Barcade

More games here than the Williamsburg branch. Check out the hologram game towards the back.

I love the idea of wanting to love barcode. It has a great selection of retro video games, a cozy décor, an assortment of beers on tap and awesome bar food. I don’t mean to be a hater but even with all of these amazing thugs the experience always falls short somehow. The bar is always jam packed, even on a school night and the staff is a bit gruff.
I’m giving this place 3 stars for not being able to live up to its 5 star awesomeness potential. I keep returning hoping that one day it will.

We came here one night for drinks and good times because it was recommended by a friend of ours that was a New York local. Great decision! Good times! They have a variety of different arcade games. They also have tables in this location off to the side and someone was having a birthday party going on. Fun! Also I walked over to a table to put our backpacks and jackets down but there was a paper on the table that said that it was «reserved» and had a specific name on the table. So yep! They do take reservations. Although I didn’t try their food, a lot of people seemed to be ordering the nachos and they looked pretty delicious.
Since we were a group of four, it was cool they have a few games that are four player: pacman, x-​men, ninja turtles
Pros: service was good, bar tender was on top of our drinks, each game has a spot to put your drink down which was SO nice
Cons: no coat check?! It would’ve been really nice if they had a coat check!!!
Would I go back? Yep!
***Tip: if you like porters (like me) try the snow plow! It’s by Climax Brewing Company.
It was such a great beer.

Barcade, booze and video games what else is there to say? I mean, I feel like if you plan to go this basic with a concept (which I believe in the concept) you should really elevate the experience.
It was kind of dirty and having been to a very similar place in Raleigh, NC (Boxcar, which is pretty awesome) I was fairly unimpressed and probably would not return.

One day you are young and you hear about a bar on the edge of the city where they have classic arcade games and beer. It feels transgressive. You go, have a good time, return a couple more times and forget about it.
Time goes by. The bar is still there, but your attention is not.
It’s moved on to new ideas, new trends, new combinations. Food trucks inside restaurants. Northern Thai. Sour beers. Cocktails named after indie bands. Wine bars owned by James Murphy.
Occasionally you’ll hear from someone who is new to the city or maybe just doesn’t get out much. «There’s a place called Barcade. They have video games and you can drink beer.» You sigh.
Time continues to pass. One day in the bathroom mirror there’s a gray hair on your temple. You pluck it out. A few days later there are two more.
Sometimes you read about Barcade. There’s a location in Philadelphia. Then they add one on St. Mark’s, and a third in Chelsea. You walk by the original place after your cornhole league or trying that new whiskey distillery. It’s still there, someone is keeping it business, but not you.
Your company is having a scavenger hunt. The old bosses wouldn’t allow this on field day because they felt it divided the office. The new régime is into doing the exact opposite of what they liked, so soon you are running all over midtown, posing in front of moose heads and rowboats.
The day is supposed to end at Spin, that ping pong club opened by Susan Shardon after her divorce. They lose power while the hunt is on. You realize there’s a Barcade nearby. It’s not hip, sure, but this crew needs beer and maybe an activity after running around the city. So you change the venue.
You wind up spending four hours there. Several beers are drunk. One business call has to be taken in the street. There are chicken wings, greasy but satisfying, duck nachos, tater tots drowning in American cheese, and chili cheese fries. Any combination of cheese and fried food appears and re-​appears until the office manager disappears to Queens with her corporate credit card.
Thankfully the managing director stays with his card. There are more beers. There are stories and impersonations of other people. There are laughs.
And in between there are video games. You shoot down mercenaries from a plane, fight evil orcs with a magic wand and race around the pixelated Austrian Alps. And at some point, it’s just like it was when you first heard about Barcade. It is transgressive, because you’re not supposed to have this much fun at a place this old.
But you do.

This is a lovely bar that has old arcade games like Crazy Taxi, Tetris, Super Mario Brothers, Pac-​Man, TMNT, and other games I’ve never even heard of before… Games range from 25 to 50 cents and tokens are required. There is a token machine in the back. They have some really nice craft beers on brew which I absolutely loved. They also had really good music playing. The only thing I really hated, was that it was basically grab a table and hope you can keep it. People were using the tables as a jacket holder, and most tables in the back were empty except that they had jackets all over them. We got there at 7 and it was SUPER crowded, but it seemed to empty out a lot by 10ish. The food was also very good. I do want to note that you HAVE to be 21+ to get in at ANY POINT IN TIME. So this

Where can you find entertainment for 25 cents? Right here. This place has great old school video games, and a large selection of reasonably priced beer. If you don’t like arcade games and don’t like good beer, stay home. Otherwise, head on over to Barcade.

