Some neighbours of mine have just moved to Wales to invest in a pub of all things. It’s as though they’ve been cryogenically frozen since the ’90s, then suddenly revived in 2025 expecting nothing to have changed. All they see is the dream, deluded by a warped belief they can fight reality with happy thoughts and their sparkling personality. It’s all the others who fail because they’re not dynamic enough. Arrogance is a dangerous Achilles’ heel.
The problem with BARCADIA was simple.Marketing? For adults on a Friday and Saturday night it did “well” as a standard bar can be for a pub crawl. Peter should’ve used the k.i.s.s method. Keep It Simple Stupid. Your bar works well as an alcoholic bar so keep it that way. Maybe try rebranding it as The Prince of Wales Road happy hour bar that sells drinks, foam toys and happy hour games. Expand your offer of closing the bar for private functions or parties mid-week. Then there was the listless hipsters subscribed to the LGBT fad that other local Zoomers have rebuked. Plus were kids ever allowed in BARCADIA? In fact I witnessed multiple parents pulling their kids away from BARCADIA’s window art with cool wreck it ralph street fighter. Assuming by saying out loud “no that’s an adult bar, kids aren’t allowed in (I think?)”.
I’m unsure as to what the entry requirements were, mate. I mean, the issue is that it’s a bar, but also a bar that has arcades. If he had a social circle in Norwich then it’d probably have done well. ‘Barcades’ do seem to be popular these days BUT you need a dedicated clientele and you need more than some fat mess singing terrible songs about how shit their life is in order to bring people in if you don’t already have fans. The whole thing was doomed from the off. It’s an extremely competitive market, and it was set up in a street full of other bars. People have their ‘regular haunts’ and for barcadia to have become one they’d have had to have offered what other local bars do. It was a disastrous misadventure from the off and was tone deaf to the surroundings and potential clientele. If they’d wanted the gaming crowd, they were already cared for by a few other establishments in Norwich. Splitting the market, even if it works, is not a good thing. Barcadia offered nothing unique save for extremely overpriced drinks and a shit ambience.
This is the thing, and probably why (I’m guessing) the bank(s) wouldn’t loan him the money: there’s already a decent arcade there that serves drinks/food and is also located in a shopping mall that has a food court, so you can leave the place to get food, drink, shop or whatever, then come back and have a play as you’ve paid for the day.. Plus there’s little risk of having to hear relatable songs.
Textbook no-brainer really.
MrBoing
22 hours ago
Reasons for closure:
1) Donald Trump
2)Brexit
3)Community Trolls
4)Road being dug up outside
5)War in Ukraine
6)Unfair competition
7)Keir Starmer
8)Effects of Lockdown
9)Mr King’s tits too big a distraction
10)Betrayed by Slice and Dice owner having some sense.
11)People not being able to appreciate his magnificent genius.
Not sure if I have missed any off but let’s see which excuses are used. Anyone take a guess or point out any I missed?
And presumably saving whoever is behind the bar from being robbed/battered? I reckon that’s probably the reason to avoid having to pay security for at least that. Again, just really ill thought out.
The biggest shock is that Barcadia lasted for as long as it did.
3
Editor
Code Tapper
1 day ago
Peter was delusional if he thought Barcadia with about half a dozen arcade machines and grossly overpriced vegan food and drinks was ever going to succeed.
As reality set in, Samantha from Slice and Dice finally put 2 and 2 together and realised what an incompetent and nasty piece of work Nostalgia Nerd was and high-tailed it out of there.
Then food was cut, hours slashed, staff all let go (along with the rumours you mentioned of several staff being owed money) and now the old arcade games are gone.
So it’s effectively a small dumping ground for Peter and his junk. Never open, no arcades, no food, he probably owes the drink suppliers thousands and there’s no money coming in to pay the rent. Once his free rent period is gone (if it isn’t already), he’s going to really be in the brown stuff.
At least there’s one silver lining. If you want to play a decent selection of arcade games, you can still go to Retro Replay up the road. And to think this moron said it was going to be the best bar in the world! What a total joke.
The teams at Retro Replay, Slice & Dice (also add NorwichVRoom) remain on good terms with BARCADIA personally. Maybe they see it as a preverbial caged canary in a coal-mine and sympathise. Samantha Whitehouse actually thought I was Funky Spectrum. She was telling a male friend “that’s the guy whose been trolling Peter about BARCADIA” when I passed in the street. No I am megadrive95 luv’.
