'A gift to the community': Local dentist reaches out to kids with 'retrocade'


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ROY — It's a place no one wants to go. He's a man no one wants to see.

"Most of our patients don't want to be here," said Dr. James Anderson, while tending to a patient's teeth in his dental office.

"They're afraid of you, they're afraid of what you're going to do," Anderson said.

But Anderson knows his job is essential. For most dentists, that's enough — but not for him. He's started 10 dental practices, and sold nine of them. He says his father instilled an entrepreneurial spirit in him.

Anderson's now started yet another business ‚ and it doesn't have anything to do with teeth.

"It's a classic arcade," he said. "Brought back in time."

Anderson has surrounded himself with ancient artifacts of the 1980s, reanimated — his latest business venture is called "Flynn's Retrocade," taking a bit of inspiration from the 1982 movie "Tron."

Anderson says he's trying to fill what he saw as a cavity in his town.

"We built this as a gift to the community just to break even," he said. "Our goal is to have a safe place for families to come and enjoy themselves, and bring back memories for people from my generation."

Resurrecting these relics is all the rage these days — merging drinks and old games into a new union, called an "arcade bar."

"They're alcohol places, and kids can't be there," Anderson said.

Kids: that's who he wanted to appreciate these games. Instead of alcohol, his version of an "arcade bar" only sells soda. But would kids even care about games that haven't been popular since the end of the Cold War?

"Yeah, I was worried that that might not happen," he said.

But opening day proved otherwise.

"It was packed! I was so surprised."

Anderson's arcade is a gift to kids, and a gift to the community — but also, a gift to himself. He says he didn't just buy these games to open an arcade — they were already his.

"They were in my basement," he said. "My sweet wife let me have them there."

A man no one wants to see built a place everyone wants to go. And for him, there's also a bit of an added bonus.

"Sometimes if a patient doesn't show up, I'll come over here and see if I can beat somebody's high score."

Because when someone with a toothache is too scared of Dr. Anderson, his prized arcade games are now a lot closer than his basement — they're just two doors down.

"I thought it was time that these games come home," he said. "That they come back to the public. It makes me feel good."

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