The inside of the building at 7 Main St. in Washington is a feast for the senses. Rows and rows of electronic games flash in lights of every color imaginable.
A virtual reality rig waits to whisk you away to brave King Kong’s island, while dinging and buzzing arcade staples like skee-ball and Pac-Man stand nearby. A central prize booth is lined with stuffed toys that get bigger and bigger the higher up you look. Fountains and taps offer soda and booze galore.
All the space needs now is people.
The all-ages arcade, known as The Alley Next Level, will host an opening extravaganza this weekend, hoping to draw curious gamers from all over Franklin County and beyond. The debut of The Alley Next Level marks the first stage in a multiyear, multimillion dollar entertainment development of a cluster of properties in downtown Washington, including the former home of Missourian Media Group.
The family behind the development are Lisa Greife, her husband Dale, and Dale’s brothers Chad and Nick — the same family behind the River Sirens Hotel which opened in 2021. Greife said her husband’s brothers will oversee The Alley Next Level while she and Dale continue to work on the Alley’s main property across the street.
Just inside the doors of the arcade, roughly 100 seats face a large central stage, which will host two live musical acts during the kickoff this weekend—the Ed Callison Trio on Friday and the Jimmy Band on Saturday. Both performances start at 7 p.m. The stage will also welcome radio personalities from 105.7 The Point starting at 4 p.m. on Saturday.
Beside the stage, the kitchen and the bar operate out of a booth painted to look like a food truck. Greife said that this addition, combined with the Astroturf carpet of the seating, was meant to create a garden atmosphere without the heat and humidity of the summer.
“We wanted this to feel outdoor, like an amphitheater,” Greife told The Missourian. Around the corner lies an area for adults only, offering pool tables, darts and so-called “skill games” for patrons 21 and older. The pool tables will host local billiard artist Charlie Darling, known as “Spit Ball Charlie,” for shows of his trick shots on Friday and Saturday evenings at 6:30 p.m.
The Greifes spared no expense building a high-tech environment for The Alley Next Level, and the bar is no exception. Patrons can select their beer, wine or pre-mixed cocktails on a tablet and self-serve from a corresponding tap, paying for their drink by the ounce. Nearby, a completely automated cotton candy machine will weave bright pink and blue flowers out of sugar.
One of the final touches that remains for The Alley Next Level, which Greife hopes will be completed soon, is a dedicated zone for younger children. It will feature a virtual aquarium projected onto the walls and tables where kids can virtually “paint” their own fishes to add to the swimming school.
It’s a colossal vision which, in the initial plans for The Alley, wasn’t even supposed to be located in this space. Greife’s husband Dale previously told The Missourian that the developers have remained “pretty dynamic” with their decision-making throughout the project. Greife herself added that this space is allowing the team to test-run the arcade before integrating it with the other entertainment options that will be available in the permanent location for The Alley, including duckpin bowling and a 600-seat concert venue.
“When the situation changes, you make adjustments,” Dale Greife said earlier in July.
The plan is to move the arcade across the street once that venue is complete.
One of the most unique things about The Alley Next Level is its focus on virtual reality (VR). A huge corner of the arcade floor is a dedicated VR space, the creation of which was overseen by Nick Greife. The process of deciding which 10 games and 10 virtual escape rooms to offer patrons and preparing them for The Alley Next Level took him around four months, he said.
He said that he hopes The Alley Next Level can offer an opportunity to try out something that most people have only heard about — and might be intimidated by.
“People might be thinking, ‘Oh, this is very foreign to me, I don’t want to try this because it’s so new,’ ” he said. “But escape rooms, everybody’s kind of heard of, so a lot of people are willing to try that. It gets them introduced to the whole virtual reality world.”
Friends of the owners were checking out the space on Monday afternoon, and local resident Nancy Kossmann tried virtual reality for the first time.
“I thought it was really interesting—we were all chefs in a kitchen,” Kossmann said with a laugh, describing the game she was playing on the VR headset.
“It’s really fun, but I bet it’s probably even more fun to be sitting here watching people” on the large television screen that shows what participants are seeing in their headsets, she added.
The developers are betting big that their virtual wonderland will bring in business. Lisa Greife estimates that roughly $1 million of their budget for the whole complex went into creating The Alley Next Level — 40 different arcade games, three pool tables, five dart boards and the huge area for VR fill the floor. The arcade will be open 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week.
Lisa Greife has previously voiced her hopes to the Missourian that the novel space will draw people not just from around Franklin County, but from St. Louis and even other states. For those who live locally, she said, The Alley Next Level will offer weekly entertainment with everything from live bands to billiards leagues.
Lisa Greife believes that the arcade can help spur more investment in Washington’s downtown and act as a central hub for entertainment in the town.