If you opened an arcade...

[Flake]

Hypothetical situation:

You decide to open an arcade as a small business. (I.E. This isn't a D&B or Gameworks situation)

Let's suppose that start up costs aren't much of a problem and that you don't have any real competition in the area. Also assume that you are establishing this arcade in a fairly populous and affluent town, such as a college town or small city.

What do you do to make your business successful and generate return patronage?

[dsheinem]

serve alcohol and/or hire strippers

[fastbilly1]

Beer, Rockband, Fighting games

If it was just for my own amusement:
Puzzle games

[lisalover1]

Get a 4-slot Neo Geo MVS cabinet with Metal Slug 1, X, 3, and Samurai Shodown V, and advertise that you have it.

[Jrecee]

I think you need to move beyond just the arcade games to make it successful. Have some sort of indoor cosmic minigolf. Also, there must be food. It doesn't need to be at the level of dave n busters with a wait staff and stuff, but there should be pizza. Alcohol brings in a shitload of money so that would be useful too.

[chupon]

Don't forget the Daytona - eight cabs linked.

Some great old Pinball would go a long way too to encourage some competition.
I'm thinking for pinball cabs:

Star Trek T.N.G.
Adams Family
Twilight Zone

[Quiet Flight]

alcohol
good wings
mountain dew
standard arcade section
modern section w/ 360s and ps3s

[crux]

I've actually been throwing around the idea of opening an arcade for the past five years. It's an incredibly risky business model, but one constant (which almost everyone has mentioned in the topic) is alcohol.

I'm actually a beer snob, so I've considered opening an arcade with a bar and a great beer selection, perhaps with a separate store to sell some harder to find brews. Food isn't necessary (restaurants are the most turbulent of new businesses), but certainly offering appetizers can keep people there longer.

I think the other trick would be staging tournaments and competitions, to keep the arcade portion of the experience more legitimate. Granted, that might limit anyone under 18 or 21 (depending on the state) from joining the tournaments, but the person would have to look into the local laws for that sort of thing.

The game lover in me would like to have a good selection of diverse arcade games, from classics to new imports (and rhythm games - Jubeat!). How much interest there is in arcade games is the real question.

[PhilExile]

This happened in Brooklyn about 5 years ago:

http://www.barcadebrooklyn.com/

[crux]

Barcade is ok, but it isn't what I'd call an arcade. They have a pretty darn good beer selection, but the entire place is very heavy on the "bar" atmosphere (it's located in Williamsburg in Brooklyn, which is a very trendy area), and the games weren't always in the best of condition (one of the sticks for Robotron was in such bad condition as to make the game unplayable). They had a good amount of variety, but most games were from the 80's and certainly nothing from the last decade.