New RUSTY QUARTERS Retro Arcade & Museum Website

Wow. That was a douche thing to say Adamdiz.

Rusty Quarters looks like it has the potential to be awesome. The number of games a retro-arcade has doesn't matter, its the spirit and vibe of the location that makes it special. Have you ever seen CADE gallery in Phoenix before it closed? It only had like 6 games in the space, but it was REALLY cool looking and had a great community feel.

Everyone should be excited that retro arcades are actually OPENING instead of closing. The more the merrier. I wish you luck. Keep us posted - I want pictures!!!
 
Thanks guys for the support. Let me know if you have any questions, comments, tips or anything else that will help Rusty Quarters succeed. Also I'll be adding answered questions to our FAQ page.

Thanks, once again!
Sage
 
Congrats Morbid....I wish you guys nothing but success. To some here its a bigger dick contest, but thankfully not many buy into that concept.

Nice to see a business opening up instead of the obvious.

Hopefully you'll be a hit and can be profitable right off the bat.
 
i think you would have trouble getting people to pay 50 cents a game. most people are gonna drop 50 cents and be dead in ten seconds on the classics. even at a quarter a game i think it would be tough to get people to play. its also not enough games to get people to travel very far. hopefully you are independently wealthy because i dont see how you are gonna make enough money with that list of games to pay for the rent/utilities let alone for any employees.
 
Nice line up, good luck with this.

Can you get a liquor license? A barcade concept might do much better than just games. It would bring in the younger crowd.
 
i think you would have trouble getting people to pay 50 cents a game. most people are gonna drop 50 cents and be dead in ten seconds on the classics. even at a quarter a game i think it would be tough to get people to play. its also not enough games to get people to travel very far. hopefully you are independently wealthy because i dont see how you are gonna make enough money with that list of games to pay for the rent/utilities let alone for any employees.


Bradd has some real input however I disagree. I think you can charge .50 and still have it work. Classic games still strike people who remember them from the 80s. The younger kids that don't know what Zookeeper is won't give a crap about the games, but I don't think that's the target market, I could be wrong.

Still, in order to really make some money, you should have concessions or redemption available. Most arcade owners today will tell you even that's a dying income stream, but in the right environment, it can usually help.

Keep it positive but don't depend solely on the games to bring in the rent $$ or you might be sorely mistaken.

can't wait to see pics once its open.
 
yeah reading my reply i did seem sort of negative and i dont mean to do that, i encourage anyone who has the time and money to dedicate to open their collections to the public. i think its a great cause and wish the best.
 
Nice line up, good luck with this.

Can you get a liquor license? A barcade concept might do much better than just games. It would bring in the younger crowd.

I agree, nice start with a good line up of games. Nice website as well, post some picture and video when you can, good luck...
 
Right now we're trying our best to close the current store (Puff N' Stuff Gifts and Novelty) to make room for arcade cabinets. Once the floor is cleared, I'll try my best to take some "before" pics before the "after" starts.

as for the 50¢ dilema, I recently answered a email with this concern. Let me copy/paste my response:

50¢, Really ? Isn't that kinda steep ?:
Trust me, if there was any other way, we would make all of our games 25¢ per play, but because of current economics, we can't. To be clear, It's not a We Won't , it's a We Can't situation. Because of our opening budget, we will be opening with 20 games, expanding with 1 or 2 new game purchases per month. I hope by our 30-35th game purchase, we will be able to lower down the price to 25¢ per game. Also even though most games will be 50¢, we do plan to only charge 25¢ for fighting games and "Continue ?" platform games (Ex: Ghost and Goblins, Dragon's Lair, Simpsons, etc.).
I hope this sets your mind at ease. We're not trying to make a fortune. Just trying to make enough to keep the lights on, pay the bills, and have a entertaining atmosphere for fellow gamers to hang out.



As for a Barcade idea, we're right next door to Bryant Lake Bowl, which is more of a full funtioning bar with eight 100+ year old lanes in the back. Theres no need to compete, plus becase of zoning we can't searve alcohol (It's complicated). On the weekends they're jam packed full of people, which love to come in to play our games.

While we were a gift shop, we get alot of decent foot traffic from Bryant Lake Bowl in the evening and the regulars (collage kids) are very excited about a arcade opening up.

On our other side of our shop is Jackson's coffee and Gelato, which is full of parents and kids that love to come in to our shop to play our Defender, Donkey Kong, and Donkey Kong Jr. Machines, which currently bring in around $120 total a month, at 25¢ a play.

We talked about pricing with regular gamers that coming in (Flat rates, quaters vs. tokens, 25¢ vs. 50¢, etc.) and we feel that 50¢ is very reasonible for most games and only charging 25¢ for true quarter eaters (Defender), Fighting games (Street Fighter) and obsure games (Congo Bongo)... Then when we get 30-35 games, we'll open up the books and see what we can do with making all the games 25¢.

I'm hoping that we will be able to draw in more of the bryant lake nightlife, kids in the weekend mornings, and offer privite party packages for birthdays and events. Also as a ordained Minister, I could preform Weddings at Rusty Quarters... I don't know if anyone would want to get married at a arcade, but I think it might be something that might get us some free press in a local newspaper.

Bottom line, My wife and I want to give it a go. We did some research and asked around... Brought in some of my personal games to see how they would do /see if there was any interest (People are REALLY EXCITED!) and all we have got is positive feedback with step 1 and going on to step 2. We're going on 2 years on a 5 year lease on the retail space so we gotta try something. I really think we'll do ok... and then after our lease is up, we'll think about looking for a larger space or a closed tavern space to explore a Barcade idea, but for right now we're give Rusty Quarters a shot.

Once again, thanks for the input guys. Any more comments or suggestions (good or bad) are greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
Sage James Spirtos
Rusty Quarters Retro Arcade & Museum
 
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As for food...


Will you be serving alcohol or food ?:

Because of zoning laws, we will not be serving beer or mixed drinks but I would recommend Bryant Lake Bowl for food & drink and Jackson's Coffee & Gelato for... well, coffee & gelato. They both located on either side of Rusty Quarters and are both open early and close late. For that quick snack, we will have Mexican Coke-Cola Products (with real cane sugar) and candy for sale at Rusty Quarters. Soon, we will be looking into a pizza heater so we can serve slices of Pizza Luce pizza [local pizza chain that has won many city awards for the best pizza in town]... It all depends on health codes and zoning laws, but we're looking into it.


We have a small space with no room for a grill. We were thinking about offering popcorn but might get too messy, a pain to clean up, and us consintily having to clean the game controllers, which I already do (usually 4 times durring the day)... any sugestions about other things to offer?
 
check out our new website:

www.rqarcade.com

Opening this November in Minneapolis, Minnesota!

Right on! Good luck with your arcade. Nice list of classics so far.

I don't see a problem charging .50 per game. Quite a few players can last awhile on one credit. So it does not hurt to get a quick .50 from players that will burn through that credit quickly.
 
mexican coca cola is awesome, i always grab a few glass bottles when me and the wife make tacos...
 
the short version:

1) We're next to a very popular bar that we couldn't or want to compete with.

2) in Lynlake area/Uptown MN, for you to get a Liquor license, you have to searve food...
not just popcorn and nuts but REAL FOOD. We don't have the space for that kinda operation.

3) So far we have to pay around $2K for our licenses to open a Arcade. The price almost doubles when you want to open a bar.


Right now in the space and budget we have, we just can't do it.
 
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