New Bar: Barcadia is Opening its Doors in So7

Good news for drinkers, hipsters, lovers of vintage video games, good music fans, & more:

Barcadia - a self-described one-stop shop (bar, arcade, food joint, & gaming venue) - is opening it's third location in Fort Worth this month. FortWorthBeer.com was honored to sit down with the new place's manager, Brianna, last week, and get the exclusive inside scoop before their grand opening.

[NOTE: please forgive the orientation of one of the pics below - not sure what happened, but we're working on fixing it. For now, tilt your head left, & it'll make sense. Sorry, o faithful readers!]

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FortWorthBeer: If you had to sum up Barcadia for our readers, what would you say?

Brianna from Barcadia: We like to be a one-stop shop. That's why we have a lot of entertainment: large Jenga and Connect Four, Skee Ball, and arcade games. We really pride ourselves on having good, quality, from-scratch bar food. And of course the beer selection and great music makes it a good destination: we have DJ's and a variety of good music constantly. We like to get people here and make them not want to leave.

FWB: The arcade element is obviously one of the unique features of Barcadia - tell us more about that.

BB: Each of our bar's selection varies, based on availability. We're gonna have quite a few - I can't release exactly what they are, but I know we'll have Donkey Kong Jr, a Dolly Parton pinball machine, and a very good variety to choose from. AND, they're all a quarter each. That's the original price on the machines.

FWB: We're obviously primarily a beer blog - tell our readers about some of your beers and specials.

BB: We're adding more and more drafts with every Barcadia. We'll have 36 beers on draft, and 70 packaged. Five or six drafts are seasonal rotating. For example, Brooklyn Brewmasters Reserve has a handle, and we'll have Boulevard, Shiner, and we gave Rahr an extra seasonal handle. We're excited for those, because you never really know what's coming next.

I like to keep our selection fresh and go for the underdog. We don't have Bud Light, Miller Light, or Coors Light on draft [FWB insert comment: "ballsy, and hooray - way to take a stand!"]. We like to keep our draft selection for craft - with the exception of a Lone Star or a PBR.

And we have specials throughout the week:

• On weekends, college football and Sunday football beer and wings. Sundays will also have $4 you-call-it's and a brunch with bloody mary's and bottomless mimosas
• Monday is half-price food and happy hour all night
• Tuesday is free games all day, with $3 Texas drafts
• Wednesday is pint night: almost all 36 drafts will be $3, with some higher-scale drafts up to $4.50
• Thursday is our "frat boy special" - a beer and shot combo - for $7
• And other than all day Monday, happy hour is Tues-Sat, from open to 8pm. Basically it's $1 off everything.

FWB: Tell us why you're excited about your location and "vibe."

BB: We scouted the area for awhile, and this space had a lot of draw: a huge wrap-around patio with great shade, the potential of a 2000 square-foot extension with a lounge-game room with a big screen, for Playstation and movie viewings. There's a lot of great projects around us, and this space seemed like a good fit for us.

We're music savvy, so we love a good variety, but we throw in some good nostalgia as well. You won't hear creepy techo songs from the 90's or girl pop here. There's colorful hand-painted elements inside, and we have lots of original 50's & 60's pin-up magazines and calendars as our primary art. It works well with the nostalgic games.

FWB: So the big last question: when do you open?

BB: We'll wrap everything up and soft open in the next week or two for friends, family, and neighbors. And after we get a few kinks worked out, we're looking at mid-September for our grand opening.

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We thank Brianna for taking time in the midst of painting and managing deliveries to talk with us, and we're excited that this unique place is taking root in the So7 community. We'll head back to rate it once it's open, and we'll try and post menus and beer selection soon. And if you happen to wander over to Love Shack in the next few days, you may just see some Barcadia activity across the parking lot...