Arcade Legacy Newport, a destination for classic video game enthusiasts in Northern Kentucky, is set to close soon.
April 16 will be the final day for the store in Newport, owner Jesse Baker confirmed to LINK nky. Arcade Legacy has another location at 2241 Crowne Point Dr. in Sharonville, Ohio, which opened in early January.
Located next to Crunch Fitness in the Newport Shopping Center, Arcade Legacy offers a variety of classic arcade and console video games. In addition, customers could buy, sell, or trade used video games, board games, manga, action figures and other collectibles.
Their Newport location first opened in 2017 and struggled to get a foothold. According to Baker, they decided to open a location in Newport because it was far enough away from their Forest Hills Mall branch so they wouldn’t be competing with themselves.
After the brunt of the pandemic, Baker chose to regroup as businesses started to reopen. He chose to overhaul the Newport location in hopes of gaining some traction.
Unfortunately, the plan didn’t quite pan out.
“Our lease is coming up in August and we just never did enough business to warrant staying,” Baker said. “We couldn’t get enough people to come to make it work. Once we got this new place, it just kind of sealed the deal.”
In a post on Arcade Legacy Newport’s Facebook page, the business announced they would be selling some of their pinball machines, arcade games, posters, televisions and furniture. Their remaining inventory will be moved to the Sharonville location.
“Most of the pinball machines are going to come to Sharonville,” Baker said. “I would say a good portion of the arcade games are going to be sold and then whatever we aren’t going to be using at the Sharonville location we will be trying to sell.”
Baker thanked the Newport community and his customer base for their continuous support.
“We were definitely grateful for all the people that came down,” Baker said. “We made a lot of new regulars and new friends. I think those people continue to support us. Our Sharonville location is only about 25 minutes away so I feel like we can hold over a lot of those customers that have supported us.”
