Meanings
plural barcades
- A bar (drinking establishment) equipped with video arcade games.
Gaming itself becomes a destination event, taking place at barcades and board game cafes.
2020, Terri Toles Patkin, Matthew Wilhelm Kapell, Who's in the Game?, page 272 more examples
Glen “Hooping Cough” Hodges is proprietor and manager of Nine Chakras, the new retro gaming barcade in town.
2019, Darren Johnson, Darren Johnson's Best Short Stories of 2018For a good time in the evening, hit up a barcade, a nightspot that's puntastically exactly what it sounds like — a bar with a ton of old-school coin-operated pinball and arcade cabinets (I'd bet my quarters there's one near you).
2020, Sam Maggs, The Fangirl's Guide to the Universe: A Handbook for Girl Geeks, page 42
Origin
Blend of bar + arcade. A chain of arcade bars by this name first opened in Brooklyn in 2004.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
barcade. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/barcade
“barcade.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/barcade. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “barcade,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/barcade.
Source: barcade on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.