Arcades in Charlotte

Charlotte, NC has 14 arcades on the map. That's 14 arcades mapped around Charlotte. Machine condition varies wildly between venues, so the one with the best-maintained cabinets wins regardless of size. Bring a friend — everything's better head-to-head, and most of the best cabinets are built for two.

This guide covers every arcade we could verify in and around Charlotte (within about 40 km), built from OpenStreetMap's community-maintained data. Names you'll run into include Chuck E. Cheese and Monkey Joe's, plus Dave & Buster's. If an arcade's missing from Charlotte's list, it probably just hasn't been mapped yet.

The Charlotte arcade lineup

14 mapped within about 40 km:

What the map tells us about arcades in Charlotte

3 of the 14 list their opening hours on the map, which is genuinely useful — arcades keep long hours, so the listed times are usually good.

4 have websites listed. Worth a look for tournament nights and free-play evenings.

4 arcades list websites — worth a look for opening times and whether they run leagues or tournament nights.

The Charlotte arcade run

Plot these on a map and the day plans itself: Chuck E. Cheese on 7701 Pineville-Matthews Road, Monkey Joe's on 601 North Polk Street, Dave & Buster's, Fun Spot Arcade, RFD Arcade, Chuck E. Cheese, Palmer Street on 412 West Palmer Street, and Sports Connection on 11611 Ardrey Kell Road. That's 14 stops on the Charlotte arcade run. 6 more are listed below.

Arcade tips for Charlotte

A few things worth knowing before you work through Charlotte's arcades:

• Eat before the big session at Chuck E. Cheese. Arcade food is priced for captives. Eat properly beforehand and save the budget for games.
• Test the controls before committing at Monkey Joe's. Joysticks drift, buttons stick, guns misalign. One test credit saves a wasted game.
• The classics are cheapest. Pac-Man, Galaga, the old cabinets — usually the lowest price per play and still the most fun per minute.
• Learn the ticket-to-prize math. Glance at the prize counter before playing ticket games. If the math horrifies you, play the video games instead.

Good to know

We searched about 40 km around Charlotte — that covers the town itself plus the surrounding communities you'd reasonably drive to. Listings come from OpenStreetMap, mapped by local volunteers, so a brand-new arcade in Charlotte can take a while to appear. Spotted a closure among the 14, or a arcade we missed entirely? The map is the source of truth here — one OpenStreetMap edit corrects it for everyone.

We don't list machine lineups — they change too often. What we list is the where: real venues, verified by real mappers.

If you run one of the 14 listed here and something's wrong — a closure, a move, new hours — the fix is the same: update the shop on OpenStreetMap and the correction flows through to this page on the next daily refresh.