About

Meet The Gamers

Hello, we’re Adam and Anna!  More importantly, we are Asheville locals, beer lovers and video game enthusiasts.

Adam’s favorite is the newest pinball or any Mega Man he happens to be playing and Anna’s favorite is the Tales from the Crypt pinball. We both have a lifelong passion for video games, new and old, and decided to take on a new business venture knowing there was no better path than starting our very own arcade bar.

We initially started on this voyage in 2009 when Adam visited Ground Kontrol Classic Arcade in Portland. Fast forward to 2013 when we both visited Barcade in Philadelphia. At that time, we knew that every downtown needed an arcade bar and in spite of all the uncertainty in the world, we moved into the 79 Coxe Ave. location in downtown Asheville in June 2020.

Cartoon of Adam and Anna

Where does our name come from? What is Level 256?

Excellent questions. According to Toru Iwatani, the creator of Pac-Man, Pac-Man was designed to never have an ending. Level 256 the screen splits and a bug corrupts the right half of the screen displaying random symbols and dots. Due to the bug, Pac-Man cannot eat enough cookies to beat the level, thus causing the game to end at Level 256. It’s one of the most infamous and iconic bugs in video game history.

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