🔒Press start: Central Mass. bar arcades look to cash in on nostalgia

Everything old can be new again.

This adage is a driving force behind bar arcades: establishments where patrons can unwind with food and alcohol while enjoying classic games like “Ms. Pac-Man” or “NBA Jam.” One such business is up and running in Worcester, and another set to open in Fitchburg.

Despite featuring technology that might be considered ancient by someone just coming of drinking age, nostalgia and curiosity for the seemingly simpler times of the late 20th century are a major driving force behind bar arcade’s popularity, according to current and prospective owners of the region’s bar arcades.

“There's just been an influx of nostalgia on TV programs like ‘Stranger Things,’ which was 1980s-based, and it gets a lot of younger people into the era,” said Joshua Rife, who is working to open a bar arcade in Fitchburg. “It’s kind of mystical to them, so they're wondering what that's like. But also people my age in their 30s, who kind of have money now, we can go out and experience things and buy things that we used to want when we were kids.”

As demand rises and original parts become harder to find, arcade machines which were once viewed as a bulky relic of a bygone era can now fetch thousands, presenting entrepreneurs with the rare piece of business equipment which can accrue in value even while being used.

Second life

Arcade machines have been a common sight in bars and restaurants since “Pong” first broke onto the scene in 1972, but they were typically a sideshow attraction taking up otherwise unused real estate.

It wouldn’t be until 1999 when Ground Kontrol, one of the first known arcade-focused bars, opened in Portland, Oregon. Originally solely an arcade, the business made the decision to focus on adult clientele by adding a bar and food options a few years after opening.

Ground Kontrol was followed by a Barcade, a chain of bar arcades with its first location in Brooklyn opened in 2004, according to an article published in Imbibe Magazine.

Several Barcade locations have opened on the East Coast since, with the firm’s owners being particularly litigious towards any other establishment trying to use the term Barcade in its title, according to a 2019 article from Eater.

Both Barcade and Ground Kontrol showed arcade machines were not simply artifacts of the past. The concept has spread to major cities across the country, ironically becoming more popular as arcades faded from relevance for video game production firms, which are now almost exclusively focused on making console games played at home.

Free Play in Worcester

Free Play Bar & Arcade in Worcester opened in September 2021, with its opening being delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Founded by Jay Leone, Anthony Santurri, and Eric Tidd, the Worcester location followed the successful opening of the company’s first location in Providence in 2017.

Leone, a former engineer at Hopkinton tech company EMC, originally started collecting arcade machines as a hobby around 2008, enjoying the thrill of finding old machines and bringing them back to life. With his collection growing and the concept of bar arcades taking off elsewhere in the country, he contacted Santurri, the owner of a nightclub in Providence, to begin the process of opening the first Free Play location.

Based in the former location of Maxwell Silverman's Toolhouse Restaurant, Free Play Worcester has more than 70 arcade machines, as well as 15 pinball machines and other attractions, such as foosball and bubble hockey.

Free Play outlasted Pixels & Pints Arcade Bar, a fellow Worcester establishment opened in 2019. Originally opening on Grafton Street, Pixels announced it would be moving to a new location in May 2021 but never reopened, suggesting adding arcade machines does not make running a bar or restaurant any less challenging.

Part of Free Play’s sticking power has been its ability to keep offering fresh experiences, said Leone. After opening, the venue added a dance floor, with DJs and karaoke featuring 80s and 90s music, as well as an outdoor courtyard with a stage for live performances.

Free Play Worcester has brought some modern technology to its games; multiple pinball machines at the business are equipped with Insider Connected, a technology platform created by Illinois-based Stern Pinball.

Launched in 2021, Stern’s technology allows pinball players to scan a QR code allowing their scores to be tracked in an app and displayed on a video monitor, turning what was once mostly a solitary experience into something more interactive.

Usually a 21+ venue, Free Play has established a weekly family period on Sunday afternoons after customers kept asking for the ability to bring their children along. Inspired by its success in Worcester, the business is working on opening a third location in Taunton.

Leveling-up on value

Just as the name suggests, all machines at Free Play are free to play, with the business instead charging an entry fee which ranges from $7 to $12, depending on the night. Games in the company’s collection range in age from 1979’s “Asteroids” to “Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA,” a Japanese rhythm game still being produced by Tokyo-based Sega.

Like any collectible, the value of a particular arcade machine is ultimately what someone is willing to pay for it. Spurred by a COVID-19 pandemic-inspired increase in home collectors and the increasingly scarce availability of original machines and parts, the value of classic arcade machines has skyrocketed over the last decade, with some machines doubling or even tripling in value.

“When I started this hobby, a lot of these games were fairly inexpensive in terms of acquiring them,” said Leone. “A lot of them were free at the time because we were going through the 2008 financial crisis. People were losing their homes and needed to move out. A lot of these games were just kind of sitting around and didn't work.”

This has turned machines like 1978’s “Space Invaders,” 1981’s “Centipede”, or 1982’s “Burgertime,” into a bit of a dream scenario for a business owner: a piece of equipment bringing in revenue while continuing to increase in value.

While the rate of the price climb has slowed a bit since the pandemic, values are still heading upward. Particularly rare or desirable machines can fetch upward of $5,000.

“A lot of these games, the same ones that I once picked up for next to nothing, are either impossible to find or very expensive,” Leone said. “It’s thousands of dollars to get these games today, and oftentimes, if you want to find them, you have to ship them.”

Leone guessed the collection at Free Play Worcester is worth somewhere in the six-figure range.

Part scarcity

A reason for the increase in values is the scarcity of replacement parts, said Andy Jimison, founder of both MallRats arcade and Materia Arcade & Video Games in Worcester. While Jimison was surprised by the relative ease of restoring machines when he first got into the hobby, the machine’s displays can be a problem.

“The monitors themselves, those are kind of an outlier,” Jimison said. “They're old [cathode-ray tube] monitors. They're going to keep dying. And the people that know how to repair those and the equipment you use to repair them are getting more rare.”

While not quite a bar arcade, MallRats Arcade is pretty close. Located inside the building formerly known as the Midtown Mall, it shares a wall with the Odd by Worcester Brewing. The craft brewery’s owner Jay Grey worked with Jimison to open the arcade in November, which is open to all ages.

In addition to giving Jimison more space to store his growing collection, MallRats allows him to share the joy created by the machines with Worcester.

“They're meant to be played in a community space with strangers,” he said. “I never wanted to have my arcade in my basement. That was never my goal.”

Fitchburg's soon-to-be location

The staying power of Free Play in Worcester has shown midsize cities are seemingly large enough to support bar arcades. Leominster native Joshua Rife is betting the concept can work in the smaller city of Fitchburg, boosted by the ongoing revitalization of its downtown and the area’s student population provided by Fitchburg State University.

A graduate of FSU’s video game design program, Rife shares a passion for gaming and seeks to tap into customers' fond memories of decades past with retro-themed lighting, artwork, and cocktail menus.

His business, called Power Surge, will include gaming consoles like Nintendo Switch to help entice college-age audiences too young to remember classics like 1982’s “Ms Pacman” or 1992’s “Street Fighter II.”

Power Surge Bar Arcade is planning a spring opening at 347-355 Main St. Combined with new apartments above, the business will bring new life into a downtown building constructed in 1877.

“We’ll have the classics like ‘Galaga’ and ‘Pac-Man.’ We’re going to have ‘The House of the Dead,’ a shooting game they had in the 90s in roller rinks and places like that,” Rife said. “‘Dance Dance Revolution’ is a big one we will have.”

Eric Casey is the managing editor at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the manufacturing and real estate industries.