Pittsburgh arcade Games N’ At to permanently close

A popular Pittsburgh arcade is set to close for good on Nov. 8.

Games N’ At, a bring-your-own-beer-style arcade that’s been running at 2010 Josephine St. in the South Side for at least 17 years, posted an announcement on Facebook on Thursday.

“We will be going out of business,” the post reads. “Our last day will be Sunday November 8th. We’d like to thank everyone who has come in to have good time (sic) over the past 17 years.”

The post received nearly 250 comments from devastated patrons, who related fond memories of birthday parties and weekends spent at the arcade.

Owners said they plan to sell the building and the games inside. They confirmed the permanent closure is due to financial strain brought by covid-19.

Games N’ At had been temporarily closed, like most other businesses, early on in the pandemic.

“We are sorry to announce that we will be closed until further notice due to the Coronavirus situation,” reads a post from March 17, signed by owners Bill and Marion Jones. “We would not expect many people to come in anyway because of the possibility of contracting this flu. We hope that everyone stays healthy and will hopefully be reopening in early April.”

The arcade ended up reopening June 5, according to its Facebook page, requiring face masks and with an occupancy limit of 80 people. Photos on the page show that owners also installed partitions between each arcade game.

The business temporarily closed again in June, with a post:

“Here we go again. The County Health Department has issued an order which will shut us down for a week starting Friday, July 3rd. The last time the State shut everything down for 2 weeks it lasted 3 months. Hopefully 1 week doesn’t end up being a month and a half. We’ll keep you posted on when we can reopen.”