Retro arcade games and live sport with drinks – two more pillars of the competitive-socialising and the great sports-bar tradition
Post Play in Balham holds just two reviews and a 3.0 – a sample far too small to judge, since two opinions carry no statistical weight at all – but its concept is worth exploring: an arcade and sports bar, combining retro arcade games and live sport with drinks, in the great modern tradition of the games bar and the sports bar.
The two reviews
First, honestly: two reviews tell us essentially nothing. Two opinions are not data – they could reflect a single off night, bad luck, or two hard-to-please visitors, and carry no real statistical weight. This survey has consistently declined to judge venues on such tiny samples, and two is far too few to say anything meaningful. So we set the number aside and turn to the appealing concept – the arcade and the sports bar combined.
The arcade
“Play,” and the arcade, tap into one of the most beloved and nostalgic of modern pleasures: the video-game arcade. The arcade – full of the flashing lights, electronic sounds and colourful cabinets of arcade video games – was a defining feature of youth culture in the 1980s and 90s, a place of Pac-Man and Space Invaders, pinball and fighting games, where a generation spent its pocket money and its evenings. The classic arcade has faded, replaced by home and mobile gaming, which lends it a powerful nostalgia.
The “barcade” – the bar combined with a retro arcade – has emerged as a hugely popular modern venue, tapping directly into this nostalgia. It combines drinks with the pleasures of retro arcade gaming – the classic cabinets, the pinball machines, the old favourites – offering a fun, nostalgic, playful night out for the generation that grew up in the arcades, and an introduction to their charms for younger drinkers. It is competitive socialising with a nostalgic, retro-gaming twist, and it has proved enormously appealing.
The sports bar
Post Play combines its arcade with a sports bar – the other great pillar of its concept, and one of the most enduring of all bar traditions. The sports bar – with its big screens showing live sport, its convivial crowds gathering to watch the big match, its atmosphere of shared excitement and partisanship – is a beloved institution. There are few better places to watch a big game than a good sports bar, surrounded by fellow fans, sharing the tension and triumph and despair, pint in hand. The communal watching of live sport is one of the great social pleasures, and the sports bar exists to provide it at its best.
Combining the arcade and the sports bar is a clever, appealing double concept – retro gaming and live sport, both fuelled by drinks and good company, offering something for everyone and every mood. Whether you want to relive your arcade youth or roar at the big match, Post Play offers both, in the great modern tradition of the games-and-sport entertainment bar. Whatever its tiny sample, the concept is a genuinely appealing one.
The bar
A thinly-reviewed venue – impossible to judge on two reviews – combining a retro arcade and a sports bar, offering games and live sport with drinks in the great modern tradition of the entertainment bar.
Verdict
Impossible to judge on two reviews, but appealingly conceived – Post Play, combining nostalgic arcade gaming and the great sports-bar tradition, games and live sport with drinks.
Go, become an early reviewer, and enjoy the double concept – retro arcade games and live sport, both with a drink in hand, in the great modern tradition of the games-and-sport entertainment bar.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