Fun place, old school games, I kinda expected them to be present day prices but was pleasantly surprised to see they weren’t. Some were still 25¢ even.
Bar service gets slow and is a bit busy, surprisingly good food, grilled cheese was very good. Wide selection of beers

Ok so these guys are amazing. We ordered food right around the time the kitchen was closing… them our drunk asses went outside to smoke. The food came while we were outside and it disappeared. They re-​opened the kitchen and made our food again at no extra cost to us and even comped a drink each.
These guys care about their customers, have an incredible beer list, and have a collection of the best arcade games in the city. 5 stars

Whoever came up with the concept for Barcade is a fricking genius. A bar plus throwback arcade games that you can play for just 25 cents a round? What costs 25 cents nowadays? Just this, apparently!
Barcade as a standalone bar is already great. The space is huge, the beer selection is massive with a good combination of standard and unique, and coming during happy hour saves you $ 1 a beer. The bartenders are friendly and service is generally good, even during crazy busy hours, and boy does it get packed here during the weekends. The music is not too loud as to drown out your conversations. There are a good number of tables around where you can sit, drink, eat, and chat, if games aren’t your thing.
The games though… the games are what makes this place so awesome! They have everything: Tetris, Ms. Pac Man, Frogger, Tapper, Galaga, Asteroid, Ninja Turtles, X-​Men, NBA… the list goes on. They’re all in their original old school big pixel formats and only cost you a quarter to play. You can even line up your quarters on the machine for next like the olden days. (Man, do I feel old.) I think there are some newer games there too, but I haven’t played them because I’m too busy in throwback mode.
Best believe I will be here over and over again with a stack of quarters.
Side note: they also have a change machine that now spits out tokens instead of quarters. I guess it’s their way of making you not take any spare quarters home if you don’t use them all playing games… smart move from a business standpoint.

What better place for childhood friends to meet up than in a bar with all your favorite video games of old?!
Well, that’s what Barcade is to me. Fortunately, my old friend lives at the other end of the block and we were looking for something to do on a warm Monday night. Entering Barcade on a Monday night is perfect for catching up. That means there’s not too many people around, no lines for the beer or the video games, and it’s quiet enough to have a decent conversation without having a hoarse throat in the morning.
Favorite game is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles… It’s a bit weird playing it arcade versus SNES, but still fun none the less.
Beers are interesting and decently priced for this area of town, with the bartender being courteous and friendly.
As reviews mentioned before, the bathrooms are appropriately gross… not necessarily dirty, but there are some interesting phrases written on the stalls.
Definitely worth checking out if you’re looking for a weekday hangout. I can only imagine how busy it may get on the weekends, but we all know Friday and Saturday nights are jam-​packed anywhere decent.

The idea behind barcade, a bar with good craft beer and vintage arcade games is great, but the execution is a little lacking. The beer menu is in fact pretty solid with lots of smaller name craft beers from a few local brewers as well. The menu is a bit heavy on the stouts and IPAs, but isn’t bad. The downside is the crowd and the sticky machines. Catering to the video game crowd, you end up with some interesting characters here. In the two hours here, I was challenged to a racing game by a stranger who was just sitting in the game «challenging» any other patrons walking by, as well as getting pushed off the TMNT game. You can’t fault the establishment for the crowd, but they don’t help much. In fact the staff seemed to be pretty disengaged in general and when we reported a broken glass under one machine, they just shrugged. It wasn’t cleaned up 15 minutes later.

Don’t get why the low reviews!
They’ve begun to jack up prices and some games aren’t just 1 token anymore (they changed the system to tokens, I’m not quite sure why as 1 quarter = 1 token) (the racing game is two).
Nonetheless, I’ve always had a lot of fun here. Some of the games are janky because of how old they are (Fire Truck, front driver), but there are a lot of games I’ve never even heard of. Branch out beyond Pac-​Man and try some games! I particularly like Tapper (you’re a bartender and you pour beer for different rows) and Food Fight (you avoid people throwing food at you to obtain the holy ice cream cone).
The bartender has always been sweet — one time when I didn’t like the apple cider, she swapped it out for another drink. Feel free to ask for cups of water/​samples of beer (but remember to tip as well! They work hard.). The beer prices are steep, but what can you expect from craft beer? I appreciate the variety of the beer, though.
Beware if you come here on a weekend night, as you will have to wait around for drinks and to play certain popular games. Come here during lunch time and it’s DEAD empty!

This is a cool little spot if you’re looking for unique alternative to a night out at a bar or club. It’s basically a retro style arcade mixed with a craft beer joint, which is kind of a cool combo. When else do we get to play these games anymore?
The selection of beer is great and the vibe is very hipster/​Brooklyn (though it’s in the city, of course). It’s also not tremendously loud, so you can still have talk to people.
This is a cool place to check out if you have the chance. Nothing to die for, but something different.

