Sept. 20, 2019

The Bonus Round Bar opened its downtown location today, bringing arcade games, pinball, craft beer and pizza – even by the slice at certain times of the day.

Isak Anderson and his wife, Crickett, opened the original location at 803 S. Cliff Ave. five years ago but have always felt the pull of operating in the heart of the city.

“I’ve been trying to get downtown for five years since I started,” Anderson said. “I knew we’d outgrow that original location.”

The Cliff Avenue bar will remain – the Andersons just signed a three-year lease.

The new bar at 127 W. 10th St. will start with hours of 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. daily. The long and narrow space has room for a dozen to 15 arcade games and pinball machines, which will rotate with the original location. Both locations will open at 12 p.m. on Saturday.

“Most of the arcades will be kind of old school, ’80s and ’90s, and then the pinballs will be anywhere from ’75 to brand-new.”

The downtown location opened with four pinball machines and the arcade game Alien vs Predator, but more machines will be added in the coming weeks, Anderson said.

Pinball leagues have been popular at the other site and will be started downtown, he said.

While the bar and games take up much of the space, there’s room for eight to 10 bar stools and a few tables and chairs.

The bar has six taps and features local brews. It also serves craft beer by the bottle. Customers can order frozen pizzas made by Walt’s Homestyle Foods of Yankton, Anderson said. The Bonus Round offers six to eight varieties, along with Walt’s cheesy garlic bread, trail mix and three flavors of jerky.

“We’re gonna try out the pizza by the slice” in addition to whole pies, Anderson said. “That’ll probably be certain hours of the day and certain hours of the night. There’s not much late-night food options, if any, downtown, so I’m gonna push that. Probably do like a midnight-to-2 run of pizza by the slice.”

Pizza won’t be served opening weekend but the hope is to offer some food truck options. Opening weekend will be cash only with an ATM on site and a quarter machine set up to handle small bills. Rolls of quarters also will be available.

Anderson sees the new location as part of a bigger entertainment draw with The Full Circle Book Co-op next door and Escape 605’s ax-throwing bar nearby. He describes the Cliff Avenue site as more of a neighborhood bar.

“There’s people that come down just to play pinball, which is our mainstay down there right now. Now that I have this (the downtown site), I can start incorporating arcades back in there again.”

The new bar has the same name as the original.

“I’m thinking about calling the original location the ‘world headquarters’ and this ‘downtown.’ I’m sure the regulars will come up with their own names.”

For opening weekend, those who buy a beer downtown will be given a wristband. If you present it at the Cliff Avenue location you can enjoy a night of free play. Otherwise there will be a $10 cover charge at the Cliff Avenue location.