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. An era-accurate high-quality bar - an authentic 80s 3rd place experience that happened to have arcade cabinets.

The Governor shut down Oregon six weeks later.

We took possession. March began our cleaning and buildout -it was during "full lockdown." Contractors were unavailable—everyone was either closed or overwhelmed—so we built it ourselves. Drywall. Carpet. Network infrastructure. Electrical. The arcade cabinets, sourced from mostly Pennsylvania and Colorado, restored in an apartment garage. We opened in July 2020, four months into the pandemic, when the dominant business headline was "72,000 Restaurants Close Permanently." Revisions put that figure at over 80,000. We opened, instead. Quitting is not an option when you're in a contract. Even if we had known the truth about the future- we owed rent for the next three years. When leadership is promising relief two-weeks away, there's no reason not to open.

Before the end of 2020, we would be ordered not to allow anyone in, and weren't able to let them back in for well after- long after other bars were allowed to admit patrons. There was the mask mandate. One of the most destructive policies - forcing business operators to police this - was so damaging to business PR; The policy made us a target, not an attraction, to those who would confuse our adherence to health codes with enthusiasm for a policy they disagreed with.
Listen: We earned 100% scores from the health department for good reason. You don't want a bar, restaurant, or arcade to pick and choose which health codes and regulations they want to or don't want to adhere to. We are professionals -and we followed the law -and we stuck to the regulations even during the crisis- because that's how we rolled when we brought this to Hillsboro, Oregon.
Well, no good deed...

We were not eligible for PPP. Not eligible for EIDL. No stimulus checks. We were working a hundred hours a week for free, subsidizing the state and city and landlords and vendors - while taking near nothing for ourselves. Eviction from our apartment too, was a continual threat as it was for many struggling Americans during covid. We prioritized the business as the only chance for survival, impelled by necessity to risk it all.

Later in 2022, we fought for the Employee Retention Credit —well over a year with Representative Bonamici, a laborious IRS process that confounded even the congresswoman. The tax credit didn't come through until late 2023. No meaningful operating capital resulted. The tax break didn't equal a fraction of our losses. All offset was absorbed by back rent and the massive credit card debt accumulated waiting years for "two weeks" to pass, and those personal credit limits were tapped again before long.

SBA loans didn't ever come through; We hadn't signed a long enough lease in 2020 to qualify. We weren't in business long enough in 2023 to qualify for an SBA loan then, either.
We stayed, waiting for aid that would never come.
The faith in American opportunity - values of community and of civic duty -of investment in one's host city, the belief that locals want their city to expand economically, and in all the banks and credit unions' promises that they want to help make small business venture dreams come true, too, was all crumbling. Institutions I had created Arcade 2084 in part to reinforce Americans' faith in, were letting us down. The irony has not been lost on me.

The policies punished us for opening during the crisis—precisely when entrepreneurial risk-taking should have been incentivized.
We survived into 2023 on last of meager savings, then finally on all remaining credit.
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 CLOSED BETWEEN 2ND and 3RD." for several months. Reality: We were open. Trying to recover from pandemic restrictions that put 'arcades' last to open, while the 'bar' -with games- up the road, was already packing them in. Restrictions had just been lowered- and the city of Hillsboro sensed no obligation to help - why should they?- and instead, felt it a beneficent responsibility to lead people to conclude that our block was closed - and they fully barricaded the entire 2nd block from all traffic, isolating it like a zombie zone as the start to 2022. Police stationed themselves at each end of our fenced and barricaded block on Main Street -preventing autos from getting near, and blocking pedestrians from walking the sidewalk altogether. Some guests said police told them, "the arcade" had "burned down", confusing Weil Arcade with Arcade 2084 - while press described "the arcade" on Main as a total loss -creating confusion over our Main Street 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, completely, making it impossible to reach us from 1st.

Making matters even worse: The Hillsboro Downtown Partnership erected signs directing pedestrians to the back doors of several businesses on our block, and away from our only entrance up front. Our name was not included on it nor any other signage to similarly help people navigate barriers. HDP worsened conditions without a thought of how it would affect us - part of a documented pattern which was emerging.

Municipal incompetence- if not malice- appeared to be barricading us off 100%.

