd seriously be interested in franchising and/or opening up something similar down this way.  How does it work, do you just put your own quarters in and pay as you go?  Does each location have the same amount and type of games, or are they different?  I imagine some of these games being rare and unique might make it hard to replicate in various locations.  Curious where they get them from and for how much.  Does anyone know how many games they started with at each location?  I assume they are always adding more, but I'd imagine you'd need a good selection to draw people in when you first open your doors. 

Yeah, needless to say, I'm very interested in this lol.

I have only been to the Philly location, but I don't think every game in all the locations are exactly the same, but I imagine the core ones are in most of them. I don't think there are many super rare games, if any. The Philly one advertises 60+ games. That sounds generous, and they could be including the machines  with multiple games. I imagine they all open covered wall to wall with games. It used to be a quarter per play, but they started using a token machine. I think quarters are still accepted in the games, but yea, pay as you go, no cover.

The one here is in an old carriage house or something. They cleaned it up but didn't make any renovations to the inside besides the infrastructure needed for the bar and kitchen. Old dusty exposed brick, big open rooms and huge windows. But these operations were funded well from the start as far as i can tell. They certainly didn't fly by the seat of their pants, they had the cash to dump into these places.

12 hours ago, Onddeck said:

Btw I was there on sat and rampage is gone!! Couldn't believe it 

Funny, I almost ended up there on Saturday, I was around in Fishtown. I had my Devils hat on, too.

That sucks though, I usually started at Rampage because no one was ever on it. I guess that might explain it. As long as Frogger and Tapper are still in there, still reason to go. And their awesome  beer selection.

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20 minutes ago, thecoffeecake said:

I have only been to the Philly location, but I don't think every game in all the locations are exactly the same, but I imagine the core ones are in most of them. I don't think there are many super rare games, if any. The Philly one advertises 60+ games. That sounds generous, and they could be including the machines  with multiple games. I imagine they all open covered wall to wall with games. It used to be a quarter per play, but they started using a token machine. I think quarters are still accepted in the games, but yea, pay as you go, no cover.

The one here is in an old carriage house or something. They cleaned it up but didn't make any renovations to the inside besides the infrastructure needed for the bar and kitchen. Old dusty exposed brick, big open rooms and huge windows. But these operations were funded well from the start as far as i can tell. They certainly didn't fly by the seat of their pants, they had the cash to dump into these places.

 

Interesting.   I definitely didn't think or expect that they just turned one of these places up on a whim.  It looks like there's a similar establishment in St. Petersburg which is about 45 minutes from me, and that area would certainly fit the decor and style you mentioned with the exposed brick and what not, which is actually exactly what I would theme it like as well with that rustic and nostalgic look, but nothing down my way here that remotely resembles that.   I work in Sarasota and live in a neighboring town, and if you've ever heard of Sarasota it's a fairly upscale town with a lot of new construction going on, so a place like this that was modeled to imitate an old brick building that had retro games and good beer/food inside would do really well, I think.  

I'm definitely intrigued.  The right business move would probably be to lease the gaming equipment, at least initially, in case it didn't work out and you could always give them up, but I don't see a lot of places online doing that.  Seems like they're buy it outright type of sites, and of course they're not cheap (seems like $2K is the average for a stand-up arcade game).  If you wanted a decent selection of 15-20 games, you're looking at 40K or so, just for the games.  Doesn't include any rent or renovations to whatever property you'd have to lease.  I imagine startup capital for this would have to be 100-200K.   It's not unrealistic where I would be able to take out a business loan of that size, it's not really much different than a mortgage for a home.  Especially if you went in with a partner or multiple people, that makes it easier.  Just not sure if banks require you to have a ton of liquid assets. Guess it's stuff I'll have to research.  Thanks for the info.

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30 minutes ago, thecoffeecake said:

I have only been to the Philly location, but I don't think every game in all the locations are exactly the same, but I imagine the core ones are in most of them. I don't think there are many super rare games, if any. The Philly one advertises 60+ games. That sounds generous, and they could be including the machines  with multiple games. I imagine they all open covered wall to wall with games. It used to be a quarter per play, but they started using a token machine. I think quarters are still accepted in the games, but yea, pay as you go, no cover.

The one here is in an old carriage house or something. They cleaned it up but didn't make any renovations to the inside besides the infrastructure needed for the bar and kitchen. Old dusty exposed brick, big open rooms and huge windows. But these operations were funded well from the start as far as i can tell. They certainly didn't fly by the seat of their pants, they had the cash to dump into these places.

Funny, I almost ended up there on Saturday, I was around in Fishtown. I had my Devils hat on, too.

That sucks though, I usually started at Rampage because no one was ever on it. I guess that might explain it. As long as Frogger and Tapper are still in there, still reason to go. And their awesome  beer selection.

Haha! Awesome.. if I ever see a Devils hat there I'll call it out

and yes Frogger is where I spent most of my time! NBA jam btw makes you pay for every quarter smh.. still whooped up on my buddy though 

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Speaking of cool places in Jersey the Silverball Museum in Asbury is a blast. Not a bar but a place full of mostly pinball but some arcade and other amusement games. You a fee for the time you spend there everything is set on free mode and they have stuff from the 40s and newer. Its really fun.

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8 hours ago, roomtemp said:

Speaking of cool places in Jersey the Silverball Museum in Asbury is a blast. Not a bar but a place full of mostly pinball but some arcade and other amusement games. You a fee for the time you spend there everything is set on free mode and they have stuff from the 40s and newer. Its really fun.

I fvcking love silverball.  They have a hockey themed pinball game from I guess the 70s. Bobby Orr is on it in a Blackhawks jersey. The  background of the game is supposed to be the Blackhawks vs. Team Canada.

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