Vittles, Video Games & a Venue Change

Last Saturday, Bernie & I, along with some friends, made our first foray into the wild world of Dave & Buster's. At first I wasn't so sure about this place: it's located in Providence Place Mall, so I thought it would be loaded with small children. But joy of joys: ostensibly children are not allowed in there after 5:30 PM! Hooray!

The first obstacle was the parking garage, obviously designed by some sadistic non-driver. On every level there were a billion ways for other cars to zoom in & create near-hits as I awkwardly negotiated the same level 3 times.....we finally found our way out of the labyrinth and soared upwards to....the first level. I'm pretty sure some form of higher mathematics went into the numbering/naming of the levels, but I didn't have the Royal Slide Rule with me to figure it out.

After luckily finding a newly-vacated parking spot, we went right into the mall- I've never been to Providence Place Mall before - it's hellishly huge and seems to have all the same shops as every other mall, but I was told The Secret: as you go up each level, the stores escalate in price.....

We quickly found Dave & Busters and it was BUSY! We had been told it would be a two-hour wait for a table, so we planned on playing games, then eating. Luckily, we ended up with a table within 10 minutes, so we changed our plans. The food was fine, nothing special, but we did get some sort of deal where we received a $10 game card with our meal and our waiter was not only very entertaining, but very hot. Always makes the food just a little better.....So, fed & with a nice buzz going on (Belvedere was the drinkable vodka served there), it was off to the games!

The games were a bit overwhelming, what with all the flashing lights & the number of people around. Surprising to me, everyone was very fair about letting those waiting take a turn. There were driving games, flight simulators, AIR HOCKEY, shooting games, some strange roulette-type games, a crane machine with cheeeezy bling, boxing games- a lot of choices to be sure!

We hopped right on driving games to start- don't ask me the names, all I know is they tossed me around while I maniacally drove & was laughing hysterically...Miss Wendy, I have no idea how you could drive any of those games with a martini in hand! You are truly a Patsy Stone....
We played more games of that ilk, and of course I had to play with the flight simulator- graphics-wise, far more sophisticated than the one I trained on at Windham Airport, but far less accurate. For instance, I didn't crash nearly as many times....
Bernie & I accidentally hogged the ginormous, flourescent air hockey table for several games, Mikey played Donkey Kong for a really long time, and I tried my hand at Space Invaders- 'tried' as in 'tried to figure out how it worked' (it's been a loooong time) and then the message 'Game Over' appeared....

After a couple of hours, and using the Jaws of Life to pry Bernie way from the games, we were DONE. We noticed that around 8:30 or so, it started getting very meat-markety in there for the 18-21 year old set. Eeew.

My suggestion is not to go on a Saturday night- it was fun, but packed. And be prepared to spend some money! All in all, it was a really fun time and everyone was having fun on the same level- pretty cool!

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So, what's all this about a venue change? Well, Bernie just landed his bad self a new job with the New London Housing Authority! Less hours, more money - whoo hoo! Congrats, pootie-pie!