8 Bit Arcade Bar — Restaurant in Peoria

Review Date: July 24th, 2016

Beer, arcade games and friends. My kind of place.

Growing up, I got involved in playing video games thanks to my father and friends. Everything from Atari to Sega Genesis to Super Nintendo to Gameboy; everything in-between and everything after. Once I was legally allowed to enjoy adult beverages, I grew to enjoy beer a few years later. Shortly after, 8 Bit opened up. Having a lifelong love for video games and a recently acquired taste for beer, I gathered a few of my nerdy friends up and headed that way.

8 Bit is a pretty unique place. It’s a bar that is also an arcade. It looks like a normal business situated at the end of a building but inside is a different story. Upon walking, you get the feeling you are in a house. You have some stairs that lead up to… somewhere. Off to the right of the entrance is the smallish bar. Between the bar tables and the machines, it can get pretty packed with just a handful of people. As you deviate from the bar, you’ll find yourself in a hallway that has one machine at the end on the left, that is tucked under the stairs. Next to that is a room that full of 6-8 games (it could vary, I am not sure). Going back in to the hallway, you’ll find the next room down on the left. That room is L-shaped and has maybe 12 games in it. At the end of the hallway, are the bathrooms.

All the games are free to play as long as you are ordering drinks and spending money. Instead of loading your pockets full of quarters, you just have to load your belly up with beer. A fair trade off in my opinion. The beercade has a nice beergarden to enjoy. On my first visit here, my friends and I ordered a few drinks and headed outside to play some Pokemon Go. After polishing off my beer, I noticed there was a window in which you could order beer from the bar through. That is exactly what I did. I ordered another beer through the window. I thought that was pretty cool.

While we were there playing Pokemon Go, another group of people came in and was playing Pokemon Go. We noticed they were playing as we kept battling for the Gym that was located nearby. At one point, that group sent someone out to spy on us as we battled for the gym. After noticing the other group was taking this too serious, we decided to close the app, head inside and play the arcade games.

The selection of arcade games is about your standard fare. There are your usual games but they also had a few games I’ve never seen before. We played games for a bit longer before heading out. Now, this wasn’t my only time I have come here. Ever since this visit, I have been back a few times with various other friends. Each visit has been unique. The first time I went, they offered food. The subsequent visits had no food options due to law changes. The last time I went was in late 2019 and they had this sweet system set up at the bar. It was operated with some aftermarket SNES controller and had almost every retro game available. My friend Nate and I spent more time browsing the catalog than gaming. It was such a sweet system and I wish I had it at...

Great bar concept, but they could benefit from some customer service "soft-skills" training, and simple maintenance on the games.

My experience went from "Wow!" to "unwelcome" in under 2 minutes. Walked in excited, with every intention of ordering beers and bar food. Started looking around in their rooms at the games, but was quickly, sternly, and unnecessarily greeted with: "You need to buy something to play the games." OK... So I ordered a beer and played 3-4 games, but these are not "restored" games. They are tired, "as-is" relics. The joysticks and buttons on everything I played (Zaxxon, Dig Dug, Galaxian, Multi-game console with Robotron) were intermittent, which detracted further from the experience.

I could've overlooked the controls issue if I had been initially approached with: "Hi, What can I get you?" instead of negative energy... But I quickly finished my beer and left. Sorry 8-Bit Beercade. I REALLY wanted you to be a cool, regular hangout, but it just isn't working. Hopefully you'll take this as constructive criticism, and I'll come back to check...

This is such a cool place. I am shocked more folks don't come here. All you have to do is buy a drink and you can play all the games for free. Yes some did not work and others did not work properly but they are all old games. I played them in my youth and spent a lot of money to do so. I highly recommend a blue MFer. So good and goes down way to easy. My husband loved the purple drink so much he wants to go back and get some for home. The bartender was beyond amazing. She was nice and had good drink suggestions. Thus bar would have gotten 5 stars if the games worked that we wanted to play. It is a great place for drinks and some down time to play game. Great for conversations. Lots of flash back talk for us. I know you will love it if you played arcade games as a kid. Give it a try and...