A bi of 80's nostalgia is coming to Trounce Alley later this fall, a brand new arcade.
Quazar's Arcade will have 20 arcade machines from the 80s and 90s, as well as 20 pinball machines ranging from the 80s all the way to brand new machines.
Arcades have been making a big surge in the Pacific North West, and co-owners Steve Webb and Justin Lafreniere say they wanted to meet the demand in Victoria.
Webb says arcades have a museum like quality due to the age of the machines.
"The arcade machines that people want to play, they're from the 80s. We have ones here from the 70s. These games in some cases are 40 years old. We put a lot of time and effort into putting them back up into working condition, and we want people to come down and enjoy them. These things were the basis of, you know gaming is such a huge industry now, and this is where it started with these arcade machines."
Quazar's Arcade will be home to many second-hand arcade machines, which the co-owners have restored to working condition. Lafreniere says a majority of the machines, especially the arcade games, came from private collectors.
"You start on Craigslist, you start on Used Victoria, stuff like that. And then that ends up being like a kind of trail you follow down. You meet one person who's got one game and then it turns out they've got 30 sitting in their garage."
Webb and Lafreniere say they originally planned to gear their business toward young families like their own, so that parents could bring their kids to have the same experience they had as kids. But Webb says they have also attracted a whole different market.
"We've had a lot of interest from the tech companies in town who want to do team building events. Lots of people want to rent the place for private parties, we're doing Christmas parties, we're doing Birthday parties, so that's been huge. And really all these people who think they might be interested in pinball should come down and see what it's like to play 20 really nice machines."
Quazar's will have 40 machines on the floor, but they also have a surplus of machines that still need to be refurbished and restored, and once that's done they can rotate the games in and out to make it a fresh new experience every time you visit.
They add they were more drawn to arcade games, but by the time they were done, a huge investment had been put into pinball. Webb says the brand new pinball machines are a whole other experience than the old ones, and have really caught their attention.
Once open, the all-ages arcade will be running from noon to 8pm, 7 days a week.