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January 24, 2024
TWO RIVERS — It all started with a few arcade games in Cleveland Cycle Works, Michael Cleveland’s bicycle repair shop in Two Rivers to keep his customers entertained while he worked on their bikes.
“When I started out, there were maybe four machines, and next thing I know, I had 16,” he said. “The bike shop was no longer the focus. The focus was, ‘hey, this guy has arcade games.'”
With the influx of machines, Cleveland said he began noticing that people started coming to the shop just to play the games.
And before he knew it, Cleveland said Heroes Venture Arcade (2022 Washington St.) was born.
A childhood love
Cleveland said his love for arcade games started during his childhood.
“My brother and I grew up near Milwaukee, and we had Aladdin’s Castle Arcade,” he said. “There were a couple of other bowling alleys that had decent-sized arcades, too, that we would frequent.”
Not old enough to drive yet, Cleveland said they would trek about 20 miles one way to play at the arcade.
“We would loot mom’s glass boot she would keep in the closet to get all the quarters, fill our pockets and go,” he said. “The arcade is where we fell into place.”
Cleveland said he has always had an affinity for the retro side of the arcade — “simple fun,” as he calls it.
From bike shop to retro arcade
Unfortunately, Cleveland said things went downhill for his bike shop during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was hard to get the things I needed for my customers,” he said. “My customers were getting frustrated, and so was I. I didn’t know which way to turn.”
It was then Cleveland said he made a pivotal decision — to close the bike shop and pursue his other passion that had already started taking on a life of its own — a retro arcade.
Heroes Venture Arcade is located at 2022 Washington St. in Two Rivers. Submitted Photo
“I looked (into it), but also at the same time, I wasn’t sure if I had the budget,” he said. “So, I took a lot of financial risks to make everything happen.”
Looking back, Cleveland said many of the games he’s acquired have simply manifested themselves.
“It’s been a good experience,” he said. “As for ‘successful money,’ that’s difficult to say because the machines are so incredibly expensive. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to pay them all off.”
An homage to a friend
Cleveland said a close friend was ultimately the driving force in the creation of the arcade.
Recognizing they shared the same passions for particular games, Cleveland said it bonded them — “as nerdy as you can get.”
Cleveland said, sadly, he passed away during the COVID-19 pandemic — but said his legacy lives on with the arcade.
“He always wanted to see the arcade grow into something more than it was (at the time),” he said.
Moreover, Cleveland said he’s spent the last two years working as hard as he could to complete the projects they started together.
“I wanted to honor him by finishing this,” he said.
When asked if he thinks the arcade would be the same if he were still around, Cleveland said “I think so — because he told me I have the most restless determination he’s ever seen in a person.”
“When I have a direction and there’s something in my focus, I go for it,” he said.
Giving new life to old games
Cleveland said he’s considered rotating games out, but said he gets attached — partly because they often take a bit of work to bring back to life as original as they can get.
“You’re dealing with 20-, 30-, 40-year old games, beat up cases, not to mention the CRT (cathode-ray tube) monitors in them, which haven’t been made since 2007,” he said. “It’s like working on dinosaurs.”
Beyond the work he puts in and the money he spends to bring them back to life — Cleveland said there’s a sense of pride in what he’s acquired.
He also said he’s always communicating with other operators, technicians, hobbyists and enthusiasts in Wisconsin and the Midwest — kindred spirits in a niche industry.
“We are always bouncing ideas off each other, always trying to figure out how to fix this or that,” he said. “It’s nice to have open communication with others.”
A retro arcade in a small town
With word of mouth and social media as his main source of advertising, Cleveland said it’s often parents or older folks introducing younger generations to the old-school games.
“The people who have experienced it this year rave about it, and that’s big to me,” he said. “(We also have a solid) following on Facebook and other social media platforms we have.”
Being located in Two Rivers — where he has lived for the past nine years — Cleveland said the arcade’s social media platforms have been crucial in getting the word out.
“I’m doing big city stuff in a small town, so it’s kind of a shock,” he said. “But you know what, let them be shocked — maybe they’ll come in one day, see something and it’ll spark up a memory or a conversation.”
Cleveland said the arcade community is great, albeit, it took a while to get there.
“Not as fast as I wanted it to be — it’s a lot of work to juggle trying to build the community and the arcade at the same time,” he said.
Though the arcade is a niche market, Cleveland said — “it’s simple fun, one joystick, three buttons.”
He said it’s also affordable fun — noting the day package is just $18.
“You can keep smacking that start button without the need for quarters, and finally beat that game you weren’t able to in the ’80s,” he said.
One-of-a-kind find inside
Cleveland said Heroes Venture Arcade has something no other arcade on the planet has in his place — 13 Atomiswave cabinets, all functioning.
This might not seem like a big deal to the average everyday patron who comes to check out the arcade, but for a retro hobbyist, Cleveland said this is a sight most have never seen.
Atomiswave, he said, is affiliated with SNK, and SNK is known as Neo Geo, one of the heaviest hitters in the arcade world.
“They had some of the best games,” he said.
Cleveland said he made it his most aggressive and determined mission to date to find all 28 Atomiswave games and machines.
“Almost every Atomiswave machine (here) is a conversion,” he said. “Some of those cartridges are hard to find, and some of them are over-the-top expensive, one of them was around $2,000.”
The big arcade room
Clevelands said the retro game room is organized by decade — and includes air hockey tables, classic ’80s games and the Atomiswave, as well as ’90s and modern games.
The crowning jewel of this room is Darius Burst, which he said is the most popular game of everything he has.
Cleveland said the game is a side scroller “shmup” — which is short for “shoot ’em up.”
In total, Michael Cleveland said Heroes Venture Arcade has about 250 machines. Submitted Photo
Players in the game, he said, get a little jet and get to fly around shooting the projectiles coming at you.
The screen, Cleveland said, is made for four players and is nearly four feet wide, or so spanning two monitor lengths.
Compared to the other retro and oddball games, which he said are generally the CRT 4:3 square monitors that are traditionally found in arcade games.
In all, Cleveland said he has around 250 machines at Heroes Venture Arcade — with everything from instant redemption prize games to the fully immersive sit-down and become one with the game to your classic Pacman, and everything in between.
A resurgence in the arcade
Though game rooms and arcades have always been a thing, Cleveland said the games have gotten bigger in their footprint, flashier and much more immersive — think Dave and Busters.
Whereas Heroes Venture Arcade’s main attraction is the games and the nostalgic feeling ñCleveland said he recognizes the retro gaming market is “super niche.”
“It is hands-on and usually requires a lot of upfront maintenance,” he said. “Most businesses and business models don’t want to touch them because of that reason.”
But for Cleveland, arcade games are his life’s work.
Heroes Venture Arcade, he said, is one of four or five in the state, and is located in the smallest town of them all.
“Being in such a small town is unusual — I get told this all the time,” he said. “But it happened the way it did, and that is what makes it unique. We’ve had people from as far away as Chicago come up here to play for the day.”
Putting everything he has into the arcade, Cleveland said, for him, Heroes is more than just a place to play retro games.
From the blacklights in the ceiling to the neon tape on the floor to the projection screens on the walls, Cleveland said it’s about the whole experience.
“I like cinema so I integrate a lot of projection screens and cinema,” he said. “Being able to watch content and play games and being immersed in it all. That’s what I wanted. When everything is turned on back there and popping, it’s magical.”
For more on the arcade, check out Heroes’ Facebook page.
