An artist’s rendering of the ’boutique’ video game arcade planned for 80 Broad Street. Below right, owner Ken Kalada shares a laugh with zoning board member Tom Williams after the board’s unanimous approval. (Click to enlarge)
As a Pac-Man-loving preteen in Lincroft, Ken Kalada used to weep, he said, because his father wouldn’t allow him to visit a video game arcade in Eatontown because it was too seedy.
By the time he was 12, though, Kalada was collecting video games and pinball machines of his own, acquiring them via Usenet groups before eBay was a gleam in anyone’s eye. He was also spending time soaking up the atmosphere at a a retro pool hall that opened in the Galleria at Red Bank in the ’90s.
Neither experience, he said, wrecked his morals. In fact, people of his cohort – he’s 29 – and up to their late 40s are deeply nostalgic for the Mario Brothers and other electronic games of their youth, he said.
To answer that need, Kalada intends to transform a 2,800-square-foot former clothing store on Broad Street in Red Bank into a “boutique” video game lounge, one that’s open as late as 2 a.m. to satisfy the joystick cravings of eternal adolescence.
On Thursday night, the borough zoning board unanimously agreed the idea was a good one, in spite of the fact that such businesses aren’t permitted in the zone in which the store at 80 Broad is located, and that the store could provide none of the estimated 20 parking spaces it would create a need for.
Kalada also persuaded board members that his business, to be called Yestercades, would not become a magnet for loiterers. He outlined plans to issue wristbands to all who entered, to closely monitor who was doing what inside, and to charge each patron on the way out based on the time spent inside.
“Loitering won’t be tolerated,” he said.
He also told the board that while private parties would be able to reserve the store and serve alcohol, that, too, would be closely watched for abuse.
The idea, he said, is to foster family entertainment served with a CPU-ful of nostalgia.
“It allows customers to escape their busy lives,” he said.
“I think it’s a good approach,” said board member Tom Williams, who made the motion to approve the plan.
Kalada’s appearance before the board came six months after Mayor Pasquale Menna, citing a desire to create more varied attractions downtown, proposed loosening up zoning laws to allow arcades, small theaters and other uses now prohibited.
Kalada, of Morford Place, told redbankgreen that he had lobbied both Menna and Red Bank RiverCenter with his idea for Yestercades. And though no zoning change has yet followed Menna’s call, the only thing that stopped Kalada from moving ahead sooner with his plan was finding the right space, he said.
That space turned out to be 80 Broad, the former home of LJ’s Total Man/Today’s Woman clothing store, which closed in late 2007 and has been vacant since, except to host a seasonal Halloween costume business. There, Kalada said he plans to install some 75 games of varying vintage, from Atari 2600s and XBox and Wii to classic pinball machines of the 1960s.
The business, he and a hired planner said, will draw in customers to the restaurants and bars downtown, and offset the depletion of street activity that follows the closing of brokerage houses and other offices.
Kalada said he hopes to open by mid-September, stocking the lounge with a personal collection of games now stored in the basement of his parent’s Lincroft home and an airplane hangar at Monmouth Executive Airport in Wall Township.
I will so be there!
What a great idea…and hooray to something else to do in the evening other than eat and drink! Asbury Park has one as well. Glad to see the board set aside those ridiculous parking rules.
Had a ball last month at the Silverball in Asbury. I will be looking forward to this venture. Good luck Mr. Kalada.
I was just thinking about the days when I used to spend my weight in quarters playing Gauntlet at Hobbymasters. Good luck!
Build yourself a MAME cabinet and stop spending your weight in quarters http://mamedev.org/
Ha! I have a comp. somewhere with the MAME Gauntlet. It never went above level 26 for some reason.
Looking forward to having somewhere else to bring my pinball allowance in addition to Funk and Standard!
So happy there is finally something for kids in this town!
Awesome idea! Broad Street needs some late night appeal outside of the bars. This would be a great business to add to the mix.
Yeaaa yankees lets gooo
Thank you everyone for your kind words of support and encouragement, it really means a lot to me. I will keep everyone posted with a Grand Opening date, hope to see you all when everything gets up and running!
I like this idea and i am sure this place will do fine but why doesn’t the town keep a better eye on business that are actually good idea rather than just giving out business licenses? There are too many businesses that are just horrible that sit in downtown for a year and fail. Isn’t there a clearing house for this type of thing? Or is the town council just saying to theirselves “wow we have a slew of empty storefronts and we need to fill them anyway possible”, regardless of the outcome.
I think this is a great idea and that it is a step in the right direction to give the area youth something to do in the evenings.
Looking at the artist’s rendition, is Yestercades absorbing the Broad Street entrance to the underground mall (or what was formerly the underground mall)?