Regeneration Arcade & Pizzeria

2019 Yelp 120 Challenge - #96

I decided to check out Regeneration Arcade one Saturday night and the place was dead. They had a live dj, cool old school games and a night craft beer selection. If you are in the mood for a chill afternoon of your favorite old school games, then I recommend checking out this place out.

You pay a $10 entry fee with unlimited games and unlimited play. I loved that they had the old netendio hooked up to the big screen for you to play. They do have a few games that is not included in the $10 entry fee. These games include guitar hero, baseball hoops and one more that I can not remember.

I didn't try the food, but I'm sure that they offer all of your bar favorites.

So good! 12 pinball machines, mostly working. Probably 50+ video arcades and a pool table. Didn't eat, but they have pizza and other things available. Definitely worth the cheap admission.

Very friendly staff, clean, great music, solid local beer selection! Check it out!

Pretty cool place and concept. We came for a senior photo shoot and very thankful Travis was helpful and accommodating.
Place is clean and has tons of games. $10 to play unlimited. Food smells delicious and the Southwest spud bits were yummy w a tiny spice. Mixed drinks have cool names and sound delicious.
Will definitely return to play, eat and drink.

Fun spot. I came here with my adult son for the first time on a Saturday night. They have a bunch of old school video games, and pool and pinball machines. for ten bucks you get to play as much as you want. We got to this place around 7 p.m. and it was pretty empty. At 8, it went adults-only, a DJ started playing, and the place really got full. With a great time and we'll definitely come back.

They have a full bar, pizza, and some other appetizers and offerings. The food is not great, but it's passable, and not expensive.

This is definitely a place for geeks and people who like old 1980s style video games. I fit the bill on both oh, so I'll be back!

So much fun! Such a great place for a date night or night out with friends. They have a happy hour now and other daily specials/events. For instance Thursday was board game night, they had all the games sitting in the restaurant section. Wide variety of fun board games for all - on top of all the arcade games you already get :) it was also free entry if you had a tab over $10 so that was cool. Oh, they also have a happy hour for some food items as well and offer slices of pizza instead of a whole pie!

New favorite date night for the gamers at heart
First time here and I love it. Come check it out!

We poked our head in briefly last night (1/4/20) and turned around because the dubstep they were playing was FAR too ****ing loud for a bar. This is going to make me sound like an old man, so for context: It was legitimately impossible to understand someone talking right next to you. The guy at the door was showing "10" with his fingers to indicate the cover charge to people since he was inaudible at 3 feet away. If you're at a concert or gaming solo that's fine (+/- tinnitus), but if you're trying to hang out and be social with the people you came with it kinda defeats the point.

This is a new place and they're working out the kinks; it's close to my house so I'll try it again some time and update my review if they tone it down a little. This time we left, watched a few other people physically recoil at the loudness as they walked in, and then we drove 30 min to Free Play in Richardson and had a great time.

Owners: turn the music down to a comfy 8, I dont need your experiential Spinal Tap references and I definitely don't need my ear drums ruptured while I play Dig Dug.

Had high hopes for this place, but was massively underwhelmed. $10 for games, ok, I understand, but would be nice to have different games to choose from on the N64 (unless I just didn't know you could swap out?). I had problems with sticky/non-responsive controls on quite a few games, but I guess since they are so dated, I guess this can't be helped. The biggest disappointment of all was the absolutely terrible (and horribly overpriced) pizza. I mean, this was worse than the worse frozen pizza you could get. I mean, if you have "Pizzeria" in your name, you better put a good effort in delivering some on point pie. Jeeze it was so bad it's burned into my memory. Oh.. also, the music... incredibly aggressive and WAY TOO LOUD. I'm sad.

(Ps. It got 3 instead of 2 stars, because some of the games were actually in good condition and the pinball machines that I played were actually in good condition.)

We visited once and had a pretty good time. There's a great selection of classic video games and pinball machines along with a few consoles (SNES, Sega, and I think N64) on one side which were free to play with cover. The other side had the basketball hoops, pinball, and a couple more offerings I can't recall which were pay-to-play, along with food service.

Overall, it was a good experience, but a few things could've been better:

(1) The consoles had volume off, presumably so we could hear music clearly aimed at Gen X-ish aged folks - but I'd rather listen to the video game music while playing the game than Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Those earworm game songs are half the nostalgia value of playing them.
(2) The controls were super janky on the Super Mario Bros. arcade.

Everyone was really nice there, and I'd definitely go back, though.

Very happy to have found some arcade-based regeneration :-)

5 stars breakdown:

- Great games! Regeneration is a cool arcade with lots of vintage games (note, not modern games) such as pinball and excellent historic arcade games, that are not found at most modern and high-end 'arcades' or game centers. (Extrapolated from this would be - a simply appointed arcade with great vintage games inside of a strip mall. Not a swinging nightclub monstrosity sterilized Main Event type of place).

- Great price! I'm not sure if this is every day, but we went on a Tuesday night, and it was either $10 for all you can play without purchasing alcohol or food, or $5 for all you can play with purchasing something. This is awesome. We went to a modern monstrous arcade recently, it was extremely expensive, limited to specific hours, and either 'pay to play' for credits or unlimited play for specific levels of games. This allows you to play all of the great games, as well as the console games set up at flat screen TVs like Nintendo 64, Super Nintendo, etc.

- Drink specials! $5 Texas made liquors on Tuesday nights - WHAT?! So good, and so reasonable (Tito's, TX Whiskey, and some other things I cannot recall).

- Food! Happy that they have food, so it's a complete one stop shop. Drinks, games, foods - there is a split layout, so one room has the bar and games, the other has lots of tables. There was a sign that you can also request board games to play, and there's lots of room to do so. I did not see the games that were available, but was tickled to know that this was an option. Is the food in and of itself 5 stars amazing from an internationally acclaimed chef? No. Is the pizza a bit pricey? Yes. But, the fact that they have food that is decent, and are offsetting the enormous overhead cost of their games that you can't really find other places yet play for super cheap makes it worth it. Rack up that bill and ratchet up your fun in a way that the new places can't really compete with in their sterilized and facade-laden existence.


IN SUM

Regeneration is a cool place that I definitely suggest going to. If you get there early on the weekdays, you have lots of space to yourself before it starts to get packed which is around 9 and onward.

Regeneration gets 5 stars - because it lives up to how it presents itself and doesn't have any glaring gaps or issues. If you want to go to a bougie swanky place and elegantly lounge while your friends play laser tag or bowl... this probably is not the place to do that.

Support local! Support vintage! Pinball machines especially take a lot of upkeep, and I think they have ten machines. It's SO NICE to have such a great selection, with unlimited play, and no obnoxious tokens, quarters, or cards. Just press the start button and dive right in!