I guarantee most people don’t come here for lunch, but they should try it! What a great deal, at $ 15 for a beer and a selection of 5 or so items from the menu.
The grilled chicken sandwich was awesome, and while you wait 10 mins or so for your food, why not play a video game. You place your order at the bar, and your food comes on a silver tray and in paper, but it gets dropped off by number at your table, so don’t worry if you’re deep in focus while playing Ms. PacMan.
It’s definitely a different vibe than the night crowd, but it’s quiet and enjoyable and a great deal! I’ll be back!

Convenient location, great selection of games. Best thing about this place is that they have food! (Williamsburg location does not). Tater tots are spectacular.
Very good beer selection and prices about what you’d expect in this part of the city. Lots of space to hang out. I didn’t feel the bartender was the friendliest. Was there when it was empty and when it was crowded and she just seemed like she would rather be doing something else. That left a bad taste in my mouth… if you hate your job, quit. Don’t try to make everyone else (esp paying customers) hate the place, too.
Much like the Brooklyn location, bathrooms are consistently disgusting.
Other than that, though, this is a decent place.

Spielautomaten aus den 80ern und Bier (Oktoberfest), was will man mehr. Abtauchen in die vergangene Gamerzeit. Fühlte mich wie ein Kind an diesen Automaten. Asteroids, Tron, Donkey Kong etc.

Ughhhh this place is super Nostalgic! They have so many old video games from Daytona Racing to X-​men and Rampage and they cost .25 cents for most of them but some do cost .50 which isn’t bad at all!
I went on a Monday and surprisingly there were still a good amount of people in here so it was cool. I saw that this place has a hipster crowd on other reviews and that is definitely true but Who cares. It looked like some people came here straight after work.
The Roasted Duck Nachos were really good, I couldn’t even finish it, There was so much ! My boyfriend got the BBQ ribs but to his dismay they were breaded and he has a gluten allergy ! But they were very good about giving our money back.
There are so many beers here, so of course I picked one that I could care less for lol it had a woody but fruity taste to it so after that I ordered the Pear Cider beer which was really good! The beer prices are around like $ 7-​$ 8. There probably are some a little more but it’s not too bad at all and you get a whole lot of beer!

So I’ve been to the one on St Marks and honestly didn’t even know there was two in the city. I prefer this one for a couple of reasons.
I came on a Thursday night, and it so happens the Perennial was doing a tap takeover. For anyone who doesn’t know, Perennial is a brewery with quite a couple gems. Not only was there no crowd for these beers, but they were barely even gone after being tapped since noon. If these beers were at a typical beer bar, they would only last a couple hours. The bartenders were attentive and nice.
Now for the games. My last experience to the other Barcade, it was completely packed and I barely had a chance to play anything I actually wanted to play. At this Barcade, it didn’t seem as crowded and my favorite games were empty. It was quite awesome to get a flashback to my childhood and dominate some ninja turtles like I was born to do.
I would definitely recommend to visit this Barcade instead of the other. It’s going to be my choice every time.

Honestly not impressed with this place.
We organized a corperate outing here on a thursday from 6 – 9. Thought it would be a big joint with well meaintained games, a great bar, and good food.
In reality it was a medium sized place, with mediocre games, and super whatever food, and a super whatever bar.
The place was decent sized. Not big, but ok. Wasn’t too crowded but not spacious.
The games were pretty good in terms of selection, but they weren’t maintained that well, and there wasn’t as many as i was hoping. Good range in content but just not enough of them for the size and amount of people.
Music was way too loud. Couldn’t barely hear people sitting two chairs down from me at the table. I like good music but this was just unnecessarily loud.
TVs: this is a huge pain point for me. Its the middle of march madness for crying out loud. I like that they want you to play games instead of watch TV. But not a single TV in the place to watch tourney games on? Are you kidding me? Just not cool. Buy some damn TVs for christs sake.
Staff were nice and pretty attentive. Bar was ok. Didn’t pay much attention to hard liquor, beer selection was whatever. Only like 2 IPAs on draught. And most other beers were pretty no-​name beers. Don’t get me wrong I like a unique beer selection but this was more cheap than unique.
Food? Eh. Not much to say about it to be honest.
Probably won’t be coming back here again. Next time I’ll find a better spot for our corporate gathering.

Barcade is neato.
I had an awesome time revisiting my childhood in this place. Barcade is great for a fun, nostalgic, and affordable time. Where else can you be entertained for hours and In New York City and only spend $ 3 or $ 4? All of the games are 25 cents per play and the have an excellent selection of arcade classics. My favorites are Ninja Turtles and Punch out.
This place is like Dave and busters with out the horrible food and cheesy gimmicks. There’s not much more to elaborate on here. it’s beer, liquor and video games. My only complaint would be that about 15 percent of the games were out order. Aside from that Barcade was a perfect start to my sat night. I’ll be back soon. If for nothing else I gotta get past the first opponent on Punch Out !