THE CRUCIBLE

Arcade 2084 Was Born in a Cross-Fire Hurricane

I. THE HURRICANE (February 2020)

We signed the lease on January 28, 2020. Fewer than twenty COVID cases existed in the United States. The concept was simple: a place where adults could drink excellent cocktails and play excellent games. Not a family fun center. Not a Chuck E. Cheese with beer. A bar that happened to have arcade cabinets.

The Governor shut down Oregon six weeks later.

We took possession in February during "full lockdown." Contractors were unavailable—everyone was either closed or overwhelmed—so we built it ourselves. Drywall. Electrical. The bar. The arcade cabinets, sourced from across time, and mostly Pennsylvania and Colorado, restored in a borrowed garage. We opened in July 2020, four months into the pandemic, when the dominant business headline was "72,000 Restaurants Close Permanently."

We were not eligible for PPP. Not eligible for EIDL. We fought for the Employee Retention Credit—more than a year with Representative Bonamici, a laborious IRS process that confounded even the congresswoman. It didn't equal a fraction of our labor losses. It went to back rent and credit card debt, the limits tapped again before long.

The policy punished us for opening during the crisis—precisely when entrepreneurial risk-taking should have been incentivized.

We survived on savings, on 401(k) liquidation, on Shana's house. On the belief that if we built something real, they would come.

II. THE FIRE (2022)

They came. And things were going the right direction.

Before our recovery could take hold, though, arson took the Weil Arcade building, two doors down, across the street, burning it to the ground on one of the first nights of January, just as the year began.

The arcade fire nearly destroyed Arcade 2084, without a lick touching it.

The city erected an illuminated sign at the east entrance to Main: "MAIN ST BETWEEN 2ND and 3RD CLOSED." For months, and barricaded the entire 2nd block from all traffic, isolating it like a zombie zone. Police stationed themselves at each end of it on Main Street to prevent pedestrians from walking the sidewalk altogether. They told callers (the arcade) had "burned down", while press told people the arcade is a total loss -citing our address. Police turned pedestrians away meters from our entrance, erroneously claiming they weren't permitted to walk our side of the street, especially to a burned down arcade on the other side of the street. The fence closed us off from the west, making it impossible to reach us from 1st.)

The Downtown Business Partnership erected a supplementary sign directing pedestrians to the back doors, away from our front door. Our name was not included. No sign was made for our patrons.

Revenue dropped seventy percent. Rent did not.

We absorbed it on our personal credit.

In August, the barricades finally came down. The accolades rolled in. Bronze for cocktails that first year. Silver for Best Attraction. And the Gold for Best Nightclub, while simultaneously garnering Gold for Best Family Entertainment. And Gold for Best Arcade, on Next Level's turf, in their city, vs the museum that Newsweek had called the best in the country. All in our first year of competing for these votes. The gold kept coming. From then on, gold for cocktails too. More accolades each of the following years, operating at levels of excellence on a shoestring, even as our competitors had relief we couldn't access. 


We were one block from the Washington County Jail. Parolees slept in our doorway to make morning check-ins. From July 2020 through early 2023 -the COVID era, the capacity restrictions— a $5 cover wasn't revenue optimization; it was survival. When legally restricted to six people, twelve, twenty-four, the small $5 entrance cover kept out vagrants who ruined restrooms, coughed intentionally on staff and otherwise disturbed our guests, or prevented you from entering altogether. It also kept out the impossible-to-please blogger who poisons a neighborhood well, the mother bringing her infant to drink at a bar, the Karen comparing us to PBR prices, and seems effective against influencers and other freeloaders, too.

The cover kept us alive.

III. THE INFECTION (2023)

Spring. Restrictions over. We finally could eliminate door friction; No cover, no host. Easy to enter. As a DPSST-trained, armed private security provider, I felt prepared, and we handled security ourselves, both of us managing disturbances case-by-case. No major incidents- rare for a bar by the jail.

Adults had a chill vibe to enjoy world-class cocktails in downtown Hillsboro!

Revenue rose. We made more sales as a two person team than when we hired someone to increase sales. We would need a hand, anyway, to prevent burnout. We were finally optimized—just in time for theft to hollow us out from within.

In summer 2023, we hired someone new to replace a respected departing bartender. We were short-staffed; he seemed capable. We left him unsupervised, treating him as family.

For twelve months, he stole. Cash from the register. Inventory, arguably worse -minimum three drinks per night, four nights a week, likely far more. The math suggests $30,000 to $90,000. We discovered it in October 2024, on a night that started strong and ended hundreds of dollars short. He confessed, excusing himself as a functional alcoholic. He was terminated, of course.

We had no money to hire a replacement. No energy to litigate. Shana—who had developed the cocktail menu alongside me since before day one, who had spent years learning high-end bar operations, who had already worked busy nights behind the bar as part of our team—became the sole bartender. She stepped in like the seasoned professional she was, then stepped it up to eleven, pouring Gold Ribbon-winning cocktails four nights a week while I managed the front-of-house: pizza, hosting, events, facilities. We were two people doing the work of six, nine months straight, working ~100 hours a week - and the theft had depleted not just our accounts, but our options.

IV. THE HATRED (2024–2025)

The antisemitism was not abstract. It was shouted from the darkness of the empty street outside our doors. "Fuck you, Jew.", and in broad daylight, with witnesses saying and doing nothing in response but a grin. The last time, June 2025, I was standing outside locking up. The voice came from the shadows across the street. I did not see the face.

This was the environment: a city that barricaded our street and offered no compensation; a landlord who took and took and took; a customer base that traveled from Alaska and Hawaii to find us; and a darkness outside that hated us for existing.

We were exhausted. Two people, four nights a week, doing the work of six. We had proven the concept. We had not proven that the capital structure could survive the theft, the fire, the policy, the predation, the ghost-town street.

The landlord seized the prepaid rent. We closed ahead of schedule without ceremony. No fifth-anniversary celebration. We executed an accelerated strategic withdrawal to prevent further conflict, secure our equipment, and re-position for another location.

V. THE REPOSITION

I retained everything: ROOT'84, the recipes, the equipment, the Time Shuttle Chronicles, the customer database, the entity in name, all IP. Shana retained her freedom from obligation. We had invested tens of thousands from the sale in 2019 of her house, liquidation of her 401(k), my life savings, too, and irreplaceable time together with our adopted greyhound, since passed.

But we had not lost the thing we built. Not a place- a vibe of community.

Our guests never lost sight of us. "When are you opening back up?" Hundreds of you, pre-committed, waiting for The Hangar before it has walls.

VI. THE CRUCIBLE

The crucible is not the fire. The crucible is what the fire leaves behind.

We learned that "Arcade" means "babysitting" to parents who see the word and assume their children may be left unattended in a bar. We learned that 60 decibels is not just a noise limit but a prohibition on nightlife. We learned that trust without verification is theft waiting to happen. We learned that Shana could carry a cocktail program she co-created, perform bartending at professional caliber, on her feet for up to 11 hours a day for 9 months, without breaking. We learned that two people cannot run a nightclub indefinitely —but that those two people, when everything around them is burning away, can survive longer than anyone would believe possible, and pull life itself, out of the fire.

We learned that the concept works. That adults want this. That ROOT'84 -the nitro beverages I invented, available nowhere else —drives 40% attachment rates. And that even Europeans can like rootbeer! That quality cocktails and love can win Gold Ribbons against cold million-dollar competitors. That the games are not the point; the community is the point.

That "See you in the future" is not a tagline but a promise.

The Hangar is the promise kept.

2084 was born in a cross-fire hurricane. The Hangar is what comes after.

See you in the future.- Mars