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 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 was 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.

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 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 1ST and 2ND." for several months. We were open. Trying to recover. Restrictions had just been lowered- and the city of Hillsboro 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. 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 Downtown Business Partnership erected a supplementary sign 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 circumvent barriers. They worsened conditions without a thought of speaking with us - part of a documented pattern which was emerging.

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

Revenue dropped seventy percent. Rent did not.

We absorbed it on our personal credit- hemorrhaging thousands a month on rent, thousands more on food inventory and utilities, lit up for no one. Throwing it away bi-weekly. Bleeding out a lifetime of savings and years of planning, watching a chance for prosperity turn into a struggle for survival.

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

The accolades also 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, vs the gargantuan 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 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 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. Revenue rose.
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, if 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 then more repairing their decrepit building -with none of that rent going back in to maintain or improve their own property. The balance to state, city, taxes, fees, vendors.

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