Do you ever get the feeling everyone is hanging out without you?

The last two weekends, I discovered where they all were: a new, windowless arcade-slash-teenage-playground the size of a football field submerged under the parking lot of Stonestown Galleria. 

I found hordes of people, young and younger, who are spending their weekends at Round 1, the latest Northern California location of a Japanese arcade and bowling alley chain. High schoolers, college students, canoodling couples, competitive gamers, children on playdates — everybody who loves a joystick or a dance battle is flocking here. The arcade, which opened in November in the former Nordstrom basement space, gets so crowded on weekends after 6 p.m. that it feels like half of Northern California has descended on this boisterous bunker.

Rico Smith, a City College graduate who was playing air hockey Friday, came from Roseville “to hang out with my friend who lives here and to check this place out.” Yes, Roseville already has its own Round 1, but Smith feels the new Stonestown location is “more low-key.” 

It’s hard to imagine something more high-key than this. The place is huge and fun and loud. Very, very loud. Squeals of laughter, peals of digital music, flashing lights, and primary colors fill the enormous space — a 50,000-square-foot dopamine hit. There is no day or night in Round 1, just neon.

The food is highly skippable, as confirmed by the many one-star Yelp reviews. The kitchen works at a sloth’s pace. The bartenders have braces and don’t know what hard cider is. But none of that is the point. The point is the games. And the rows and rows of claw machines. And the bowling alley. And the billiards. And the vibe.

It makes sense that this hangout headquarters is at Stonestown, which over the past few years has emerged as an unlikely cultural heart of San Francisco. “I wrote a petition to Stonestown asking them to bring Round 1 to the mall years ago,” said Neil Dulce, a recent San Francisco State graduate whom I met by the “Dance Dance Revolution” corner. 

Things were getting serious over there. Two men dripping with sweat and dancing extremely quickly had attracted a crowd. But when I told them they were super good at the game, they demurred and pointed to a guy who was just getting started: “We’re amateurs. He’s the one you want to talk to. He’s sick.” 

The sick guy, Austin Huynh, was dressed to compete in a gray tank top, gray sweatpants, and a fresh pair of dancing Nikes. He and his friend knew exactly which expert-level song they wanted to battle to, clicking through the setup buttons with the kind of blasé that comes from 10,000 hours of experience, give or take. A group of people standing behind Huynh, ogled his footwork.

“I’ve just been playing three days a week, four days a week, sometimes five days a week, almost like a job,” he told me between sets. He used to play at Dave & Busters in Daly City, but this is the new spot for crews from the East Bay, San Jose, and the city to meet up — convenient for him, because it’s closer to San Francisco State, where he goes to school. He often comes right after class. And it has paid off —  he has a couple of high scores on the board.

“I think this place was a long time coming,” he said. “Stonestown has not had an arcade for as long as I’ve lived here, and now that there is one here, it feels in theme with how Stonestown is trying to improve as a mall.” 

In fact, the arcade feels in theme with how San Francisco is trying to improve as a whole, as we emerge from our pandemic hidey-holes and reengage in the active life of the city. Being at Round 1 with so much joyful energy all around me, it felt like the before times.

Arcade fans have been waiting anxiously for Round 1 to open since those beforetimes. Dulce, who first petitioned the mall to get Round 1 way back in 2018, said his Discord group for Bay Area players of “rhythm games” like “DDR” and “Pinky Crush” first noticed in 2022 that the company’s website had shared Stonestown as a future location. They learned of a concrete opening date in 2023, when a superfan posted on Facebook about the company’s annual financial report. 

The rhythm game section at Round 1 definitely has the most serious players. Dulce’s choice is “Sound Voltex,” a music game with knobs and buttons. As he waited his turn, he watched the man ahead of him intently, holding his hands out in the air and miming the moves. I was surprised to learn that this (to my eyes) incredible “Sound Voltex” athlete wasn’t on the leaderboard — but that’s how popular and competitive the game is.

Same with “Pinky Crush,” a DJ game. I found Michael Garcia playing with such adroitness that the clacking of the keys sounded like music.

“I’ve been playing it since high school, so around 14 years,” Garcia said, but “I’m not even close to the high score.” Garcia is a media operator for Disney and comes to Round 1 on his days off. “It’s cool having a local arcade, but at the same time, I’m an old-school nut for pinball, so it sucks that there’s not really pinball here,” he said. Garcia goes to Free Gold Watch in the Haight or the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda for his fix.

Like their pinball-playing ancestors, high school students are coming to the arcade in droves. Zoe Freeman and Ke’Maryie Amons, seniors at  Abraham Lincoln High School, came with a group of friends after they saw TikTok videos about the new arcade. They bowled and played racing games, which Zoe said she’d “been winning all night,” though Ke’Maryie disagreed with a laugh. 

Fiona, a student at  Lincoln High who declined to give her last name, said the arcade is a perfect place to blow off steam during the stress of college application season.

The claw machines are a source of great joy and even more consternation.  Children cried after failing to secure any loot. But Tony Dang from Galileo High School was riding high after winning a ton of Squishmallows for his friends — no easy feat, I can attest, after losing at least 28 credits attempting to get some for my kids. 

“We spent a lot of money to win these,” he said, noting that the trick is to use one stuffed animal as leverage to push another into the hole. His friend estimated they spent $70 to get a handful, but their smiles made it clear it was worth it. Dang had never won so many.

Rachel, who declined to give her last name, was the unmistakable claw machine queen while I was there. With great concentration, she rapidly won four Squishmallows. Her daughter Remi, an internationally ranked “Guilty Gear” player, brought her to Round 1 recently to celebrate her birthday. Remi estimates that her mom has won around 800 stuffed animals from claw machines over the years. “I live in an apartment, and I wait until I get a lot, and then I put them out for people to take. The kids love them,” Rachel said.

At the end of my visit, I got a hot tip from a father of two boys at the “Minecraft” machine: There’s $1 ice cream at the concession stand. As my kids and I waited for our cones, we saw multigenerational families playing billiards, couples posing for photos, teens running around like they owned the place. As the night goes on, Round 1 just gets more crowded; after 10 p.m. anyone under 18 has to leave, and after midnight it’s open only to 21 and over. The bar closes at 2 a.m.

I don’t stay out that late these days, but I love knowing where all the fun is happening. I’m not a gamer, but my kids have a playdate this weekend at the arcade, and I can’t wait to drink a hard cider and chat while they have the time of their lives.