Archie Brothers Newmarket — Attraction in Waitematā

We have taken our two kids here a number of times, and last Sunday (24th of August) was by far the worst experience out of all our visits. I brought my children, ages 3 and 8, around 10:30am and purchased the $36.00 package, which included $24.00 gaming credit and one game of bowling (from memory).

We were placed on lane 4. When we arrived at the bowling area, I noticed that lanes 1 - 3 were completely full - kids and adults everywhere. There were no bowling ramps available for my 3yr old, and the balls were too heavy for him to hold (this being his first time bowling). Lanes 1 to 3, however, had multiple ramps set up.

I took my kids back to the front desk to ask if they had any spare ramps for my son. I was told there were several birthday parties happening at the same time and they “couldn’t really do anything.” This explained why lanes 1 to 3 were packed. The young man at the counter eventually said, “I mean, I can’t make them magically appear, you know?” He told me to “just wait there” and, once a party finished bowling, to quickly grab a ramp. When I asked if we could go play a few games and come back, he advised against it, saying there was no guarantee a ramp would be available, so it was “best to stay put in your lane.”

When we returned to lane 4, there was nowhere to sit - all the sofas were taken over by the parties in lanes 1 to 3. We had no choice but to stand awkwardly between the ball return machine and the foul line for nearly 20 minutes. My 3yr old quickly grew frustrated, both from waiting and from having nowhere to rest.

After about 20 minutes, we finally managed to get a ramp, but it was still difficult to play. The children from lane 3 kept wandering around the ball return machine and touching all the bowling balls, making it hard to pick one up. I tried grabbing extra balls from the shelves, but there was no space to walk through lanes 1–4 because people, bags, shoes, and toys were scattered everywhere.

The party in lane 3 eventually left when we were down to our second to last bowl, which was the first time we were able to sit down. To get more bowling balls earlier, my eldest and I had to walk through lane 5, where four young adults were playing. Each time we passed through their area (about three times), they gave us dirty looks as though we were invading their space. At one point, one of the women even yelled “EXCUSE ME” when I tried to walk past.

I completely understand that there were multiple birthday parties, but this needs better management. Perhaps certain lanes should be reserved exclusively for parties, so they don’t take over the entire space. For families like mine with young children, being forced to stand and wait in a crowded, uncomfortable space for nearly an hour is unacceptable.

I would have preferred either a refund for the bowling or a credit on the game card. The young man at the counter also lacked empathy - particularly with his comment: “I mean, I can’t make them magically appear, you know?” Unfortunately, my son’s first bowling experience was not a positive one, and we will be limiting our...

For starters, I love this place and will definitely be back in the near future. Archie Brothers has a lot to improve on, but they are doing well and have already progressed so much since opening. This arcade is close to public transport as it's only a small walk from the Newmarket Train Station.

My favourite aspect of the Archie Brothers Arcade is that it's R18 after 6.30pm, so there's more of a mature audience in the evenings. I love all of the decorations, it really does have a circus vibe. The whole atmosphere is really great and the staff are helpful and friendly. I love the card tapping system, which I think every arcade should have. I also love the ease at which you can top your card up and I like that tickets are automatically loaded to your card.

Unfortunately, there isn't a very large selection of games to play, but my favourite ones were; Claw Machines, Dance Dance Revolution, The VR Rollercoaster Shooting Game and Mariokart. In the future I'd love for the arcade to expand and get more dance machines such as Dance Rush and Pump It Up!

Pricing was fairly reasonable on the games at an average of $2.00 for normal arcade machine games. Other things such as the VR Game, Bumper Cars and Bowling were priced a little higher, however there were frequent announcements advertising cheaper prices throughout the night on special games. There were also opportunities to win extra arcade credits if you do certain tasks. Either way, Archie Brothers is fun and engages people to get involved in activities for rewards. Alternatively, you could just ignore the announcements if you're not interested. My only wish would be for Archie Brothers to implement a VIP Card so people who spend a certain amount of money get perks or discounts or something! Hopefully this happens in the future.

Food wise, I was pleasantly surprised at how tasty the fries were. The portions were much bigger than I expected and it was at a reasonable price.

The prize variety is so huge, there's so many to choose from and they're presented neatly as well.

I love how Archie Brothers has character and is unique compared to the other arcades in Auckland. It's one of my favourites now, and I will definitely be...

I wanted to select zero but the system won’t allow me..It was terrible from trying to book the birthday party to the party itself.your sales team are extremely hard to get hold of! I chased non stop to get the booking in the first place and then chased for a couple of days to even pay the balance and then comes the birthday everything was stuffed up. we had the room booked from 230pm and I was told everything will be ready there but there was no food only plates were on the tables and the food did not start coming out until 3pm and I had 30 kids to feed only to be told I had the room for another 15 minutes! the excuse was “we only have one chef in the kitchen”! oh well excuse me I booked over a month ago so you should’ve known.. also I ordered extra food for the adults that was all delivered to the kids room when I made it very clear what was for the adults booth and what was for the children but obviously no one was paying attention, no one was listening to anything and everything was stuffed up, I trusted your team to be organized so i could just relax and enjoy my son‘s Birthday but I ended up fixing one stuff up after another Your duty manager however was very apologetic she gave us a few vouchers and topped up some cards for the kids but still it was an experience I will never forget absolutely terrible Will...