New Arcade With Full Bar And Kitchen Coming To Prince William County

WOODBRIDGE, VA – A new arcade for adults is coming to Prince William County, courtesy of a husband-and-wife team who decided to see if they could make a business out of having fun.

A new GameOn bar + arcade location will open soon in Woodbridge, owner Casey Linthicum of Columbia, MD, tells Patch. This will be the adult (but kid-friendly!) arcade's first location in Virginia and will join three others in Maryland and one in Washington, DC.

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The concept invites guests in for drinks, games and partying. "We wanted to open a fun place for adults to hang out, be able to drink, but also have activities so you're not just sitting at a bar," Linthicum told Patch.

Casey Linthicum used to own a McDonald's franchise and her husband, Eli, ran an axe-throwing bar, so they both had some background in business and hospitality, but they always liked the idea of running their own business together, she said. Out of that desire, GameOn was born.

Since opening their first arcade in 2022, the business has grown to four locations, with the fifth, in Woodbridge, coming soon.

GameOn aims for an old-school kind of fun. "We try to keep it really retro," Linthicum says. The games take tokens, rather than using a card system, and the locations feature graffiti art.

Linthicum says the new location will have lots of pinball games, Skee-Ball, basketball, PAC-Man and vintage cabinets such as Frogger, Galaga, Tapper, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter and more. For comparison, she says their smaller location in Columbia has more than 50 games.

Customers can also expect a full bar and menu. GameOn's other locations offer wings, pizza, burgers and variations on other pub food classics, plus boozy slushies and punches and a beer and cocktail selection. There are non-alcoholic options as well.

They also hope to become a community gathering place, with pinball, Skee-ball and other leagues and gatherings for tabletop role-playing games. Other GameOn locations host fundraisers throughout the year and offer rewards to kids for good grades, practices the owners intend to continue at the Woodbridge location.

In addition to regular events, the pair love a one-off party. "We do a lot of different events like theme parties, singles mixers," Linthicum said. The Woodbridge location will be across from the Alamo Movie Theater, so they're already thinking about doing themed movie premier events and possibly launching a collaboration.

"We just basically just think of fun things that we would want to do and then do them," Linthicum says. "We want to be the most fun place in town."

The new GameOn bar + arcade location is coming to Stonebridge at Potomac Town Center. The owners hope to open their doors before the end of the year, and expect to be hiring for multiple positions.