What do you get when you cross a river of craft beer with vintage video arcade games? The answer is: Peoria’s newest bar in the Warehouse District, called 8 Bit Beercade. The bar has just opened up and is quickly becoming the talk of the town as it features a multitude of craft beers and three rooms of vintage video games that you can play for free! So let’s go see what everybody’s talking about!
Here we are at the corner of Water Street and State and there’s the newest inhabitant of this corner building, 8 Bit Beercade.
Let’s go in and take a look at Peoria’s newest bar!
It’s nice in here and there’s a decent crowd seeing that it’s still fairly early in the evening. Let’s go belly up to the bar.
I’ve grabbed a seat at the bar and let’s see who the two people working back there are...
This is Amanda, the pretty bartender of the evening, serving me up a large can of beer that she picked out for me as I wasn’t quite sure what to order. Very nice of her and I love her smile!
This gentleman over here is Jason Pacey, the owner of 8 Bit Beercade. Jason has a passion for craft beer and classic video games and his dream was to combine the two and this bar is the result of his dream. He’s spent the last couple of years acquiring all the vintage games in the bar and we’ll take a look at them soon.
But for now, check out all the varieties of craft beer available behind the bar. Jason told me that right now there’s over 140 different varieties of beer to choose from and both Jason and Amanda are very knowledgeable about the beer and are happy to assist you in ordering, as they did with me.
Aaron was seated next to me and he does craft beer and fine wine sales for Market Place Selections here in Peoria. It turns out that he knows my friend and fiancee, Lisa (who I should put a plug in for the company she works for just to be fair, Maverick Wine Company) and we all know what that means, time to cue this up!
There’s a wooden bar off to the side of the bar where I’m seated at over there.
Here’s another angle of the side bar.
There’s six rotating drafts available over here.
Chelsea and Heidi were enjoying beers at the bar while their husband’s were busy playing the video games in here.
There’s tables and booths directly behind the bar.
Here’s some of the classic video games lined up on the wall opposite from the tables and booths.
There’s more games in this room back here...
Wow, check it out, it’s a real arcade back here!
Here’s P.J. and Brent who were enjoying some of the video games in this room. Both of them said they read MBIP on a regular basis and Brent said his girlfriend would be jealous that he was on here! Too funny and thanks for reading, guys!
There’s even more games in this third room back here! And as I said, all these games are free to play!
Here’s a quartet of classic games in 8 Bit Beercade.
As the night wears on, there’s quite a crowd of people getting into and playing the video games.
These people are partying like it’s 1985!
Jason worked for Acme Comics in the past and all these figurines on this shelf up here come from Acme. Hello Bob Gordon!
Edward and Darlene were enjoying beers at this table. Edward’s originally from Havana, Illinois and they’re headed off to Starved Rock today to start celebrating Darlene’s birthday that happens this weekend! Happy birthday, Darlene!
There’s a really nice beer garden out here that overlooks Water Street.
And you can order beer from this window! Very nice!
Meanwhile, back at the bar, Amanda’s rinsing out some glasses...
And I ran into Jerry, who we originally met at Martini’s way back in March of 2013! Jerry’s one half of the musical duo, The Joe and Jerry Show, who perform every Monday at Martini’s, just down the street. Great to see him again and thanks to Jason and Amanda for a fun night at Peoria’s newest and very unique new bar! We’ll see you all tomorrow!
8 Bit Beercade
100 State Street
Peoria
309-713-3007
Related Posts: Beers @ Peoria Pizza Works, Jimmy’s Bar and Old Chicago.
In my dreams we're still screamin',
We're still screamin',
We're still screamin' ...
Surprise link, click on it...I dare you!
---------------------
Heart of Illinois BBQ & Bluegrass Festival!
Today starts the second annual Heart of Illinois BBQ & Bluegrass Festival at Expo Gardens! Last year’s was a blast and I’m going to go enjoy the BBQ and music this weekend and you can read all about it next Monday. Check out all the information on food, camping and bands by clicking right here! Hope to see you out there!
