R-CADE Lates Is No More!

Goodbye R-CADE Lates, hello R-CADE Over's

At first they were called 'Adult Passes', then we tried 'R-Rated', but this didn't go well. People thought we were hosting naughty game events! So we landed on the title 'R-CADE Lates' for our over 18's game sessions, and it did quite well, for a while...

As many of you know, our venue has two different types of gaming sessions. We are family friendly from 12-7pm, then from 7pm onward our whole venue is only accessible to players aged 18+. After 7pm all of our age restrictions are lifted on our video game catalogue & boardgame collection and we allow BYOB (bring your own bottle).

We gave our over 18's sessions the title of 'Lates' as it was later in the evening, (that made sense, right?) but over the past couple of years through feedback from customers, followers and interested folk telling us that they had no idea what a 'Lates' session was meant to be, its time for a change.

Introducing: The R-CADE Over's!

We know it may be a little difficult to prise yourself off the sofa, what with the multitude of streaming services, convenient fast food delivery services, and news stories beamed straight to your smartphone, but it gets lonely and pretty boring on that sofa...

Why not get yourself down to R-CADE, we have created a bright, fun, and relaxed venue for you to hang out in, enjoy a wide range of retro games, make new friends and have a wonderfully nostalgic experience. No cover charge and no ticket required for the coolest retro cafe on the planet, and just £10pp for access to our incredible retro video game arcade for 90 minutes. You are never too old to enjoy games, and you will find plenty of awesome folk over 18 who enjoy them just as much as you do when you book in for R-CADE Over's!

IMPORTANT UPDATE

Not only have we changed the name of our over 18's event, we have also changed the session times and ticketing format. We no longer host our tickets directly via our website, (but they are still advertised there). Instead we have gone back to Eventbrite for all of our over 18's gaming sessions, quiz nights, tournaments and special events for gamers aged 18+. (All events for families and kids are still hosted directly on our website) We have also changed the session time*. Instead of a single 3 hour session at one price, we are now hosting two 90 minute sessions, each at a cost of £10 per 90 minute session (plus Eventbrite booking fee). Our session times will run from 7-8:30pm and from 8:30-10pm every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. This gives visitors the option to stay for a single session or book two sessions for the whole evening. We had comments in the past that some gamers didn't want to pay the full 3 hour fee as they only wanted to play for an hour/90 minutes, so we thought this would give everyone more options.

Our Over's tickets are now on sale on Eventbrite, alongside our other over 18's events. Please make sure to follow our Eventbrite page for updates on new events, alongside other fantastic events happening in Glasgow at other venues!

We hope that using such well known sites as Eventbrite will help spread the word about our wee venue, and that our new event title will encourage more mature gamers to visit and experience our fantastic retro community without fear of being judged. We are just a couple of middle aged gamers ourselves trying to create a fun and inclusive hangout in Glasgow city centre, come hang out with us!

*Don't worry if you have already bought Lates tickets for sessions over the coming weeks, we are still honouring your tickets and you do not need to change anything.

Price Changes At R-CADE

We are edging closer to the new tax year, and with this comes a few financial changes at R-CADE. These past couple of years have been incredibly tough for businesses big and small, and we have watched some of our favourite local venues succumb to the financial stress. We have tried to hold off increasing our prices but with the new financial changes we will unfortunately have to increase some of our prices in the arcade and the cafe in order to keep our doors open. Please make sure to read all of our following updates carefully. These changes will take affect from April 1st:

Arcade Passes

We will be increasing the price of our 1 hour all ages arcade passes from £9 to £10. For all gamers aged 8+ this will be the new hourly price. Price for gamers aged 7 and under will still cost £7.50, we won't be changing this, but as always you will still need to purchase a second pass for an adult to play with and supervise your younger child.

Price for our over 18's Lates sessions will increase from £15 to £18, and our Thursday Lates will increase from £10 to £12. We can still offer free passes for support workers, but we will have to be more strict on the definition of 'support worker' as we have had a number of customers misuse this offer. Please note that if you do not have proof of being a support worker you will not be granted access to the arcade without paying for a full price pass.

Special event ticket prices will also change on an individual basis.

Walk In Fee's

We will be introducing walk in fees. As with many hospitality and entertainment venues, we will now be charging a £1 walk in fee for all arcade passes. This means that if you do not book ahead and staff need to book you in for a session you will be charged £11 instead of £10 (and £8.50 instead of £7.50). You also do not gain loyalty points on your account if you book in person. This is an additional cost that we feel is essential as booking in customers in person, and taking them through our t&c's in store takes time and adds delay to our service. For those of you who have visited us during our busy times you will understand that staff are already constantly on the go with many cafe orders / game requests to assist with.

Party Packages

Since moving to our new venue we have offered two types of private party. You can book an arcade only party per hour, or a full venue party from 2 hours or more. We will be adding VAT to both of these party prices, but we will be reducing the initial price of each party package to try and even things out. For arcade only parties these will now cost £156 per hour ( £130 plus vat), and the full venue parties will now cost £396 for two hours (£330 plus vat)

Cafe Prices

To cover the increased cost of food and drink, we will also be changing some of our cafe prices. Here is a sneak peek at our updated menu:

We still serve fantastic locally sourced coffee from Pure Roasters, our hot chocolate is sourced from Glasgow company Bare Bones, we also offer freshly baked vegan and gluten free cookies from local bakers The Dorky French, and we have been working hard to source the best quality ingredients in our sandwiches and toasties for the new price.

