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Amazing Jake's
Rating Details »
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Private Lot
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- No
- Take-out:
- No
- Waiter Service:
- No
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
11 reviews for Amazing Jake's
Okay so I'm 38 now (my friends say I don't look it). Well, anywho, on my birthday Wednesday (yes I'm aware that's a week night) I decided to give this place a try because I like reverting to childhood and playing Ms. Pacman and Air hockey.
Now first all the positives: It is expansive, no, cavernous really. It is extremely well lit, and colorful, but not so loud and noisily overwhelming that you don't want to stick around.
This place was clearly designed for kids by all the designs and decor. Good for them.
With the exception of skee-ball, (get to that in a moment) all games and activities and machines seemed well-oiled, and in good condition. I PARTICULARLY enjoyed seeing not 2 with one half-awake but 4 newish looking air hockey machines, and even a smaller one, thoughtfully, for the kids.
The bumper car ride was well thought out and fun.
And I didn't get attitude from any staff. They all smiled and seemed genuinely helpful.
So, yes, I can honestly say take your kids there, and if you are an adult reverting to childhood and don't want hordes of kids around, go on a weeknight.
Before the cons, one more thing. Okay so anyone expecting gourmet food at an amusement place geared to kids? You know, I just don't know that that is done anywhere, so not sure it's fair to slam the food Barb. Objectively speaking, the food distribution areas all looked clean, well lit, well organized. For what it was the food was decent - we had pizza, linguini and salad. It will please kid's cuisine demands fine, if you want to satisfy a distinguishing adult's taste, eat elsewhere before you take the kids.
Okay, now the cons.
Although he smiled about it and apologized, the manager who was supposed to be near the front of the place to sell us tickets so we could, you know, do stuff there, fell asleep in his little office behind the ticket terminal. We thought the place was closed at first and they had forgot to shut the door (7pm on Wednesday). We finally found the pizza guy to go wake him up.
The price menus are really confusing, even to him a little bit I think. If you want the full meal deal, it's basically $20 an adult for everything. Yes, steep, but yes, I had made up my mind I wanted that experience, and was willing to pay for it instead of having to drive to D&B or Elitch's.
Regardless, falling asleep and not expecting customers is a losing sign for any business even on the "slow night".
Okay, now the evening was a bit tarnised with a skee ball incident. The skee-ball there is called Fire-Ball, and yes, we played all 4 machines and found the same thing - each machine CHEATS! Now true I didn't complain at the time, because the pre-teen employees honestly had their handful with one last minute horde of kids shopping with their tickets, and I didn't want to make it more of a drama than it was on my birthday, but we noticed at least 4 times on each machine, it wasn't counting 40s or 50s, and once not even a 100. That is just wrong. Yes, dollars-to-tickets for what you get in prizes it's already highway robbery, come on Jake, do you really have to rip people off further right in front of their faces and then force the preteen employees to get the guff? No. Fix the darn machines.
Finally, adults seeking entertainment there will naturally want a few more offerings than the place has, and should go to D&B (Dave & Buster's), but for kids this is perfect.
Oh, forgot to mention the climbing wall, didn't do it but it was impressive to see. The putt putt golf didn't look so hot and had a scary freako lifeguard mannequin sitting on top of it, that's why we didn't.
Bottom line, for parents in Aurora, this is a mostly desirable convenience worth paying a little more for the kids to enjoy and saving gas doing it.
Update:
Awhile back when I reviewed this and found the fly, I also called the health inspector. He advised me they had numerous complaints here and was on his way to inspect.
1 Previous Review: Show all »
-
7/13/2009
Do not visit this place
We recently visited this establishment. It was a mess. The buffet line was… Read more »
This place is awful! DO NOT TAKE YOUR KIDS HERE!!! We visited this place some time back and our daughter thought it was great! We took her soccer team there last weekend and it was night and day! It had really gone downhill!
Amazing Jake's was apparently bought out by Smiley and Smiley is an idiot! The place doesn't even look like it does in the pictures on Yelp. We had to eat on paper plates, the food was disgusting, and the buffet was dirty. There was food everywhere! There were no desserts besides rock hard rice crispy treats.
The bar was also terrible. The pricing is clearly listed, but those aren't the prices at all! Smiley decided to raise the prices, but decided we should just figure them out for ourselves instead of posting it properly. They had beer taps displaying the kinds they had but they didn't actually have those beers. They had NO vodka AT ALL! What kind of bar doesn't have vodka?!
The lights were blown out all over the place and it was so dark that kids could have been injured from running into things. We were told they didn't have any light bulbs and they didn't know how to turn the lights on. The staff is terrible and unhelpful. They don't know what they are talking about and they look at you like you're the idiot!
Don't pay for your toddler either if you go here. All of the rides but one are broken for the toddlers. Watch out for the chicken bones on the floor too! My daughter almost broke an arm slipping on one! Nasty!
DO NOT give this place your money. You WILL be completely disappointed you did.
