YESTERcades of Red Bank — Attraction in Red Bank

This was an interesting experience. I popped by here for a few hours last Saturday night for a birthday party, most of the festivities for which were held in the backroom. I've been to probably three or four of these retro arcade places, and it IS a pleasant trip down memory lane if you're a geriatric Oregon Trail Millennial like myself - I wasn't allowed to have video games when I was growing up, so my primary exposure to them was at shopping malls, convincing my dad to give me a $20 bill so I could go on a toot for half an hour or so. It usually didn't take a lot of effort, as he was mildly obsessed with the game Rampage (the premise for which involves being a werewolf and punching apartment buildings until they crumble - probably many dads' fantasy).

From a video game perspective, YESTERcades definitely had a lot of ones I enjoyed and/or was familiar with, including The Simpsons and Mario 3 (despite not having played that one for probably close to 20 years, I still remembered how to obtain the magic world-transporting flute - it's like riding a bike). I was a little sad not to see my old chum Area 51, which I used to play religiously at the movie theater, but they had a very solid selection overall. I've never understood the obsession with the pinball games (which took up a legit wall), but to each his own.

Their party room felt a little claustrophobic, and I think that could at least partially be rectified by removing some of the video games that are in there as well. Specifically, they had the original Super Mario Bros (which just never feels right to play on anything other than Nintendo), and it was close to death's door - the joystick was super hard to use and kept getting stuck. Just put it out of its misery and let your partygoers roam around a bit more. There's a pool table right in the middle of the room too, but that seemed to be a pretty popular focal point for most of the guests so I'd reluctantly concede that that should probably stay - but you could also make the argument that people were only playing it because it was smack dab in the middle of the party room. A true chicken or the egg dilemma.

I didn't have a ton of interaction with the staff, but everyone was perfectly pleasant from what I could tell. I didn't spend a lot of time in the party room (I came back for some soda every once in a while so I could recharge and go back to Mario 3), but I did notice that one or two employees did check in from time to time, which seems appropriate without being too overbearing/intrusive.

It's also hard for me to speak to the price point, because part of the cost for me involved food/drinks for the party that wouldn't be factored in usually, but it seemed to be about $20 for two hours. That seems more than reasonable to me, especially (as mentioned before), I could EASILY blow that much back in the day in a fraction of the time. You also have a lot more options to play around with, including actual game systems with couches, so this might be the only business in the last 25 years to actually become significantly cheaper for the consumer. AND by paying upfront, you no longer have to suffer the indignity of putting a quarter into a machine every time you die. You can't put a dollar...

My wife and I love video games so we came here for date night. Neither of us have been here before and I never even heard of this until it popped up on Google during search for something else. I've lived in NJ for all of my 34 years and it was only 40 minutes away. Now that I discovered it I will become a regular.. or at least get there as music as I can! The nostalgia was great... it's actually smaller than I thought it would be but that's ok as we were there for 3 and a half hours and only left because they were closing. Getting there earlier next time because we have a lot more to explore! As far as the older games the arcade and pinball machines are great. I love that you don't have to add more quarters to continue so my wife and I actually beat one of our childhood and apparently current faves.. the Simpson's arcade from maybe the early 90s or so. Other than that there's a small back room but it was crowded so I didn't bother. That's where the pool table is but there was no room with all of the people standing everywhere around it. I'm hoping it was a party or something and not how it is normally because we did want to play pool and I thought there would be more than one table for a place that gets a lot of door traffic. After the arcade and pinball we spent the end at one of the large Tv's and comfy couches where they have the newer consoles. We ended up playing Guitar Hero. Decent selection but I didn't look that much since we were running out of time. I understand the need for this but it would end up being annoying if we played other games - they have the cases and hold the discs so whatever you want to play you have to get from them and give them your ID (or maybe it was credit card I have no idea since my wife did it and I never asked). I'm the type that would want to change games often to test out ones I've never tried before but I would feel like I'm bothering them too much so I don't know how to make that work. We went on a week night and the crowd was good, but I can only imagine what it's like on weekends. Overall 4 stars since I'd make a few improvements if I could, but as is it is still one of my new favorite places!

The picture I posted is me earning 5th place in one of the Mario games. If "BEX" is still there...

Just went for the first time today, and had a blast!

Yestercades charged by the hour- once you step in, they print a wristband, and you go in to play. You pay when you're all done, and the pricing is on their website.

They have tons of retro games, like Missile Command, Frogger, Dig Dug, Burgertime, Tapper, Qbert, etc... Most that I played were in pretty good working order; I didn't really see any broken machines, though one seemed to be missing a button, and a button on a different machine stuck a bit. But having grown up in arcades, I felt like this recreated the charm I missed so much from days of old (also, these didn't hamper any enjoyment).

All the games are on free play (or have a button below the main controls to add credits), so you can play to your heart's content. I was able to play Golden Axe with my gf and beat it without having to worry about dying (just hit "Start" again and you're back in action!).

Besides the arcade machines, there's also a bunch of pinball games along the back wall, and a couple HDTVs. The HDTVs have a bunch of consoles hooked up to them. While the kids there were playing some Xbox360 FPS on the tv's, there were also SNES/Genesis/NES/N64 games beside the tv, so I assume you could play them also (didn't try though). I'm sure if you sit down and play some console games you could easily eat away the hours! While we're on the topic, there is a flat $25/day fee that could alleviate any time concerns you may have for being there "too long."

They also have a party room in the back, and there are flyers posted on the front door about tournaments they hold here, which is definitely a great idea for them.

All in all I had a wonderful time, and will definitely be back! I'd recommend it to all my friends, since most of us grew up with games and I'm sure they'd all appreciate the place for what it is. Definitely recommended for anyone who grew up with arcades and misses having...