Sanpete has been speedily growing over the past years. With new editions culinary-wise, new apartments and hotels being built, and now an arcade in downtown Mt. Pleasant called High Five arcade. Olivia Fredrickson and her husband are the owners of this arcade. The new hangout includes high quality prizes, refurbished arcade machines such as PacMan, SkiBall, and a game inspired from the show “The Simpsons.”
“I think I’ve always liked arcades,” Fredickson said. “My first time I went to an arcade was on a family trip down in Arizona and it brought my family closer together.”
Arcades have been a staple in many childhoods. Including some of our teachers at NS.
“I tried going to arcades as often as I could,” seminary teacher Spencer Magelby said. “Once upon a time I was eleven years old; I went to an arcade with the young men, we were doing a bunch of games and stuff and two big things happened. One was that I almost got a high score on the ski-ball game, and I was just draining
it like crazy. The other thing is that I got a jackpot, and I was able to get two important things because I had just enough tickets. I got two whoopy cushions and all the way home my friends and I were trying to annoy my leader by using them.”
Teachers are not the only ones that like going to arcades. Sixty percent of the students at NS know about the new arcade, 50 percent have gone, and 75 percent are planning on going.
“I have a lot of fun memories with arcades,” freshman Ashlin Hales said. “I’m definitely going to go to the new arcade once it cools down with the opening and stuff, and when there’s not so many people there.”
Many people believe that once you get older you can’t really go to arcades unless you go with a younger
audience. Fredrickson disagrees with this statement.
“Arcades are definitely for people of all ages,” Fredrickson said. “Everyone deserves to have fun. The first thing that drives people to High Five Arcade is our location. This is a really old and cool building. We have classic games and it’s just another option if anyone feels like they want to hang out and have fun.”
Arcades have been a timeless place of entertainment and it’s showing with an estimated amount of 7,000 arcade businesses across the U.S and it brings in $60 billion dollars per year.
“When I went to the [High Five] arcade I spent around $16 on it,” senior Brooke Syme said. “It was really nice to be able to buy a day pass instead of just paying however many quarters per game because usually if I pay per game I don’t want to spend money on a game I’m not sure I’m going to enjoy, but with this arcade I can just go enjoy it while knowing I already spent the money I need.”
Many of the games at the “High Five Arcade” are free to enjoy if you have a day pass. They have an assortment of food and prizes that you can buy for little money and you can create new memories with those you love.
“I think it was worth it to go just to see little Callie happy,” Syme said. “I’ll probably go again with a different group of people because if I go with my sister again it’s like been there done that. Overall, it was really fun
and I recommend it to everyone.”