RUN !!!!!!!!!
This place is Nasty ...... The Buffet was dirty there was hardly anything out in the first place the tables are dirty the rides are so dirty that my sons hands were black with dirt after one ride on the coaster. I could go on forever on how awful this place IS. Another thing also is that we went at 8pm and bought the unlimited 3hr package they close at 10 on a Friday ????? The Manager was more than willing to take my money and not inform me of the closing time. When I found out I went back and spoke with him about everything and was denied any type of refund. When I showed him about the truly sad buffet and how dirty is was. I was told that maybe I should not have such high exceptions ?? So my advice is save your money and your health.
Gross, just gross. That basically explains the food. Plus, the options for games there suck- Get yourself a yo-yo cuz its more entertaining than this dump.
We had a pretty good time here. I'll tell you why I'm only giving it three stars:
1. My daughter is almost too old for this place. If they had opened when she was 4 rather than 10, I'm sure we would have been here more often. She's on the verge of the eye rolling stage - you know how it is.
2. Ok, this one's a little more complicated. I took my friend and her two kids and my kid for said friend and son's b-day. It was quite reasonably priced for the 5 of us to eat and have a full day of fun, around 100 bucks. It's cool because my friend has a 3 year old too, so the two older ones can ride big kid rides, while the littlun' can have fun on the kiddie rides. So that's a plus.
We went on a weekend, so for most of the day, there was a line for the rides, especially the rock climbing wall, laser tag, and the go-karts. At some point later in the evening, the wait got a little ridiculous, like 30 minutes? It seemed to us like the responsible teen employees who knew what they were doing were replaced by their attitudinal, gum snapping, ball bouncing counterparts who weren't moving people through the line fast enough.
For the most part though, we had fun on the rides; adults and kids both were basically having a good time. Then came the tea cups.
My friend and I were watching our older kids on the spinning tea cups and feeling a little nauseated by this one particular cup of boys spinning their's like they were trying to get it to 88mph and go back in time or something.
The ride ends and who walks right past my daughter and barfs his guts out all over the floor? Marty McFly of course. Without missing a beat, he just runs right past and goes on to the next ride. I had yanked my daughter away before any spillage occured on her, thank God, but the next little one off the ride wasn't so fortunate. The poor thing slips and falls right into the puke. She gets up and runs away, crying, to find her parents. We also see her later, holding hands with her mom, waiting in line for rides. I'm sorry, but if my daughter had slipped and fallen in a puddle of another child's vomit, we would have been out of there lightning fast and she probably would have ridden home in the trunk.
We look over at the employees who are also watching this whole mini-sitcom unfold. I can't say I blame them really, but they make no move whatsoever to clean up the mess, block it off, warn anyone away, nothing. We all feel dirty just having watched this thing and decide it's definitely time to go.
In a way this made the day so much more memorable and gave us a good story to tell. But I hate to say it also soured me on the place a little bit. I personally will never think of anything but puke when it comes to Amazing Jake's.
For those looking for a fun place for a kid's birthday party though, I would say it's a good choice. There's enough stuff to keep kids busy and their tummies full. Unless they go on the tea cups, that is.
Also, I think they may have changed the pay to drop off policy mentioned in another review. I took my daughter one other time for a party and they had a separate entrance/line specifically for drop-offs and I didn't have to pay to get through. I guess it wouldn't hurt to check on this before going.
Amazing? More like completely unamazing. We tried to go here a while back but it was closed for a private party, so they gave us complimentary buffet and 25 point admission. Today we decided to give it another try, but called first to ensure we didn't run into the same problem.
We arrive a little after they open and it seems their point system has now changed to a cash system so the 25 points we have are good for about 5 bucks, plus the buffet. I asked if we could apply that to the "unlimited" package which includes the "attractions" but that was denied. They were "kind" enough to add $5 to the "fun card" for games other than the attractions. ~$65 out of pocket for 1 adult and 2 girls (1 at the adult admission price).
The buffet is mediocre at best, pizza, pasta, salad bar, and dessert, but the girls liked it. The attractions are not that amazing, but they do have laser tag, a rock climbing wall, go karts, and other fun things. You can ride these an unlimited amount of times, but they do limit you to 3 hours...apparently this is new. So, unlimited is not really unlimited, but 3 hours here is plenty, trust me.
The fun cards are good for the arcade games and all the games that give out tickets, like skee-ball. You can redeem the tickets if you happen to get a bajillion of them to get a prize that is worth getting. Most are worthy of dollar store prices.
Staff is mostly friendly, but definitely short handed. The guy handling ticket redemption was also responsible for filling the tickets in the games. If you've ever seen kids redeem tickets for prizes then you know each kid takes a good 20 minutes making up their minds. All this after you have to wait in line for 40 minutes just to get to the counter.
I would estimate about 10 percent of the games were out of order as well as 1 attraction. Considering there may be 10 attractions, that's 10% as well. I should have asked for 10% off. Many of the other games worked but were visibly damaged making some of them impossible to play anyway or at the very least put you at a big disadvantage.
