Up-Down

This is a great place to spend a lost afternoon and evening. I prefer late afternoons on the weekend because it’s not as crowded. They have a great selection of beer and some hard liquor. The games are well-​maintained and I get distracted by the pinball machines and lose track of time. If you want to do something different, head to Up-​Down.

Great place, great beer selection. Love the old school arcade games… especially Tron!

This place was awesome… yes it’s small and cramped with everyone packed in, but a bar that’s also a retro arcade? Pretty damn awesome in my book… every game I played was only a single token, with a 2 for 1 deal if you bought them directly at the bar vs a machine… Even the restroom was fairly nice… Would totally come back if given the opportunity…

Came here yesterday afternoon for my last stop in Des Moines before heading to the airport and, boy oh boy, I’m so glad that we stopped here!
2-​for-​1 tokens at the bar! And you get a ton of tokens!
Played Skee Ball, N64 and Pac-​Man Battle Royale!
Seriously, I haven’t laughed so much in a long time and will definitely be coming back to Up-​Down the next time I’m in Des Moines!
Also, the bartender was super friendly! I think its a Des Moines thing! Everyone is SO NICE HERE!

All right: the games are super cheap — most are 25c, including the pinball, skeeball, and dozens of classic standup arcade games. Super Nintendo is free, as is life-​size connect-​4 and Jenga. Drinks are reasonably priced.
It’s part of the ambience that you’re in a packed cellar but that can get annoying on the weekends. A recent complaint was that the place smelled like unwashed bodies. The Jenga can also get noisy and out of control, but again, that’s part of the ambience. If you want to play video games in peace and solitude while you sip your beer, there’s another (lesser) barcade on the other side of the river. For the party people, Up/​Down is where it’s at.

This is a great barcade with free super nintendo!
Every cool artsy neighborhood needs a barcade!
It was a great place to stop and chill.

Not normally impressed by arcade bars, but they had super smash bros N64 to which I’m unstoppable. I’ll give this bar 4 stars for that sole reason.
Staff wouldn’t let me take my growler of ginger beer in which I found kind of strange (I picked it from another bar intending to take home).
Beer selection was not my favorite, but there was a variety.

One of the better bars in Des Moines. The drinks are relatively cheap and they are stocked with old school arcade games that make the night fun. I really enjoyed this place. I believe if you go before 9, you can get 2 for 1 tokens. Normally, it’s 25 cents/​token. One arcade game is around 1 – 2 tokens.

You will be in gamer heaven in this little dug-​out. I say little, but it’s actually quite spacious. Decent drink specials and good prices on non-​specials. It will feel a bit like a dungeon, but it’s worth the trip. You will feel nostalgic when you see the old-​school pac-​man and Donkey Kong games. Others include Mario cart on a big screen, ski ball, and life-​size Jenga. In the East Village, it’s the perfect spot to hit up right after you’ve finished some eats at Zombie Burger. This arcade is where it’s at, and anyone who tells you differently is wrong.

It can get crowded on the weekends but they have a great selection of drinks and arcade games. Even free games like life size jenga, connect four, super Nintendo, n64 on the big screen. Get there early if you want n64 though!
As for drink specials, they have 90s/​video game themed mixed drinks and a nice selection of beers on tap, many craft beers. Depending on stock, they also have surge! (If you’re a 90s kid you’ll know the appeal) Sundays are six pack and a pound night!
The best attraction for me is the princess peach drink and skeeball.

I have yet to find another place in Des Moines where you can listen to 80’s glam rock, watch American Gladiators, and play Ninja Turtles at the same time. They have a great selection of free (anything they have on N64, SNES, etc) and paid (tons of arcade cabinets) games and they change some things out pretty regularly.
Sunday’s are the best days to go because you get 2 for 1 tokens (I’m all about that change, bout that change, saving money). They do have plenty of other deals as well, some of which pertain the the «bar» half of barcade.
The one knock is that the condition of their cabinets is inconsistent (I.e. Multiple games are various degrees of broken at all times) but that is to be expected.
Time to find out if I get better at skeeball when I’m drunk.

