joemagiera
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Visited my local Chicago "bar-cade" - my review
Last night (Saturday, 2-16-2013), for the first time, I visited the local bar-cade in Chicago, Emporium, at 1366 North Milwaukee in Chicago.
http://emporiumchicago.com/games/
Wanted to report for the group. First off, parking is extremely difficult. I drove by the place at 11PM and it took me a solid 25 minutes to find any parking. Now this is a young person's area of Chicago, with a lot of bars in the area on a Saturday night, so that probably explains things (and if you lived in Chicago, I'm sure you've been through that before).
That said, once I actually got in the place, I thought it was great! Pretty impressive selection of games and on the games I played at least, they seemed to be pretty well maintained. The place was jam packed. It was great to see all the old games in a public setting, very actively being played. Age group is what you would expect for a bar in this area, mostly 20's & 30's age group. I though sure it would be more of an attraction for older people that played them in the arcades. Then again, older people don't go to bars as often. As I walked up and down the bar to check the place out, I don't think at any point did I see two games in a row not being played.
They had three new Stern pinball games, Transformers and ACDC, can't remember the last. Good decision on their part not to have any old e&m games. (no offense to the e&m lovers, but those pins would never earn in a setting like this). Now maybe a 90's Williams DMD would have been nice, but that's okay. All 3 pins were being played the whole night, and generally all on 4 player games.
The place was a typical bar, the music was loud and you had to talk (shout?) very loudly to get the person next to you to hear you.
I played Q*bert, joystick was nice and tight and even the knocker was working. Space Invaders, fully working, including the mystery ship sound. Asteroids, b/w x/y and game working fine. Missile Command, track ball rolled very smooth, just like it should (monitor could have used a cap, but it wasn't bad at all). Played a few others, Burger Time, Zaxxon, Centipede (working, but had a bit of a board issue, still playable though), and all seemed generally fine.
They had a big chalk board with high scores on it. Nothing glitzy or special, but it did the job. I got a couple high scores and reported them. On a very busy Saturday night, the bartender that I told about it, immediately came and verified the score and immediately got out the ladder and posted my name and score. I was impressed that he clearly made it a priority to post up the new score so quickly. I thought sure he'd need to attend to the liquor buying customers first, but they waited. Nice touch.
All in all, I thought it was great and I would likely go back. If you have any thoughts or interest in it, go give it a chance, I think you will enjoy yourself. Just remember, parking is difficult and costs before 9PM. And the parking police watch the area like hawks. Both buddies I was with said they had received parking tickets parking around there previously. I stayed out until 2AM. It's a 3AM bar and would have stayed until closing, but my buddies all left. I had a great time and recommend it to all.
Last night (Saturday, 2-16-2013), for the first time, I visited the local bar-cade in Chicago, Emporium, at 1366 North Milwaukee in Chicago.
http://emporiumchicago.com/games/
Wanted to report for the group. First off, parking is extremely difficult. I drove by the place at 11PM and it took me a solid 25 minutes to find any parking. Now this is a young person's area of Chicago, with a lot of bars in the area on a Saturday night, so that probably explains things (and if you lived in Chicago, I'm sure you've been through that before).
That said, once I actually got in the place, I thought it was great! Pretty impressive selection of games and on the games I played at least, they seemed to be pretty well maintained. The place was jam packed. It was great to see all the old games in a public setting, very actively being played. Age group is what you would expect for a bar in this area, mostly 20's & 30's age group. I though sure it would be more of an attraction for older people that played them in the arcades. Then again, older people don't go to bars as often. As I walked up and down the bar to check the place out, I don't think at any point did I see two games in a row not being played.
They had three new Stern pinball games, Transformers and ACDC, can't remember the last. Good decision on their part not to have any old e&m games. (no offense to the e&m lovers, but those pins would never earn in a setting like this). Now maybe a 90's Williams DMD would have been nice, but that's okay. All 3 pins were being played the whole night, and generally all on 4 player games.
The place was a typical bar, the music was loud and you had to talk (shout?) very loudly to get the person next to you to hear you.
I played Q*bert, joystick was nice and tight and even the knocker was working. Space Invaders, fully working, including the mystery ship sound. Asteroids, b/w x/y and game working fine. Missile Command, track ball rolled very smooth, just like it should (monitor could have used a cap, but it wasn't bad at all). Played a few others, Burger Time, Zaxxon, Centipede (working, but had a bit of a board issue, still playable though), and all seemed generally fine.
They had a big chalk board with high scores on it. Nothing glitzy or special, but it did the job. I got a couple high scores and reported them. On a very busy Saturday night, the bartender that I told about it, immediately came and verified the score and immediately got out the ladder and posted my name and score. I was impressed that he clearly made it a priority to post up the new score so quickly. I thought sure he'd need to attend to the liquor buying customers first, but they waited. Nice touch.
All in all, I thought it was great and I would likely go back. If you have any thoughts or interest in it, go give it a chance, I think you will enjoy yourself. Just remember, parking is difficult and costs before 9PM. And the parking police watch the area like hawks. Both buddies I was with said they had received parking tickets parking around there previously. I stayed out until 2AM. It's a 3AM bar and would have stayed until closing, but my buddies all left. I had a great time and recommend it to all.
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