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Neon Retro Arcade is a reboot of the classic American arcade.
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It's not just a trend, it's not just a fad.
People have strong connections to things they grew up with and a strong affinity to recreate those experiences.
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[SOUND] When I first told people we want to open a retro arcade, they all told us it can't be done, don't bother, isn't gonna happen.
But we really knew there's great appetite across multiple generations.
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I really think the golden age of arcades in general started in the late 70s, early 80s.
And it kind of started to die off in the late 90s.
And so after a certain period people are just kind of remembering, you know I loved going back to the arcades and just playing.
It's such a fun experience and there's something that you missed.
In our current culture that these games bring back.
Okay, I think I just-
You got it there, just barely.
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We've been collecting these games for a number of years all the way back in college in fact.
We had a pinball machine in our dorm room, and that's sort of how we met.
Some of the games we've gotten have really just been trades.
I say, hey, I have this game that you've been looking for for a long time.
You have a few that I'm interested in.
Let's just do a straight swap.
Overall, we have about 90 games probably, so we have a good bit in storage.
Well, people called the arcade to see if we have specific games.
They always wanna know if we have Centipede, they always wanna know if we have Street Fighter 2, They always wanna know if we have Mortal Combat, those are really popular games that come up a lot.
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We definitely see a pop culture bump for a lot of these titles, for instance, when Ready Player One comes out, I guarentee the price of Joust is gonna skyrocket, so, I'm glad we have ours now.
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We had one instance where the world record holder of Joust came in, if you look over at the high scores there, you'll see kind of the highest possible score that you can see and I think he still had plenty of lives to continue on if he wanted to.
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I like playing current consoles as well, but it's still kind of an isolating experience.
It's just not the same as being shoulder to shoulder playing the same game with someone, being able to trash talk and have fun.
It's just such a great social experience.
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People who are in their late twenties to forties, who just have a little bit of nostalgia for their youth for a time when things were simpler, when things were easy.
And I think stepping into an arcade sends them back in time a little bit.
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