This is a really neat bar and honestly, it’s a pretty cool place to go if you’re alone and want to drink.
I was a little nervous, I must admit because I was going out alone in a city that I don’t really know much about. So, I got my little airplane bottle of cucumber vodka, chugged it by a trash can, threw it up a bit, brushed myself off and went into Up-​Down.
Went down the stairs, I looked around for a second and then I thought to myself, wow! They’re playing my favorite songs!
However, I needed to immediately run to the bar and get myself some fireball-​lemonades and thank to the high heavens, the fireballs were only $ 4.
I’m not a big fan of places with a $ 10 minimum on cards, but it’s worth it if you’re trying to have fun.
Anyway, to the arcade part of it. The place looks like a retro-​80s, 90s arcade. All of the games are older and have a lot of fun classic vibes. I was super mesmerized and sat down and watch people play the South Park pinball machine.
I like that the place kind of wraps around and it almost seems like there is a nook and cranny to explore. If you don’t have money also, they have giant jenga blocks for you to play with.
I probably will be coming back here when I come back to Des Moines again.

Cool arcade bar downtown. There are tons of game in this tiny little place and the staff is very friendly. The game seemed really well maintained and kept up, despite the traffic that flows through the place. Went on a Sunday afternoon and it was not too bad, but later at night the place really fills up. All games are .25 which is nice and there are 8 pinball machines which is definitely the place to be. If you are a big gamer, then Up-​Down is the bar for you.

What can you say? It’s a bar with video games. And a great tap lineup. They do beer events every once in a while. They have video game and skeeball leagues. It’s a fun place! Great place to go in between sets of a show at Wooly’s (same owners). There are some free games. I quite enjoy the pinball selection (8 of them). The games and beers change over time so it’s always fresh. It does get busy and crowded late at night on the weekends so go early or be prepared to rub shoulders and wait for games. It can be noisy too. Glad to see this place doing well.

This is my first time here! Went out on a limb on a Saturday night and to be honest I’m not a game playing girl but I’m so glad I came here. We got here about 9:45 the place was packed. We ordered a drink which was week. We got some tokens and started playing games. The crowd was loud and spilling drinks. I started playing Frogger which I got to play for free because someone had left $ 15 worth of tokens in the machine! Addicting game to say the least. The place kind of smelled of B. O but what do you expect in a basement full of guys. I played Frogger for about an hour because I was that determined and hey it was free! We moved on the the pin ball machines. I had a blast playing the TMNT one! I was up to having 4 balls at once! In the back corner they have a NINTENDO with Mario! I haven’t played this game since I was a kid. They have a couch to set on and it felt like you were at home playing when you were a kid. I got to level 5 – 1 on one guy and let someone else play!!! I haven’t had this much fun in a long time. We ordered a few drinks and they were just weak. So we stopped ordering. Them.
The bathroom is a diff story. My only complaint really. It’s small, the doors don’t lock, both times, there were girls puking in the stalls and I really just had to pee! They ran out of soap which by the way was just a little bottle not even a dispenser. I shrugged it off because it is a bar and I haven’t found bars with decent bathrooms.
Oh and there is also Mario kart!!! How cool is that, I relived my childhood playing rainbow road! I had a blast, you should check it out, made me feel like I’m chasing my youth though. Haha but I’ll deff be back!!!

