I recently visited a retro arcade in the Twin Cities called Starcade.
They are located at:
Keg & Case Market
928 7th Street West, St. Paul, MN 55102
Admission is:
- 4 Years & Under: Free
- 5-11 Years: $15
- 12 Years & Up: $20
- 65 Years & Older: $15
One of the nice things that they have available is that you can rent the entire arcade on Mondays or Tuesdays for $600 for 2 hours. (Each guest is then $10 per person)
They are one of the largest arcades in Minnesota with over 200 Cabs from the 1970's to the 2000's with classic games like Asteroids, Pac-Man, Gauntlet, Missile Commander, etc, etc. All of the set to free to play.
The time that I spent there I was with a couple of friends and they found two games they had not played in years: Robotron 2084 and Sinistar. I found two that I had not played in ages: Dragon Spirit (I couldn't make it past the first level) and Dr. Mario (I got the high score on that one.)
The one thing that I really liked about the place was the admission price, which was good for the entire day (as long as you leave your wristband on) you can go home, go out to eat. Whatever you wanted to do and then you could come back and play until closing.
During my time there I found that only a couple of Cabs were out of order. However, there have been times where I have visited arcades that most of the Cabs were not in working condition. Another good thing that I found at Starcade was that the monitors for all of the Cabs seem to be in pristine condition. Unfortunately there have been times when visited other arcades I had found older Cabs where the monitor had a lot of wear and tear damage that was visible.
On the cleanliness front the place was very orderly and spotless. As for the number of Cabs that they had in the place I never felt cramped and I believe that it had a nice balance between the number of Cabs and space in between them.
They have non-alcoholic beverages available and a small pizzeria. It was a little pricey, but the food was decent and the soft drinks were from the main soft drink companies, along with a nice diverse amount of indie soft drink makers. There are also a number of other places to eat nearby if you wanted something beyond what was available in house.
Overall I consider Starcade a quality retro arcade that can keep the younger crowd entertained, while providing the older crowd with the shot of nostalgia they were looking for.