Vegas Entrepreneur Bets on an Arcade

Fremont Street in Las Vegas is where you find the low rollers. The five-dollar tables and four-dollar steaks. It’s a district with lower rents and higher ambitions, and that’s where one gaming-themed bar is set to open this spring.

Insert Coin(s) will be a gaming lounge that resembles “Tron meets Blade Runner,” says its owner, Chris LaPorte, 33. It’ll feature “outlandishly huge couches” along the walls of the 7,600 square foot space, offering “every video game console ever” for play, in a space that’s as much about amusement as it is a showpiece of the “evolution of the arcade.

LaPorte’s interior design will focus on sociability, facing the sofas toward the center with the console screens mounted on a pole. Additional screens will be positioned so bystanders can watch. Hardcore gamers will be able to plug in with headsets. Renting a couch will go for $10 an hour. Bottle service is, of course, where the money will really be made.

One thing it won’t have: Gambling. “I don’t know many bars this big without video poker,” LaPorte said.

Vegas’ mayor, Oscar Goodman, thinks LaPorte’s venture will be a strong addition to Fremont Street. “I think the combination of a bar with classic video games will be a home run,” said Goodman.

New Fremont Street business to marry video games, bar scene [Las Vegas Sun via Operation Sports]