Up-​Down has one giant flaw: It wasn’t around when I was in my early 20s. It fits into the category of how the younger generation always has cooler stuff than the older generation.
This place is full of old arcade games, ski-​ball, pinball, a nook with a free to use Super Nintendo, a giant screen with free to play Mario Kart, and lots of good beers. Pretty much all the classics you love are here, and every now and then they switch out arcade games to keep things fresh.
The place is in a basement which I think totally adds to the place. Being in a basement makes it cozier somehow.
I’ve been to this place at least 4 times between the hours of 5 – 10 pm. The crowd starts out with a mix of older/​younger people, but, not surprisingly, tends to get younger as the night goes on. It also gets busier as the night goes on, which is good because I want this place to stick around for a long time.
If I had one suggestion for this place, it would be to get Bubble Bobble — my personal favorite arcade game.
If I could give you, the reader, one suggestion, it would be this: if you are with people and have never tried playing 4 player Pacman, try it. It takes 5 seconds to learn the rules and is fun as all hell. Trust me.

My girlfriend beat me at Tetris like I was a skinny seventh grader and she was a junior in high school. I stumbled upon Up-​Down, practically literally as there’s some stairs that go subterranean outside of Tacopocalypse, on a recent Friday night. We entered the door and were immediately I.D.‘d which I appreciate as I’m several years past having a fake I.D. — we were then each handed a «college cocktail glass» — or a plastic cup of tokens. SWEET!!! We immediately played the old school PacMan, Tetris, Skeeball and pinball. The last skeeball was broken yet folks accidentally put tokens in.
Sweet sweet pinball. The World Cup pinball game is the shit. The machines are so close you’re practically holding hands with the other bumper button pushers. It got loud once it got filled with people. It was a lot like going to a party in college, in a duplex basement in Ankeny and not knowing anyone. Nice local tap list of beers. I wasn’t old enough to drink when these games came out in the 80s so to sip a craft beer and play them again as a tax paying adult is awesome. Get your ass UP and get Down to Up-​Down.

Went to Up Down for the first time and was surprised to find myself in a dank dripping basement.
It was crowded and tight, understandable for a Saturday night. I was impressed by the variety of arcade machines I was defiantly taken back to the early nineties.
The tokens were a good deal at 50% discount. The beer selection was average. My wife ordered the house 8 bit beer which sounded better than it tasted. Returned the glass minus two sips and we’re charged anyway. Ordered a blue moon and felt better.
Spent half the tokens on beating House of the Dead and had a good time.
Cons out way the pros during our visit maybe we will try again later.

Up-​Down, helps the kid in all of us have fun while drinking!
This arcade/​bar is a rad place to spend an evening with friends, rocking some SKEE-​BALL or playing giant human sized Jenga!
Tons of classic video games, and pin-​ball machines in good working condition! Classic 80’s movies, and WWF showing on the tv’s! Couches to hang out, and play Nintendo! What else could you ask for!
This might not be the best place to socialize with your friends, cause who wants to talk when you could be playing Pinball! But it’s a great environment.
Lots of local beers on tap, as well as other craft brews, crazy kid candy mixed drinks, and the bar is right below Wooly’s a killer music venue!
Solid spot for an entertaining night out!
Tip: Go early in the night and get extra tokens for your buck!

I’ll admit that when I first heard of Up-​Down when my husband attended a work party there, my initial thought was seriously, a place with arcade games?! I was not very excited about it and hearing my husband’s explanation afterwards didn’t excite me anymore.
Fast forward a couple months to the Unilocal 10^th Birthday Party which was held here. I still wasn’t super excited but knew it’d be a good time to meet other Unilocal Elites. I was pleasantly surprised at my experience.
One challenge is figuring out how to get into the place. You’ll see the signs at street level but you have to go downstairs to get there. Yet, I felt signs were lacking to get there. Once you reach it, you’ll see arcade games galore along with a nice sized bar and a few tables and booths with games built in. There are both new and old games (more older than new). The TV’s play movies (Kindergarten Cop was playing), sporting events (American Gladiators and WWF were on), etc from the 80’s. Even the décor on the walls are also older. It all plays part to the feel of the place. The bathrooms are pretty nice too!
The bar is stocked with beers, candy drinks, and pop. The games all take only one token which is nice. I was also told that if it’s your birthday, you get some free tokens (pretty good deal)!
If you want a unique experience with some friendly competition, I’d say give it a try!