Revenue dropped around eighty percent. Rent did not.

We absorbed it on our personal credit- hemorrhaging thousands a month on lease and building maintenance obligations, thousands more on the increasingly-rising cost of utilities, to be lit up for almost no one, and on mandated fresh food inventory we would not be able to sell to zero traffic. Throwing nearly all of the food away bi-weekly. Bleeding out a lifetime of savings and years of planning, watching a chance for prosperity turn into a struggle for survival. Not because of COVID. This was Hillsboro policy making things worse.

Months - not a few weeks, well into 2022 -the barricades finally came down. Cars resumed rolling by.

The accolades had also rolled in. Bronze for cocktails from that first year of voting in 22. Silver for Best Attraction. And the gold for Best Nightclub, while simultaneously garnering gold for Best Family Entertainment. Gold for Best Arcade, vs the Goliath pinball museum Next Level 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 and industry partners had relief we couldn't access. 


We were one block from the Washington County Jail. Parolees slept in doorways to make morning check-ins. From July 2020 through early 2023 -the COVID era, during the capacity restrictions— a $5 cover wasn't revenue optimization; it was survival. When legally restricted to six people, twelve, twenty-four, six again... the small $5 entrance cover discouraged vagrants from coming in -people who coughed intentionally on staff and otherwise disturbed our paying guests, and whose presence prevented paying guests from entering altogether.
It also kept out the impossible-to-please local blogger who poisons a neighborhood well because he wants "something" for the $5 cover, the parent intending to ignore the children they were expecting to bring in for free - so they could drink at the bar while staff plays babysitter for free, skinflints who would neither appreciate nor acknowledge world-class service, and the $5 cover was also effective against influencers and other freeloaders, too. We saw those visitors take advantage after we dropped the cover in early 2023, creating frictionless, normal entry like any other bar. Until then:

The cover kept us alive.

III. THE INCURSION (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!

We had a great bartender just in From Missouri. Revenue rose. A corner seemed to have been turned.
In summer 2023, we hired someone new as a second bartender. We were finally optimized—just in time for theft to hollow us out from within. He had seemed capable, likeable. The original bartender left for his next chapter. We left the new one unsupervised, treating him as family.

For twelve months, he stole. Cash from the register. Inventory, too, arguably worse. Consuming drinks with customers four nights a week. The math suggests tens of thousands in likely revenue. Given his own statements, around 3-5 drinks a night ("all the time", in one OLCC report), four nights a week, and that is inventory which needs to be offset with sales that include a fair profit; It's not just would-be profit he was consuming. We had been financing his party, paying him to steal from us -and handing him all the profit we made -hundreds in cash per night, and his last night is an example. 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 qualified bartender while treading water. 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: pizza, hosting, DJ, events, facilities. We were two people working every single day, doing the work of six - and the theft had depleted our spirits in more than one way. We still brought our A-game. We made more sales as a two person team than when we hired someone to increase sales. It would not matter, though- nothing could stop our decision to leave, about to solidify.

IV. THE INDIFFERENCE (2024–2025)

This was the environment: An indifferent if not discriminatory state leadership, a city that had barricaded our street and offered no compensation; a landlord who extracted; and a customer base as often from remote locales as near, to find us.

We were exhausted. Two people working ~100 hours a week nine months straight - 60 hours a week for years before that. We had proven the concept. We had not proven that the capital structure could survive the theft, the fire, the policy, the de facto predation, the ghost-town street.

In a final, unexpected but unsurprising blow, the landlord seized our prepaid last month's rent we earmarked for July, our five-year anniversary. Because of this forced shortfall, we instead closed ahead of schedule in mid June 2025, without ceremony. No fifth-anniversary celebration. We executed an accelerated strategic withdrawal to prevent further conflict, secure our obviously targeted 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 over a quarter million bucks into Hillsboro - most to the landlords -renting and repairing their decrepit building -with none of that rent going back in to maintain or improve their own property, nor downtown Hillsboro in any way. We sure tried. The balance of what we took in went to state, city, taxes, fees, vendors. Others made the real money from what can subjectively be called our lost investment in Hillsboro.

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

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 a future 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