Grab yourself a pint of Yalobusha Brewery Craft Brew, cup of Heartbreak Coffee, and saddle up to your favorite arcade game at Bits Arcade on Saturday, July 1, 2017.
Yalobusha Brew Pub is hosting a celebration of the new legislation allowing craft breweries to sell their beer on location. The event runs from 4-11 pm and will feature the soft openings of Heartbreak Coffee and Bits Arcade.
Bits Arcade is the brainchild of Scott Sisk, and Brad Lyle, two engineers working at Borg Warner in Water Valley. From start to finish this has been their vision unfiltered.
“The initial idea was probably a year ago,” said Lyle. “We thought the vintage arcade would fit the kind of throwback [feel] of Water Valley, but we didn’t have any idea about where to put it.”
The two wanted a place not only for the 20 and 30 year-olds with nostalgic memories of placing their quarter on the cabinet top to call next game, but also for the kids of Water Valley to have somewhere to go.
“There’s really not anywhere for them to hang out,” said Sisk. “We are completely family friendly and want everyone to come hang out.”
Both of them being family men working full time jobs, the project has been consuming what free time the two have.
“I actually have two twin girls that are six months old,” said Sisk. “This has definitely been an ambitious endeavor for both of us.”
Two days before opening Sisk was at the location until 3 am assembling cabinets and preparing for the opening.
“There’s been some real late nights,” said Lyle.
The cabinets were sourced regionally from around town and Memphis. Given the vintage grocery list they had, many of the cabinets required cosmetic restoration and mild reassembly of the electronics. While speaking with the two, Lyle was focused primarily on the “guts” of a Golden Tee Complete cabinet.
“I’m an electrical engineering and have been in computers my whole life so it’s really not been that hard for me to work on this,” said Lyle. “This one has a hard drive, but most of them have the game actually stored on a chip.”
Sisk, a mechanical engineer by trade, experienced a bit of a learning curve but quickly caught and the two quickly became DIY arcade cabinet repairmen.
Cosmetically, there is enough of a hobbyist market that much of the decals and monitor cutouts can be easily sourced online.
“It hasn’t been hard finding anything we needed,” said Lyle.
Bits Arcade will be open anytime The brew pub or Coffee shop are open, so from morning to night you can get your pinball and Rampage World Tour fix.
“It’s gonna be a really cool place,” said Sisk. 