The only reason UNAmazing Jakes gets 2 stars is because the kids did have a good time. Value for your dollar simply isn't there. I don't see myself going back anytime soon.
I did my time with my 8 and 9 year old here yesterday. If you tell yourself that you're going to spend $50 for 3 hours of fun, you can get through it. I don't like the food at all, but it's better than say, um, well, it's better than . . . a hot dog cart? We went at 1PM to avoid any lines and got instead unstaffed areas. You pick your poison I guess. Aurora and DPS were both back to school already, but my Cherry Creek kids still needed something fun to do but they'd already cut back on staffing.
First we waited 10 minutes for the kid to come run the go karts. Then, despite my having paid $50 for my buffet, my children's buffets (2), and a set amount of points, plus unlimited rides, I could not ride the go kart with my son without buying more points. Thanks, Jake! THAT'S amazing!! If you're going to put such a high height requirement on a ride, make certain the parent doesn't have to pay more to ride WITH the kid. Bumper cars weren't staffed AT ALL, but my daughter said the man at the prize counter was very nice and helpful.
Won't be back unless it's absoluely necessary like an invite to a b-day party.
I give it 2 stars My 3 Daughter said 4! That in itself pretty much can explain Amazing Jake's. From a kids perspective this place is AMAZING its has food a climbing wall, mini golf, bumper cars go karts and theme rooms! From a parents perspective this place AMAZINGLY shrinks your wallet!
One nice thing about Amazing Jake's is that food is really above average considering this is a buffet. The pizza isn't top notch but its better then tostinos and obviously costs more then!
The theme rooms are pretty cool and you can usually find a decent seat in a not to crowed area. SO far this place is meeting your expectations, and the pasta bar has a nice variety of pastas to match most tastes and some very tasty. The soup, salad, and baked potato bar is top notch. All the food met expectations and makes you think cool we found a good go to spot for occasional rewards when the kids get let out of their cages IE my house!
Truly this place has some great potential, the exterior and entry way lead you to believe that this is a wonderland and you imagine this is what Charlie felt first walking into the chocolate factory! However with the scope of this operation you know its going to cost a little bit to partake the Amazing in Jakes.
Now on to the part that really doesn't meet expectation, the entertainment I got duped into buying a ride/fun pass and we walked over the to the climbing wall its nice but pretty standard. Then they played the laser tag, both attractions were decent. But here is where the glamor of Amazing Jake's faded fast. The mini golf is what a mini golf course would be like if Wal Mart sold them prefab. The bumper cars were in such a small area that it felt like riding the elevator at work when it was time to go home. The Go Kart track is so small that you feel like your Racing in Mario Kart on your WII, except you cant throw things at Donkey Kong. The entertainment at Amazing Jake's really has a run down and chintzy feeling to it, almost like a Nickel Play trying to be Dave and Busters! Oh and what self respecting place for kids wouldn't have a ticket redemption center with worthless cheap plastic crap! Wtih the exception being here this place cheap plastic prizes really lack imagination! And are worse then the toys you get in kids meals at lower end fast food chains.
With all the said your kids will have a great time here, there is a lot to do and there is some decent food. If like me you will also have a good time because your kids are enjoying themselves. But driving home you will realize dam I just spent $150 bux and that's when buyers remorse hit you!
I am not sure what to categorize Amazing Jakes as, but it is super for kids. It's an Indoor theme park, if you will, and my nephew had a blast. Casa Bonita can blow me. Amazing Jakes has a rock climbing wall, mini roller coaster, bumper cars, go carts, putt putt, decent food, arcades, spaces for toddlers and wee ones, and it's inside...= not hot. We had tons of fun as a family! I would recommend this for kids bday parties over casa bonita anyday, or just for something to do on a rainy day for sure!! I'll put up some inside pics in a day or two. TONS OF FUN!
I threw my son's 6th birthday party here, and talk about excitement to the Nth degree. There is a climbing wall (which got mom's heartrate up), laser tag, go-karts, bumper cars, mini-golf and so many games, it's like Dave and Buster's on crack.
Here's the catch, you have to buy the all-you-can-eat buffet just to enter the facility. So if you don't know this beforehand - every parent who drops off a child for your b-day event must pay to walk their child to the b-day room. This rubbed me very wrong.
When you pay hundreds of dollars for the children, it's almost insulting to ask the parent to pay to drop off their kid. And something I would never do. So, arrange to gather all kids at a meeting point before you attend or let the parents know that they have to pay an entry fee to drop off/ pick up. lame.
When you reserve a birhday room, you also get a personal server, which is very convenient for bringing drinks and food to the kids instead of having the kids run the buffet course.
The buffets were extensive; pizza, pasta, salad, desserts, and al kinds of fountain drinks. It really is a kid's paradise. They also have a special for a day pass, which looks to me to be the best bargain as far as playing goes.
It's a great fun time for kids and adults alike.
