Level Up BarKade Limerick

banie01 wrote: »

Paid my 1st visit to Level UP last night.

Great staff, great selection of beers and games and even some on free play which is always a bonus.

There is still a lot to be done mainly cosmetic, but the drive and the potential is massive.
Best of luck to Dav09 and all involved with it up there, I really hope the venue gets all the success the effort deserves

Cheers! We've a lot to do cosmetically yes, particularly down stairs. We have a lot of ideas and some stuff in the works on that side of things. Lots of new machines coming in very shortly too hopefully over the next week or so, added HOTD4, Manx TT over the past 2 days and Daytona 2 too soon. New beers, getting the food up and running are some of the other challenges ahead but glad to have the doors open and things running relatively smoothly.

c.p.w.g.w wrote: »

Ye stocking any locals beers?

Yep of course! On tap we have Treaty City Larger and Treaty City Harris Pale Ale. Also JJ's Garryowen Pale Ale on tap and JJ's bottles, a couple of others on bottle too I believe.

c.p.w.g.w wrote: »

No Treaty City Red?

I'm not 100% sure on that one, it might be on bottle but I'd have to check.

brianregan09 wrote: »

Was in there last night , really enjoyable relaxed atmosphere in there unfortunately the MK machine was off when we got in there hopefully get's sorted , spent 20 quid on tokens and came home with some and played pretty much everything I wanted to play , Pints were nice too so really can't complain will be back again for sure

Great and glad you enjoyed

Apologies about MKII, when I was over yesterday it was working fine, will get it back up and running over the next day or so.

coffey87 wrote: »

Hi dav09, any new games lined up or other changes for when you open back up? Was there a few weeks before the lock down and had a great night

Hi there, yes changes planned but we'll probably speak more on that over the coming months as some stuff isn't set in stone. But games wise what I can say is we'll almost definitely replace Daytona 2 with Sega Rally 2, there'll be 7 or 8 games gone and hoping somewhere between 7 and 20 new games coming in depending on how a few things play out with some of the lads involved and what games they already have. We announced Dariusburst (very rare in europe), Atari Supersprint (also very rare) and Sunset riders recently on our socials so they're almost definite, I can see some of our previously announced games from before we opened like Initial D4, maybe Crazy Taxi, Afterburner Climax and Mario Bros potentially making an appearance when we re open but as I said, there's nothing too set in stone yet. Lots of other exciting games too potentially but holding off as I said until we're 100%.

banie01 wrote: »

Not meaning to speak for Dav or any of the Barkade crew
But!
They do a great job of keeping their games and community contact updated on their Social Media.
Insta and FB are always up to date.

On a different but still Barkade related note.

I hope that the team can take advantage of any and all business supports that are put in place.
Hospitality is a difficult enough business without the pandemic.
Barkade really do have a brilliant offering and it was gaining great traction.

When ye reopen, I will be by to spend whatever spare cash I have.

Stay safe, stay healthy and stay hopeful guys!
Until ye re-open!

Cheers Banie hope you're keeping healthy and well! We very much appreciate all of the support you've given us as always, it really goes a long way. And it's a shame yeah as it was really starting to build before this happened and is very hard on all small business, especially one that was only open a few months.

In terms of small business support there really hasn't been a whole lot of additional support offered by the government unfortunately it seems, I assumed with quantitative easing measure in place (which typically devalues assets + money in turn) grants would have become available here like in the UK and many European countries but for the moment there's not a whole lot of new schemes, a small few aimed at employee wages and retail but very little in the hospitality sector. Most of the support offered has been in forms of loans which just replaces debts with slightly easier debts, holding out hope the government might release something shortly. If not, maybe looking at some of the pre-existing initiatives might be an idea. As with every business, either way we'll probably have to get some cashflow over the next few months if this really prolongs into late this year and next year but we've a few ideas around this. The good thing is there's a good team involved with everyone going above and beyond at the minute so we'll do whatever we can like most businesses, everyone's in the same boat really.

As for the social media, cheers! I'm mostly just keeping things ticking over for the minute, potentially might start live streaming from the Arcade at some point too as it'd be unique and would give people something different to watch. I've tried to keep content going like suggesting new games and stuff to keep people occupied, encouraging interaction, etc.

Thanks again, definitely looking forward to being back whenever that might be!

BuckoA51 wrote: »

I noticed the National Videogame Arcade in UK had started a crowdfunder to keep it ticking over until it can open again, maybe something like that would help?

Thanks, and it certainly would yeah. Had it have happened in a years time we most likely would have been much better off but right now we've quite a few bills being a new business, loans, creditors, etc to meet even if some of our costs are obviously halted. We'd be okay in the short term probably but if this goes on months and months like it looks then we'll have to raise cash for cashflow somehow.

We ran a crowdfunder at the start before we were opened and were met with quite a bit of backlash, unfortunately. It was cancelled and people were refunded. People didn't seem to understand the concept too well and was portrayed by some like "we were asking for money", eventhough there were rewards offered at the time for backers. It certainly would be something we could try again but I would worry we wouldn't be backed or for backlash.

All suggestions are much appreciated, if anyone has any more we're open ears. Some ideas we have been working on have been Merch or potentially live streaming from the arcade and one or two other ideas while we're closed, but either way we'll probably need something it looks to survive in the long run since this isn't going away anytime soon.