Riptide Arcade At Pier 39
Categories: Amusement Parks, Arcades [Edit]
Neighborhood: Fisherman's Wharf39 Beach St
Pier 39
(between Grant Ave & Stockton St)
San Francisco, CA 94133 (415) 981-6300
- Good for Kids: Yes
52 reviews
Neighborhood: Fisherman's Wharf
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13 Reviews for Riptide Arcade At Pier 39
I love this place. I love shooting hoops, shooting at dinosaurs (video game), hydro thunder, and air hockey. This place is great to spend a cool hour in before walking on the beach. It's super fun and you can purchase tokens with a credit card. Oh yeah baby...basketball anyone?
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I remember back when this place first opened around 2002. Those were the days when all of us regulars used to be in here on a weekly basis (daily when summer rolled around). RTA's management was always pretty friendly and catered to our requests, which is why they've got such a good selection of Bemani/music games. Hell, they have a good selection overall considering how small the place is (it used to be even smaller if you can imagine).
Since the San Francisco arcade scene died down a few years back RTA seems to have let itself go somewhat, but that doesn't stop me from coming back every now and then to play some Drummania. Still, it lacks the shimmer and shine of the old days, and the people they hire these days tend to be a bit unfriendly and anti-social. And they really need to fix their machines on a regular basis in the summertime.
Ah yes. The fabled Riptide Arcade.
Does anyone remember when there used to be two part of this arcade out in front? Remember when they had cool arcade games, and a bumper car area in the middle of it? What happened?
What happened?
Now it's pushed into this small space with few machines, that are broken down, and expensive to boot. I can remember when I was but a wee child growing up in SF that during the early saturday mornings, me and my brother would cough up some lunch money to play some good ol' Street Fighter 2, or some Aliens VS Predator, or whatever. Sometimes we'd play some of those ticket games, like skeeball, and rack up so many tickets, we would bring in a big plush character after saving up for many months. I even still have a star trek keychain fob that I've had for over 15 years. This place was a source of good warm fuzzy feelings.
I came back, after many years of neglect... with my gf, hoping to relive the experience.
You can't go back.
And I silently mourn the passing of a once proud and happy establishment. It's definitely nothing like it was in the past. And it seems like this place only has a few more years left in it before it runs away like most of the arcades in S.F. If you must, come here to play and maybe try to relieve the glory days of the arcade. But don't expect the same. It's never going to be the early 90's ever again.
When you need a video game fix.... or you find yourself waiting for relatives who are shopping while you are on SF Tour Duty
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OKAY so...I originally gave riptide 4 stars for it having working machines and fair prices. BUT, I went there yesterday and OMFGWTF they upped all of their prices like crazy.
As an example, take one game of In the Groove 2 (a rhythm game like DDR).
Before some jerk raised the prices:
4 songs, 2 people can play at the same time
Cost: 4 tokens
After some jerk raised the prices:
3 songs, raised difficulty (way easier to die), 1 player only
Cost: 6 tokens
So this means that in order for 2 people to play at the same time, it's gonna cost you 12 tokens (3 dollars) when it used to only cost 1 dollar, which is RIDICULOUS. If you're like me and went here because it was the best place in the city for ITG2, then make sure you complain to someone who works there about how ridiculous the prices have become.
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Forget about the fact that the games are insanely priced, it's a fun place to be. Now, normally I wouldn't go within a mile of Pier 39 but a friend wanted to have his birthday party there. It was a blast. Never mind games that were $1.50 or 50 cents for Pac Man, it felt good to be a kid again. Man, before you know it you're down $20 in tokens.
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On my family's trip to pier 39, we stopped inside this arcade. It was my favorite part of the day. I love arcade games and this one had all of my favorites. Air hockey, skeeball, pinball, guitar freaks, and yes, the ultra nerdy DDR. It was fun to be in an environment where kids AND adults were on the same level.
