A 12-game arcade with a full service restaurant, performance space with dancing and two lounges with full bar called Tuck’s Arcadium is coming to the Garage in Harvard Square, expected to take more than 3,600 square feet on the mall’s second floor after renovations.
Architects and builders are working on a space – the former Audio Lab and Asa Hair salon storefronts – that owner Tucker Gaccione called “a pretty rough shell,” ahead of an opening. In a “perfect world” the games begin in November – but more realistically December – with customers welcome from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. daily, Gaccione said.
The Garage, an iconic shopping center in Harvard Square, is undergoing a transformation in which owner Trinity Property Management works with UpNext, a Boston firm that helps revitalize retail, after a 2021 plan to remake the space with labs was taken down by the Covid pandemic and its lingering economic changes.
“The Garage is a landmark in Harvard Square, and we see this as a way to reenergize the space,” UpNext CEO Allison Yee said.
The plan was approved by Cambridge’s License Commission on July 29, pending details such as updated plans showing where televisions would be placed. A state board must approve plans too.
History begins with horses
The Arcadium would cover “a broad range of entertainment needs in Harvard Square, a bustling hub for students, tourists and residents,” attorney James Rafferty told commissioners in presenting the plan.
The Garage at 36 John F. Kennedy St., four stories plus a below-ground space, takes up the southern half of a block on Mount Auburn Street between JFK and Dunster streets. It began as horse stables in the 1860s, was converted into a parking garage in the 1920s and finally to a zeitgeisty urban shopping mall more than 40 years ago.
The past will play a role in the decor and business model of Tuck’s Arcadium as it seeks to draw millennials and a Gen-Z crowd, who both experience nostalgia for the ’90s and early 2000s, Gaccione said. “The Garage is such a cool space [that] it seemed like a perfect fit to lean into that nostalgia,” he said.
Gaming in Cambridge and Somerville
Tuck’s continues a trend of arcade entertainment spaces opening in Cambridge, Somerville and Boston following the closing of Good Times in Somerville in 2008 and Lanes & Games in Cambridge in 2017 – the year Roxy’s Grilled Cheese opened a retro, 21-and-older speakeasy arcade in Central Square, followed by Lucky Strike Somerville coming to Assembly Square in 2018.
Dragon’s Lair opened in Somerville’s Davis Square in 2022 with a few games in a pizza-party space. Dx, an entertainment space in the Garage basement, expanded to operate an arcade space before moving it to Central Square. Dx Arcade is an all-ages arcade with some 18-plus events on evenings and weekends.
According to TechNavio, a technology research company, the arcade gaming market is projected to increase $2 billion between 2025-2029. According to Research and Markets, in 2023 arcade gaming was estimated to be a $19 billion market.
Having Tuck’s in the Garage is exciting, said Denise Jillson, executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association. “It’s what we want. We want more, not less.”
The new venue will operate alongside the Dx space, which opened in early 2024 and describes itself as “the destination for culture in Cambridge” – a music-first nightlife entertainment venue. The space includes sophisticated sound equipment and lighting, amplifying the experience for DJs, artists and guests. Dx holds capacity for 327 guests. Plans for Tuck’s include a full-service restaurant with 96 seats and capacity for 150 patrons.
A pop-up philosophy
Yee said UpNext is close to filling the majority of the vacant spaces in the Garage – around Tuck’s – with pop-up businesses. Most vacancies are planned to be filled with retail and gourmet food options.
The focus for these potential tenants is local, independent and experiential retail. UpNext wants each visit to be unique, Yee said, and sees pop-ups in the Garage for the “foreseeable future” with “ongoing opportunity for rotation.”
Gaccione was the first person who came to mind for taking up the anchor retail space, Yee said, as UpNext has worked with him before: He owns The Happy Cactus, The Fat Cactus, Tuck’s Truffles and Saguaro Garden Bar.
“We’re really excited for the opportunity,” Gaccione said. “We do a lot of pop-ups and temporary seasonal things, and we’re really excited to put down some permanent roots and be a part of the Harvard Square community.”
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