Why Are We Increasing Prices?

There are a number of reasons we have had to increase prices in our venue. The biggest change happening in April is the increase of minimum wage. This year is going to be the biggest increase in minimum wage, and as we always pay our staff a living wage, we need to change prices in our venue to cover this increased cost.

The cost of buying in food / drink for our cafe has increased quite dramatically over the past 6 months, and although we did not change prices at the time, we have been informed that some stockists are increasing their own prices yet again, so we must follow this increase to cover costs. This year we have also introduced VAT. This is a huge overhead cost that we have not had to work with in the past. This additional financial responsibility had added even bigger strain to our business which is why we have had to make these difficult decisions regarding prices. As parents ourselves we fully understand the stress of price increases, but this is something that we have to do as a business in order to keep our doors open. We have always chosen customer satisfaction over profit since day one, and even though prices are going up, we are still confidently sticking to this mantra for R-CADE.

Did You Know?

Our prices may be increasing, but we want to let you know about all of the positive things we offer too:

• For a one hour arcade session you can choose from over 1500 age appropriate original retro games, all on original consoles during family sessions. Our staff can also help you with your game and you can change and play as many games as you like during your session!

• Every time you book an hour session via our website you automatically gain loyalty points on your account. These points can be exchanged for free arcade passes or event tickets.

• We have over 250 free boardgames and card games in our cafe that you can play without having to book a pass! We just ask that if you are sitting in our cafe to purchase a snack or drink. This is a standard fair usage policy in most venues.

• We regularly run discounted arcade sessions for kids during special events and our monthly Friendship clubs.

• Our Patreon membership gives you discounts on everything in our cafe and even gives you monthly free arcade passes too! Sign up to Patreon

We want to take this time to thank you all for supporting us for over 6 years. We are all going through tough financial times right now, so we thank you for being so fantastic and continuing to help us offer a fun, inclusive and nostalgic venue for all ages. We hope to see you in for a game session soon! BOOK YOUR NEXT ARCADE SESSSION HERE

R-CADE Easter Boardgames Swap Campaign

Family Friendly Boardgame Swap Returns This Easter!

For those of you who have been following us for a while you may remember last spring we launched our free boardgames giveaway table in our cafe during the Easter holidays. We got such fantastic feedback from this campaign that we decided we wanted to do it again, but this year we want to make it bigger and get you involved too! To recap; last year we set up a small table in our cafe which was piled up high with board games, card games and books that we had laying around and didn't have much use for anymore. Everything on our table was completely free for families to choose and take home to enjoy. We never like the idea of perfectly useful goods going to landfill and we wanted to offer some fun, and completely free options for families over the school holidays.

This year we would like to run this campaign again, but this time we want to encourage you all to donate any fun games and goodies that you are no longer playing with so other families can give them another chance to be enjoyed once again.

A selection of games from last years swap

How To Get Involved

If you are donating: If you are having a clearout and would like to donate to our swap table, firstly we want to thank you for being awesome and kind! You can donate at any time during our standard opening hours (Thursday to Sunday, 12-7pm) and we will be setting up the table in our cafe between March 28th and April 14th. We do have a few rules regarding what can be donated. Things that we can accept are: -Boardgames, tabletop games, puzzle and card games. Please make sure these are complete (nothing worse than opening a game to find you can't actually play it!)

-Travel games and activity books. -Kid friendly books, annuals, comics and graphic novels. -We will NOT be accepting toys, plushies or collectables for this campaign (we just don't have the space!) -IMPORTANT: Please make sure that games donated are suitable for kids and families (teen games accepted too). We cannot accept adult rated games (Cards Against Humanity etc) during this campaign. If you are looking for free goodies: This campaign has been created to help give games, books and activities to families who are struggling to find affordable things to do with their kids over the school holidays. We will have a two item policy for each family / group looking to take home items from our swap table. If we do have lots leftover we are more than happy for groups to take more, but we will start with two items to give everyone a chance to take home goodies. Our free boardgames table will be set up in the cafe between the 29th of March and 14th of April.

You do not have to donate to take something away, and you do not have to book an arcade pass either. You can always buy a tasty snack or drink from our cafe during your visit to help support our small business if you like, this is also not required ( but very much appreciated!)

Extended Opening Times At R-CADE In April

Our usual opening times are 12-7pm, Thursdays to Sundays for all ages (7-10pm, Thu-Sat for over 18's) but over the Easter holidays our opening times will extend for families. We will be open Tuesday to Sunday, 12-7pm between the 2nd and 14th of April. You can book your arcade passes via our arcade page here.

We really want this years boardgame swap to be a big hit, so if you can spread the word to family and friends that means we can potentially offer many more families some fun free goodies during the holidays. If you have any questions regarding our campaign you can message us via the R-CADE website at www.rcadeglasgow.com or visit our venue at 121 Saltmarket, Glasgow G1 5LF