Crowbar Arcade — Restaurant in City of Binghamton

This place is so dope!!! We (my wife and I) are originally from Arizona and out in Tempe AZ we had the Cobra Arcade Bar. Absolutely loved it and still have merch of them (Crowbar needs merch 😉 hats please) but they were an hours drive away! Crowbar is only 5 minutes away! Love it!

Things that I love:

The service! Ben took care of us at the bar and was super nice! We talked about ghost stories, stories of growing up. We had some good laughs! There were two others working the bar, didn’t get their names, but they were also nice! Prices were reasonable for drink and limited food options.

Atmosphere is perfect. The mood lighting is colorful and pleasing to the eye, the music isn’t too loud, but it’s still a very fun and upbeat environment . By the way they have one of those jukeboxes you can use your credit card for song credits and they have thousands of songs to choose from. Love that. Love they have a screen that keeps track of current high scores held on games throughout the arcade! If you take a picture and show them your high score they will add you! I plan to get a high score 😈 They had 80s MTV music videos playing on a projector upstairs with a comfy little lounge area which brings me to one of my favorite elements.

Comfort! Surprised how much seating there was! Plenty at the bar, they had tables that could seat 6 people across from the bar, half way up the stairs they had a few spots lit by lava lamp that could seat two people each, and there were at least 3 lounge areas with comfy leather seating. I think all seats had cushions. Overall we felt very comfortable there! I even noticed outside of the men’s bathroom downstairs there was a long cushioned bench. Just so much comfy seating!

Things that were enjoyable, but could use a little improvement:

The games. Sadly the first 3 games we played were having issues. On the basketball games the one on the right the sensor wasn’t working and not registering shots made, I forgot the name of the shooting game but it was upstairs with a red and blue gun; the one on the left wasn’t working. Then my favorite, Simpsons Bowling, wasn’t working right 😭. I was so bummed, but the other games we played were fine! I did notice many games were turned off that were probably having issues as well. The games just need a little more TLC is all! I love that all the games have spots for drinks! I kind of wish they ran on tokens but I can appreciate the convenience of game cards! To be fair you do get a great bang for your buck so it didn’t really feel like we lost out on much! We got like 30 credits for $10 and each game was one credit? Not bad! Played lots!

To be fair I didn’t try any food but the options were pretty limited and didn’t sound very appetizing at the time; like personal frozen pizzas, loaded chili dogs, snack options like popcorn, which are fine! Would just appreciate a few fried options available one day like french fries, chicken tenders, mozzarella sticks, or maybe some chicken wings! Also I’d recommend maybe laminating your half crumpled up paper menus 😅 Next time I’ll try a hot dog and if it slaps I will gladly edit this review

Note: According to the bartender, the place had only been open a couple of weeks when we visited. The menu said "soft opening" at the top so I'm not sure if that's the regular menu or if it will change.*

There's a very small food menu - hot dogs and snacks only. No dessert. :(

I had the Dungeon Dog. It was delicious!! The hot dog was pretty big, the bread was very fresh, and it was loaded with toppings. I might have to visit again to try the No 1 Cowboy Dog.

There are vegan and vegetarian options, and you can choose a lettuce wrap instead of a bun for your hot dog.

We also tried the popcorn, which was sweet and salty.

For soft drinks they serve Pepsi products (which is probably my only "complaint" about the place lol... I'm a Coca-Cola fan).

I tried the Wakka-Wakka-Wakka cocktail. It was pretty good.

There's a nice variety of games - some older games, some newer games, skeet ball, and a pool table. Most games are one credit. Some of the two player games are two credits per player. You have to get a game card (which is reloadable) in order to play because the games do not take tokens or coins (not sure about the pool table).

Aside from the bar, table seating is limited. There are only two large tables across from the bar. I could see this being a problem when the bar is crowded. Even though the point of being there is to move around and play the games, people tend to sit and get comfortable with their drinks. I didn't have a problem while I was there, but I definitely needed to be at a table or at the bar to eat my hot dog because it wasn't really something I could eat with my hands while standing.

Overall, the Crowbar is very cool. The food was good and the prices...

Love the idea! Execution is not great. I had to buy a swipe card to play, nbd. BUT The card itself costs a dollar? Then using a credit card cost a fee, but the machine doesn't take cash.

Then I went to play pinball, but they only have two seemly old old retro machines, but they kinda looked fake old? But it didn't matter because neither worked. The staff was great about offering to swipe me some free games with their cards, but I didn't want to have them following me around while I got my credits back, would have been easier if they could have added the credits back to my card. If theyve been open a few months they should have defunatley pulled those machines or fixed the issue. Either way they should definitely invest in some actual real pinball machines that are fun to play.

That carries over to their other games... they have a few fun ones, but most are kinda c-class games I've never heard of. The few I was jazzed to play: tabletop Tetris, Tekkin 5, Donkey Kong, all had loose joysticks that made for frustrating play.

Overall, this play had good bones and concepts, but it feels like it was not driven by someone who loves or is part of this game culture but instead saw a business opportunity. It's better to buy few good games and maintain them well than have lots of sub par, poorly...