I/O Arcade Bar — Restaurant in Madison

The place has just opened at time of writing, so I try to account for that. I/O is a solid spot but needs a little TLC to hit its full potential, yet their "soft open" gives a pretty good look at what to expect.

The place is clean and well laid out, but lacks the real chattery atmosphere of a typical barcade (though preferences may vary on that) and yet could use some sound treatment to adjust the echoey room noise reflecting off the concrete, glass storefront, and high ceilings that make it seem loud even when it's not that busy. Beer prices are pretty standard, about $5.50-$6 per pint across most things over their dozen or so taps. There are a few snack options but I wouldn't aim to have a full meal here - as best I can tell they are not equipped with a kitchen, or if they are, they're hiding it very well.

Despite the roomy floor plan, there's only about 40 arcade cabs and a dozen assorted pinball machines, and of those, at least a half dozen were out of order or unplugged, and an additional three we found were either pretty significantly damaged or unresponsive but unmarked as such. I don't know whether to dock the place for this though, as it would appear a good chunk of their offerings are being borrowed from rental spots around Wisconsin, and the cabs not marked with rental branding are actually the ones in the best shape. If they are using rentals, I hope both that their supplier is making good on promises of repairs/replacements, and that they can leverage their lack of ownership to shuffle cabs in and out frequently.

There's a solid mix of single and multiplayer games (at least a dozen of the latter, so good choice made there), a solid mix of genres, and even eras, from Tapper all the way to Killer Queen (which, if that's your thing, might be worth the trip all on its own) but again, there just doesn't feel like there's the critical number of cabs to keep you entertained for more than an hour or two. Of particular note was a dearth of light gun shooters, which is a shame both for the arcade-only novelty, and the fact that they tend to be real quarter munchers (a potential plus for the owner!)

Most of the cabs are still set to their original credit values (no $3 plays to be seen) which is a huge plus, but if you'll forgive the editorial, I think that they really ought to put everything on free play in exchange for a cover charge. I understand that there's a lot of complex considerations there, and that it might dissuade more casual walk-in patrons, but if after a year they find there's a good following of repeat/regular customers, a cover charge or membership system might serve both to mitigate the complexities of handling change and change machines, bump profits (margins can't be that high when most cabs are 25-50c) and increase regularity of their customer base.

In addition, it's in an odd location that both isn't super convenient for those without cars, and if you do drive, it's hard to park, as the attached parking lot next door is entirely reserved for residents (a thing that should also be more blatantly signposted for the owner's sake, to avoid angry neighbors down the line) and parking further out is patchy and questionably labeled in what amounts to an industrial park.

I hope this place takes off, as I'd love to have a local barcade to hang out at, but I think it may need some more polish...

Loved the vibe on a Friday night! Bar kept at a reasonable capacity, you can move around and there's arcade space and table space with adequate walking room around. Great beer selection and we were served rather quickly. Layout encourages mingling outside the immediate bar area. Not much for food, a couple bars in Madison sell bagged chips, that'd be really nice here. We had coin trouble with 3 of 4 arcade games we tried. May be a given when it comes to old systems, but I'd think there's some way to fix them up or use a better coin system. One game froze up after the start screen. Could be standard practice for bar-cades, my friend mentioned having a similar issue elsewhere. Between two of us we got $5, two beers for about 5.50 and played a few games. Almost all the pinball games are 75c, I believe the max arcade game price per person is 50c, + additional if you want to keep playing. Overall needs some improvements on the arcade side, it's impractical to have one guy constantly unsticking machines in a busy bar. Loved the vibe so it won't deter me from going again but it'd improve...

We’ve been here two nights in a row, we really like it. They have good arcade games and great board games. they need to hire more bartenders and need to expand, but they’re still working out the kinks. The reason why it’s only two stars, last night we were there with some friends, two of them went up to the bar to get shots. My friend hand his hand on the bar and was only standing close to the register, when one of the bartenders SLAPPED his hand and said “you need to not be here”. Definitely not the best way to ask someone to move, especially your first weekend being open. I’m very disappointed, because we would have loved coming here. The bartender is described as, the short guy with curly hair and a mustache. He was also a little rude when I overheard someone ask him to change the channel because there was an extremely racist cartoon from the 40’s on, which they didn’t realize was playing, but he was still rude...