Publisher Bandai Namco is apparently teaming up with the restaurant chain Hooters to open a new arcade bar in Japan, later this year. Namco announced the partnership earlier this week, confirming the companies plans for the new restaurant, which will be called Gaming Bar Side-B, and will be taking up residency in the Shibuya shopping district. The company also supplied some mock-ups of what they expect the restaurant to look like once it’s open, which are pretty eerie to say the least.
The arcade should be open and ready for business by December 18, with an 30 minute all-you-can-play/all-you-can-eat initial package that will go for ¥1,500 ($12), every additional 30 minutes after will only cost another ¥500 ($4).
All I can say is, finally! The buddy cop comedy we’ve all been waiting for! Namco, the beloved Japanese game publisher, and Hooters, the diner that has built a business model off of uncomfortable family outings. If you were expecting the brainchild of this weird pair would be anything more than just a ‘bar-cade’, then sorry, apparently sexy Ms. Pacman cosplay would be a bit too on-the-nose.
In all seriousness though, we have yet to see how the bar will turn out. It’s all still pretty up in the air, what little information we’ve been given has described it as basically just hooters with arcade machines packed in. And based on the official mock-ups of what the bar is to look like, it’s not really going to be anything special, but that’s really just my opinion. Namco has actually already tried their hand at opening a restaurant dedicated to Pac Man in Chicago and its actually pretty cool, so who knows.