Some neighbours of mine have just moved to Wales to invest in a pub of all things. It’s as though they’ve been cryogenically frozen since the ’90s, then suddenly revived in 2025 expecting nothing to have changed. All they see is the dream, deluded by a warped belief they can fight reality with happy thoughts and their sparkling personality. It’s all the others who fail because they’re not dynamic enough. Arrogance is a dangerous Achilles’ heel.
The problem with BARCADIA was simple.Marketing? For adults on a Friday and Saturday night it did “well” as a standard bar can be for a pub crawl. Peter should’ve used the k.i.s.s method. Keep It Simple Stupid. Your bar works well as an alcoholic bar so keep it that way. Maybe try rebranding it as The Prince of Wales Road happy hour bar that sells drinks, foam toys and happy hour games. Expand your offer of closing the bar for private functions or parties mid-week. Then there was the listless hipsters subscribed to the LGBT fad that other local Zoomers have rebuked. Plus were kids ever allowed in BARCADIA? In fact I witnessed multiple parents pulling their kids away from BARCADIA’s window art with cool wreck it ralph street fighter. Assuming by saying out loud “no that’s an adult bar, kids aren’t allowed in (I think?)”.
I’m unsure as to what the entry requirements were, mate. I mean, the issue is that it’s a bar, but also a bar that has arcades. If he had a social circle in Norwich then it’d probably have done well. ‘Barcades’ do seem to be popular these days BUT you need a dedicated clientele and you need more than some fat mess singing terrible songs about how shit their life is in order to bring people in if you don’t already have fans. The whole thing was doomed from the off. It’s an extremely competitive market, and it was set up in a street full of other bars. People have their ‘regular haunts’ and for barcadia to have become one they’d have had to have offered what other local bars do. It was a disastrous misadventure from the off and was tone deaf to the surroundings and potential clientele. If they’d wanted the gaming crowd, they were already cared for by a few other establishments in Norwich. Splitting the market, even if it works, is not a good thing. Barcadia offered nothing unique save for extremely overpriced drinks and a shit ambience.
This is the thing, and probably why (I’m guessing) the bank(s) wouldn’t loan him the money: there’s already a decent arcade there that serves drinks/food and is also located in a shopping mall that has a food court, so you can leave the place to get food, drink, shop or whatever, then come back and have a play as you’ve paid for the day.. Plus there’s little risk of having to hear relatable songs.
Textbook no-brainer really.
Reasons for closure:
1) Donald Trump
2)Brexit
3)Community Trolls
4)Road being dug up outside
5)War in Ukraine
6)Unfair competition
7)Keir Starmer
8)Effects of Lockdown
9)Mr King’s tits too big a distraction
10)Betrayed by Slice and Dice owner having some sense.
11)People not being able to appreciate his magnificent genius.
Not sure if I have missed any off but let’s see which excuses are used. Anyone take a guess or point out any I missed?
Not alowing customers to pay using physical cash. Thus not saving the embarrassment of having barcadia on your bank statement.
And presumably saving whoever is behind the bar from being robbed/battered? I reckon that’s probably the reason to avoid having to pay security for at least that. Again, just really ill thought out.
12) People not being happy with working for free, thus meaning he has to drag his repellent self in there – which affects customers negatively?
The Whole Barcadia thing sure is the gift that just keeps on giving.
You mean the grift that kept on giving?
Got there before me, mate 🙂
The biggest shock is that Barcadia lasted for as long as it did.
Peter was delusional if he thought Barcadia with about half a dozen arcade machines and grossly overpriced vegan food and drinks was ever going to succeed.
As reality set in, Samantha from Slice and Dice finally put 2 and 2 together and realised what an incompetent and nasty piece of work Nostalgia Nerd was and high-tailed it out of there.
Then food was cut, hours slashed, staff all let go (along with the rumours you mentioned of several staff being owed money) and now the old arcade games are gone.
So it’s effectively a small dumping ground for Peter and his junk. Never open, no arcades, no food, he probably owes the drink suppliers thousands and there’s no money coming in to pay the rent. Once his free rent period is gone (if it isn’t already), he’s going to really be in the brown stuff.
At least there’s one silver lining. If you want to play a decent selection of arcade games, you can still go to Retro Replay up the road. And to think this moron said it was going to be the best bar in the world! What a total joke.
The teams at Retro Replay, Slice & Dice (also add NorwichVRoom) remain on good terms with BARCADIA personally. Maybe they see it as a preverbial caged canary in a coal-mine and sympathise. Samantha Whitehouse actually thought I was Funky Spectrum. She was telling a male friend “that’s the guy whose been trolling Peter about BARCADIA” when I passed in the street. No I am megadrive95 luv’.
Seriously? LOL! Wow, what a load of old nonsense.