Old North Arcade opening soon

A new barcade — sorry, I meant bar and arcade (please don’t sue me, Barcade®) — is coming to the Old North neighborhood of Columbus this month. The Old North Arcade will open by the end of May with more than 30 classic arcade cabinets, 20 craft drafts and a retro cocktail menu.

“When we had the idea to open up a bar arcade we know it had to be in this neighborhood,” said owner Ben Morgan. “I’ve lived and played in this neighborhood for a a better part of the last decade.”

Morgan, who played internet poker professionally for 10 years, brought his friend Pierre in from Kansas City to manage the bar operations. The bar will feature twenty drafts with an emphasis on local brews.

“We’re going to try to focus mostly on, not just Ohio, but Central Ohio beers, since there are so many breweries around here” Morgan said. “We just had Lineage open up the street, plus Land-Grant and Seventh Son, just to name a few of them.”

Old North will also offer a comic and arcade themed cocktail menu, which is still being finalized. Drinks in the works include Save the Princess (a peach bellini) and Koopa Libre – a cuba lire with a Koopa Troopa twist. The cocktails will incorporate locally-made Rambling House soda, spirits from Watershed Distillery and Middle West Spirits, and locally grown herbs from neighboring Cafe Bella.

Old North Arcade will not have a kitchen, but plans to partner with local food trucks and neighboring Cafe Bella for pizza. The arcade part of the bar will include more than 30 rotating classic arcade games, including Mortal Kombat Two, Ms. Pac Man, Dig Dug and Astroids — or, as Morgan describes it…

“You’re a little black and white triangle and you go pew pew pew and it’s just incredibly infuriating,” Morgan said. “The great thing about these games from the early 80s, they didn’t have a ton of graphics, they didn’t have a ton of buttons so the game creators had to be incredibly creative in how they made these games.”

In addition to the classic cabinets, the arcade will include at least one console game, a Nintendo 64 outfitted with Super Smash Brothers, Mario Kart 64 and Golden Eye.

“The 64 is the greatest because it’s four player,” Morgan said. “[The games] basically don’t have much of a learning curve. It’s a load of fun, it’s a great drinking game, it’s interactive, it’s great for building, or ruining, friendships.”

The bar was still finishing construction when I visited, but the former Sunflower Natural Foods Market is unrecognizable, with a square bar in the back and large tables repurposed from old bowling alley lanes.

Old North Arcade intends to open by the end of May – check their Facebook page for more information.