We are edging closer to the new tax year, and with this comes a few financial changes at R-CADE. These past couple of years have been incredibly tough for businesses big and small, and we have watched some of our favourite local venues succumb to the financial stress. We have tried to hold off increasing our prices but with the new financial changes we will unfortunately have to increase some of our prices in the arcade and the cafe in order to keep our doors open. Please make sure to read all of our following updates carefully. These changes will take affect from April 1st:
Arcade Passes
We will be increasing the price of our 1 hour all ages arcade passes from £9 to £10. For all gamers aged 8+ this will be the new hourly price. Price for gamers aged 7 and under will still cost £7.50, we won't be changing this, but as always you will still need to purchase a second pass for an adult to play with and supervise your younger child.
Price for our over 18's Lates sessions will increase from £15 to £18, and our Thursday Lates will increase from £10 to £12. We can still offer free passes for support workers, but we will have to be more strict on the definition of 'support worker' as we have had a number of customers misuse this offer. Please note that if you do not have proof of being a support worker you will not be granted access to the arcade without paying for a full price pass.
Special event ticket prices will also change on an individual basis.
Walk In Fee's
We will be introducing walk in fees. As with many hospitality and entertainment venues, we will now be charging a £1 walk in fee for all arcade passes. This means that if you do not book ahead and staff need to book you in for a session you will be charged £11 instead of £10 (and £8.50 instead of £7.50). You also do not gain loyalty points on your account if you book in person. This is an additional cost that we feel is essential as booking in customers in person, and taking them through our t&c's in store takes time and adds delay to our service. For those of you who have visited us during our busy times you will understand that staff are already constantly on the go with many cafe orders / game requests to assist with.
Party Packages
Since moving to our new venue we have offered two types of private party. You can book an arcade only party per hour, or a full venue party from 2 hours or more. We will be adding VAT to both of these party prices, but we will be reducing the initial price of each party package to try and even things out. For arcade only parties these will now cost £156 per hour ( £130 plus vat), and the full venue parties will now cost £396 for two hours (£330 plus vat)
Cafe Prices
To cover the increased cost of food and drink, we will also be changing some of our cafe prices. Here is a sneak peek at our updated menu:
We still serve fantastic locally sourced coffee from Pure Roasters, our hot chocolate is sourced from Glasgow company Bare Bones, we also offer freshly baked vegan and gluten free cookies from local bakers The Dorky French, and we have been working hard to source the best quality ingredients in our sandwiches and toasties for the new price.
Why Are We Increasing Prices?
There are a number of reasons we have had to increase prices in our venue. The biggest change happening in April is the increase of minimum wage. This year is going to be the biggest increase in minimum wage, and as we always pay our staff a living wage, we need to change prices in our venue to cover this increased cost.
The cost of buying in food / drink for our cafe has increased quite dramatically over the past 6 months, and although we did not change prices at the time, we have been informed that some stockists are increasing their own prices yet again, so we must follow this increase to cover costs.
This year we have also introduced VAT. This is a huge overhead cost that we have not had to work with in the past. This additional financial responsibility had added even bigger strain to our business which is why we have had to make these difficult decisions regarding prices.
As parents ourselves we fully understand the stress of price increases, but this is something that we have to do as a business in order to keep our doors open. We have always chosen customer satisfaction over profit since day one, and even though prices are going up, we are still confidently sticking to this mantra for R-CADE.
Did You Know?
Our prices may be increasing, but we want to let you know about all of the positive things we offer too:
For a one hour arcade session you can choose from over 1500 age appropriate original retro games, all on original consoles during family sessions. Our staff can also help you with your game and you can change and play as many games as you like during your session!
Every time you book an hour session via our website you automatically gain loyalty points on your account. These points can be exchanged for free arcade passes or event tickets.
We have over 250 free boardgames and card games in our cafe that you can play without having to book a pass! We just ask that if you are sitting in our cafe to purchase a snack or drink. This is a standard fair usage policy in most venues.
We regularly run discounted arcade sessions for kids during special events and our monthly Friendship clubs.
Our Patreon membership gives you discounts on everything in our cafe and even gives you monthly free arcade passes too! Sign up to Patreon
We want to take this time to thank you all for supporting us for over 6 years. We are all going through tough financial times right now, so we thank you for being so fantastic and continuing to help us offer a fun, inclusive and nostalgic venue for all ages. We hope to see you in for a game session soon! BOOK YOUR NEXT ARCADE SESSSION HERE