The trick to getting a lot of tickets: play the ski slope machine. Pop a token in and watch it slide down the slope and into a wheel that has the number of tickets that you'll win. I kept hitting the 25 mark. It's that simple.
They only have two pinball machines, which is pretty lame if you ask me, but The Simpsons pinball was enough to keep me satisfied. There were two obnoxious 20-somethings who looked and smelled like they had just come back from a bar. They kept running around and goofing off at the air hockey table, nearly missing a little girl with the puck when they got extremely rowdy. But one of them was wearing an insane clown posse t-shirt so I didn't expect much. Aside from that, this place was filled with decent enough people.
And finally, once it was time to cash in our tickets, we went to the counter and the woman pointed us to one of the greatest inventions of all time: the ticket counter machine. Yeah, maybe not so exciting to you, but feeding our tickets into the machine and watching the counter increase was pretty exciting to my brother and I. ("BIG MONEY, BIG MONEY, BIG MONEY!") Their prizes were standard for most arcades, but they did have some cool stuff, like leopard print slap bracelets. Which I'm bringing back, along with fanny packs...and maybe pogs.
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This is a really cool place for a kid's birthday. My son loves this arcade so I thought of doing the birthday there and we were not discappointed! I was pleasantly surprised as to how nice and big the room is, with huge bay windows overlooking the Bay. Nice. Then they can provide lunch from any of the restaurants (we did pizza), soda, tokens for all the kids etc. They also do real basic decorations. So the parents get to hang out in this great sapcious room lookin at the Bay while the kids play in the arcade. Of course it's outdoors and at the Pier so the little ones need adult supervision, but this was a simple and fun bday. All we did was bring the cake and gift bags, and the rest is done. If it wasn't for having to lug all our stuff, I would've taken the ferry over from Oakland (where we started)...great addition to the adventure if you plan it right.
Anyway, the kids had a blast playing and then they ended up with little "prizes" from all the tickets they won , which was good entertainment for the ride home. Finished it off with a walk down the pier, coffee for the grown-ups and hot chocolate for the kids...everyone's happy. I have to say this was an all around success, very reasonably-priced, and no clean-up for mom!
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I used to love the old Arcade at the Pier. It was huge and even had a bumper car thingie in the middle of the arcade. It now is in the back of the pier and doesn't have all the games that they used to. What happened? I do have to agree and say that they are a bit expensive but then you gotta understand that this is a tourist spot and all tourist spots are over priced.
Overall I'm disappointed about the size and the game selection but happy that they are still able to have a arcade there. I do recommend people to stop by and check it out, just cause it's been around for so long.
PS there is a picnic area behind the arcade. It's quiet and clean so check that out too. Great place for pictures and to rest your feet.
What a terrific place to feel like a kid again. Tons of awesome games, ranging from modern dance and light sensory games, to the basic shoot-em up games. Old school "win some tickets" games with the cheap and cheesey prizes (we won us some black plastic spider rings....YEAH!). Good energy there, a bit hot (but that's expected at an arcade, in all honesty). Check it out and enjoy yourself.
place is loaded with arcade games. tickets = toys, toys = bunch of junk. in the end, its all fun and games. although, they raised their prices for games but its ok i guess. they need to stay open later on week nights! we got nothing to do late at night!
Augh!! I've been here four times. The only time that was worth it when we came here late, and even then it was horible! I'm there to enjoy playing games after a nice clean shower, but instead you get some of the sweatiest quarter hogs out here late. I can't even play my favorite games without some random guy coming over to waste my tokens!!
It smells bad constantly, and it's not the bay water either. The only good thing is that it's near restaurants so you can relieve the stench by smelling the burgers and fries.
i used to come here alot as a kid.. winning tickets to get small prizes like the finger puppets, fake tattoo, plastic rings, and candy always kept me happy. the last time i came here was couple months back and it still looked the same except that they took down the bumper cars. i liked the air hockey table and the fighting game where i beat my boy 4 times in a row=)
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