[chrisco255]

Small town malls have suffered the most but a lot of large cities still have vibrant malls to shop at and hang out at if you happen to be a teen. Dave and Busters and other similar arcade/mixed entertainment centers are also way more common now plus random things like climbing gyms, trampoline places, etc.

From what I can tell skating rinks and bowling alleys are still reasonably popular especially when you factor for entertainment centers that have mini bowling alleys (much more common now).

[brightball]

> Dave and Busters and other similar arcade/mixed entertainment centers are also way more common now

One thing that I've realized as I have gotten older, arcades have changed a lot. Dave and Busters and other arcades are designed to extract money as quickly as possible. When I was younger, if you were good at a game you could keep playing so my friends and I got very good at these games.

[chrisco255]

There are arcades in Austin that charge a cover and just allow free play (typically subsidized by beverage sales). But some have the Dave and Busters model. The games are definitely more expensive than they were. In 80s and early 90s a $2 or $3 stack of quarters would grant a fair amount of entertainment.

[williamcotton]

Do you mind sharing which ones?

[vel0city]

Not Austin, but in DFW there's a local chain called freeplay arcade. Its a ~$13 cover charge and then unlimited gaming.

https://freeplayinc.com/

While not totally covered by a cover charge, there's also an arcade called Nickelrama. Cover charge, and then all games cost like 1-6 nickels.

https://nickelrama.com/

There's a brand called Cidercade (used to be very affiliated with a cidery), they've apparently got a location in Austin as well. Similar story, $12 cover, all games included.

https://cidercade.com/

[chrisco255]

Cidercade on Riverside in Austin is one of the spots I was thinking of. They have a pretty good selection of old arcades.

There is also Pixel Palace in Round Rock that has no cover but most games are 25 cents.

Austin Toy Museum has a bunch of arcades ($17 entrance fee). Austin Pinball Collective for mostly pinball.

Pinballz is good too but expensive and does the Dave and Busters model, however, most of their classic arcades are cheap to play.

[steveBK123]

I recently stopped by my hometown mall for the first time in 20 years. I described it to a friend as "it was like a neutron bomb went off".

It had been a middle/upper middle class mall back then - big fast food filled food court, Macys/Filenes/Lord&Taylor, it even eventually got (and lost) an Apple Store.

It was essentially empty and the stores had all gone down market. The nicest clothing store was H&M, and a bunch of storefronts were taken over by random nameless resale small businesses.

[gnz11]

Forget corporate owned malls, what US towns need are actual downtowns. When I first came to the US I was shocked at either the lack of a downtown or if there was one, it was mostly run down and abandoned. Sometimes the "downtown" was just an intersection of strip malls. I suppose the oddball zoning rules in the US don’t help but so many "towns" in the US are just blobs of buildings and not actual towns.