 This entry refers to a departed business that has closed or left town. All information here is for historical reference only. |
The Library game token
The Library was an arcade that was primarily known for its witty name. Kids could sound like they were being academic to their parents by spending lots of time at the library. It is now long closed, but it occupied the space where the southern half of Woodstock's Pizza is now.
The front half of the place was "newer" games while the back half had an air hockey table, and basketball game, and a few classic arcade games that were running but always had "for sale" signs on them.
The most notable games in the back other than the air hockey / billiards were the oldschool helicopter game and NFL blitz that was constantly updated
From the mid-90s onward the place seemed to get more run down with few if any new games, and a fair number of games being out of order at any given time.
Closed in the Late 90s/Early 00s (?). The space was then filled by The Velvet Elvis for a few years before Woodstocks Pizza expanded into the space.
I used to be a regular at the library when I was really young, it kicked lots of ass and had a decent selection of games as well as awesome fake dollar bills that were gift certficates that worked in the token machine. —StevenDaubert
2005-12-04 17:07:04 The used to have Police 911 in 1996. That game RULED! —RainaLee
2006-10-24 18:14:27 I don't remember this place —DeloroesWalker
2006-10-24 18:17:23 Alas only the Davisites and hardcore students who have been around long enough to remember it —StevenDaubert
2007-06-26 07:54:09 Truly hard core Davisites remember when it opened... —WesHardaker
2007-05-04 19:40:29 I went here when I was really little. The Virtual Fighter 2 machine had a switch on the back that would alter how many tokens were needed to play. I would always switch it to zero so I could play for a long time. —JoeyBennett
2007-06-10 01:05:27 I can confirm it was still open for business in 1999, back when I came to visit a friend and check out the school. —AlexMandel
2008-03-15 17:42:40 I remember plying here alot in the late '90s. Met lots of great friends that I still see to this day. Wish there was something like this still around. —Aaron.Curtin
2008-03-29 16:39:33 Dude, I TOTALLY remember this place! —CurlyGirl26
2008-04-07 09:37:08 I remembered when someone (who is now a DavisWiki all-star) got in a big argument in there. And then the lifted him up and totally threw him in trashcan. Oh man Junior High school is funny. —BenjaminRosenstein
2009-06-28 14:59:06 It opened summer 1982. Their first few years, they had some older games including Space Invaders that were set to take dimes instead of quarters. Some other games let you play 2 or 3 times for 1 quarter. They also had a jukebox.
Circa 1983 they started using tokens which you could get from a machine, 5 for $1, and most games you could use quarters or tokens, but annoyingly all the new and popular games only took quarters (so you could only play 4 times for a buck instead of 5) and you had to ask someone on duty for change as there was no machine for them.
Also during their first years, they would put signs on top of some machines with the all-time high scores achieved there. —AlanSmithee
2010-05-01 17:14:24 Ahh.. Many an hour was spent 'studying' at the Library. Gauntlet II and Rampage made my allowance vanish mysteriously. Of note, it used to be a Chinese restaurant. It still had the Asian-themed front doors on the place up until Woodstock's expanded. But yes, it did sadly wane in the '90s, what with home gaming being able to meet and eventually surpass the arcade experience. —Flynn
2010-07-24 13:46:23 So sad on days like this when you'd kill for a cool shady place to hang out outside of the house. I suppose the MUGA may just have to suffice. —MasonMurray
2011-08-04 14:52:44 Great place when it opened. Dimes instead of quarters meant you could play Pac-man and Centipede all friggin' day. The owner would come by and sometimes add more quarters or dimes to your machine while you were playing, just as a "thank you" for being there. Long time Davisites will also remember the completing place on the corner of 3rd an G, Atlantis (I think that's right). Rumor was, they were owned by a Casino company, and were just in town to cash in on the video game "fad". Never heard if that was actually true or not, but the Library was still the place to be. Still miss blowing $20 every weekend on "T2". —OldDavis73
I think Atlantis is right! It really rings a bell in my head at least.
2011-08-04 16:09:41 Back when it was Honorable Gee's, they used to have a big @$$ Buddah statue out front. It used to be the classic frat prank to steal that thing... they tried chaining it down, but I swear it must have been stolen at least 5 times in the early 80's. —OldDavis73
2012-06-01 02:56:25 My aunt gave me some tokens from here and the MUGA that she found in my cousin's old clothes. He went to Davis around the late '90s-early '00s.
I'll probably resist the urge to see if they work in the MUGA and keep them as a piece of Davis history. :D —HarrisonM
2012-08-13 23:59:57 Anybody remember "Games Plus"? It was a VERY small arcade in the location where The Hotdogger is now, opened a few months before The Library and Atlantis. They had less than 10 games there and they would kick kids out who hung out to watch people play but not play themselves. —AlanSmithee
2020-03-01 22:53:34 My father took my brother and I here during the mid-80s usually on Saturdays for a couple hours. Could play the game "Galaga" for about 30 min on one quarter - my go-to game when running low on money. I do remember tokens early on as has been mentioned. Had at least one bike stolen outside while playing later years (late 80s). :) Nintendo stole the the thunder during late 80s. —pc95
2023-08-19 13:44:34 Does anyone remember the original owner's name? He was also the golf coach at UCD. —davidgbird
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