Ironically, after lasting a year staying open through the whole covid pandemic, corporate close the theaters almost 2 weeks ago after the police showed up and issued citations to the manager and another clerk for "maintaining a disorderly house". Romantix has their lawyers involved for both clerks as well as the store. The police did not go into the arcade nor did they ticket any patrons. I was there (in the arcade) when this happened. It's the weirdest thing. And ironic. The cops stated that there were 60-90 eople a day "back there" and there was sex going on "all the time". If only, right? It wouldn't surprise me if they keep them closed. The theater sales were only 5% of the overall monetary intake, maybe 10% on a slow day. It was just "gravy" for them as far as income.
I've heard of at least one other store in the chain removing the arcade so they had more retail sales area. This is a real need at some of their smaller locations where the arcade took literally 1/3 to 1/2 of the store area. If it's not a money-maker, just like any retail business, it's time for a re-design or re-invent of sorts. Why have an arcade that's only bringing in a hundred a day when you can stock it with literally thousands of dollars of retail merchandise? This wasn't the case 25 years ago, but that was a whole generation ago and things change. Unfortunately sometimes.
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