Coin-Op Game Room Gaslamp
789 Sixth Avenue, San Diego, CA 92101
Prices: Happy hour items include pizza slices for $2.50; chicken wings for $7; nachos with chorizo, avocado, sour cream, $7; BBQ pulled pork slider, $3; quinoa slider, $3; Coin Op burger and beer of the day, $10; side of fries, $3. Regular prices include French dip sandwich, $14; fried chicken sliders, $13; buffalo cauliflower, $9; loaded potato bites (cheddar, bacon, chives, sour cream, tomato), $11; carnivore pizza, $19 ($4 by the slice); Coin Op burger, $14; banana split, $8; tres leches cake, with caramel, mezcal, $8
At Coin Op, everything is coin-op games. It’s all eighties kitsch, video games, basketball-throwing contests. It’s an arcade, an ‘80s carnival midway. They have a bar and they have eats, but where it’s at is the machines: the video games. You can see the players here grew up on these machines, from the way they lay their hands on them, light up, and regress thirty years. Eating’s just to fuel up.