Wait, the Goth shop has Donkey Kong?

So it may come as a shock to some of you, but Retroids actually started life as something completely different. We're not talking "different menu" different. We're talking full-blown alternative clothing outlet different. Black band tees, studded belts, the whole lot. Welcome to Fourleaf Clothing – a pretty well-established goth and alternative shop tucked away on a back road street in Worcester on the Shambles market.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and pretend everything was rosy. Clothing retail had become tough. Really tough. And if I'm being completely honest with you? I'd lost the love for it. The passion that got me into it in the first place had slowly drained away. Something needed to change.

But here's the thing about life – sometimes the answers you're looking for are waiting on the other side of the world.

A Cold Beer in the Big Apple

A long way from this little Worcestershire street, I actually travelled to New York on holiday. The Big Apple. Land of opportunity and all that. I wasn't looking for a business revelation – I was looking to recharge and indulge in a snowy, cold New York City in February. 

Whilst wandering around, I stumbled across a pretty run-down looking premises with the name 'Barcade' above the door. Now, I just so happened to be on the lookout for a cold beer at this point and I'm a sucker for a good pun. The exterior didn't exactly scream "must visit destination" but something drew me in. I made the decision to venture inside.

I had absolutely no idea that this visit was about to change everything for me.

The moment I stepped through that door, I was hit with a noise I hadn't heard for a while. A very familiar noise. Is that... is that the Double Dragon theme song I can hear?

Yes. Yes, it was.

I was surrounded by classic arcade cabinets that I hadn't seen for decades. Pac-Man. Galaga. Street Fighter. Tron. Rampage. Games that had eaten my pocket money as a kid. And not just that – but a bar absolutely jam-packed with craft beer offerings. Cold beers and warm nostalgia. Stick a fork in me...

My mind instantly started racing. Why the hell wasn't this a well-known concept back in good ol' England? We had arcades back in the day. We've got plenty of people who grew up pumping 10p coins into machines at the seaside. Where was OUR version of this?

And just like that, the seed was sown.

Mission: Impossible (But I Did It Anyway)

I returned back from that trip with one mission – how do I convert a goth clothing store into an arcade bar?

Did I have a detailed business plan? No.

Did I have any experience running a bar? No.

Did I have any arcade machines? Also no.

Did I have any idea how to actually make this happen? You guessed it – no.

But here's the thing. Sometimes you just have to say "knickers to it" and figure it out as you go. So that's exactly what I did. I decided to do it anyway.

The Eye-Wateringly Expensive Start

The first thing an arcade needs? Games, of course. And plenty of them.

Did I have any? No.

Did I know where to find arcade games in England? Nope.

Did I google "Arcade Games for sale in the UK" and end up on a very expensive website selling refurbished/reproduction games at an eye-wateringly inflated price?

You bet I did.

I spread the cost of a Donkey Kong and a Galaga 3 machine over five years. FIVE YEARS. For two machines. Looking back now, this was a terrible, terrible start. But hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn't it? At the time, I was just excited to have something – anything – to get this mad idea off the ground. Do I regret my opening move? Absolutely not. Lessons learned and all that.

I was up and running. Well, sort of. Two machines don't exactly make an arcade. But it was a start. And sometimes that's all you need.

From Marilyn Manson's Wardrobe to Nerd Paradise

By this point, the back room of Fourleaf Clothing had slowly started to change. What once looked like Marilyn Manson's wardrobe was transitioning into "second hand games and comics R us."

See, a great friend of mine – Martin – was (and still is) a huge nerd. The man had amassed an absolutely massive collection of comic books and graphic novels over the years. We're talking boxes and boxes of the stuff. Meanwhile, I'd been collecting Nintendo games and consoles myself for a long time and had built up quite the collection.

We got talking. As you do. And we decided to pool our second-hand collections together and open a shop specialising in second-hand video games, consoles, and comics.

The name for this new venture? Retroids.

Did I love the name? Ermmm not really. Was a little too close to 'haemorrhoids' for my liking but it was a starting point so we decided to 'pile' in.

Knocking Holes in Walls (And Hoping for the Best)

The following weeks and months, everything kind of snowballed. There was no real plan other than one clear goal – I knew I wanted to recreate this arcade bar thing in Worcester. The expensive games were ordered and due for delivery imminently.

It was time to start knocking holes in walls.

Now, Fourleaf was very much a retail unit. We're talking slat board. And lots of it. You know the stuff – those panels with the little grooves where you hang products. Very practical for retail. Very not practical for an arcade bar vibe.

This needed to go.

I literally closed the shop down and began chipping away at walls hoping to expose some brick underneath. Or maybe even a pot of gold – because things were about to get even more expensive than those first two arcade machines.

The floor of Fourleaf was a worn old carpet that looked retro in all the wrong ways. We're not talking cool 80s nostalgia here. Kind of retro but crap. Not what I was looking for at all.

I found a local woodworker who kindly agreed to supply his services and expertise in repurposing hundreds and hundreds of old wooden delivery pallets. Sustainability before it was cool! These broken-down pallets eventually became the floor. They became the bar. Piece by piece, nail by nail, Retroids was beginning to take shape.

The Beginning of Something Special

Standing in that half-demolished shop, surrounded by broken slat board, debris, dust and stacked pallets, with a Donkey Kong machine in the corner that I'd be paying off for the next five years – I finally had a moment where reality hit me. What the hell have I done.

Would people actually want to come to a retro arcade bar in Worcester? Would anyone care about games they hadn't played since childhood? I need to sell beer, how do I even get a license? Would I still have enough money to pay rent? Why is Martin so shit at painting?

All valid questions. None of which I had answers to at that point.

But sometimes you don't need all the answers. Sometimes you just need enough stubbornness to keep going and enough passion to make something special. And maybe – just maybe – a trip to New York and a run-down bar that changed everything.

That's how Retroids really began. Not with a grand plan or investor funding or market research. Just a guy who'd fallen out of love with selling Panic at the Disco T-shirts , a holiday that opened his eyes, a shop that I've totally dismantled and two very, very expensive arcade machines.

Stay tuned for the next chapter...