Popular sports bar/arcade Dave & Buster's is enjoying a New Jersey boom right now.

Following the state's first D&B's last fall in Woodbridge, the Willowbrook Mall followed suit earlier this year, and today news came out that the arcade bar will be coming to the Gloucester Premium Outlets in Camden County in about two years. 

Dave & Buster's seems to be a popular suggestion for vacant retail spaces in Ocean County; like the Ocean County Mall's Sears wing, the now-former Toys "R" Us across Hooper from the mall, and the long vacant Beachwood Shopping Center.

But I don't think that this is the place for a Dave & Buster's.

If you stop into the Woodbridge Center Mall location, you might notice what struck me immediately - it's a mall version of a boardwalk arcade.

With "coin pusher" games, multi-player skill games, and of course skee-ball, I honestly didn't see anything that I couldn't already find in Seaside Heights, Point Pleasant Beach, or Long Beach Island.

So why make a massive investment, in both money and construction time, for something that we can already get here in Ocean County?

Don't get me wrong, I think that Dave & Buster's is a good concept for places like Central and North Jersey that aren't mere minutes away from the Shore's plentiful amusement arcades, but I think that it would be redundant here.

I don't know what Dave & Buster's business plan looks like, so for all I know they could be negotiating with local officials right now to bring the biggest location yet to our own backyard.

But if you ask me (and yes, I know you didn't), I just don't think that a Toms River Dave & Buster's makes sense when arcades like Lucky Leo's, Jenkinson's Boardwalk, and Fantasy Island are just a short drive away.

What do you think, would an inland arcade make sense for Ocean County? Feel free to join the conversation on our Facebook page!

 

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