Partners Langston Domond and Nia Williams want to get people playing.
Domond, 22, and Williams, 21, said that as Brooklyn natives living in Oneonta, they hope to fill a gap.
The pair launched art and gaming shop Palette Play & Arcade, 277 Main St., Oneonta, in early June.
“It was a combination of professional and personal,” said Domond, a student at SUNY Oneonta. “We both always enjoyed artistic things like sip ‘n’ paints as dates, and gaming dates. I’m more so the gamer and she’s the artistic one.”
“Especially when we got to college, there was not much to do other than bars, and we don’t really like that scene,” Williams said. “So, we wanted to create something that was comfortable for kids not interested in the bars.
“We spent some time in Binghamton before we got to Oneonta and, even though Binghamton is small, we found things to do,” she continued. “And Oneonta seemed like it was such a huge art town and I loved art as a kid but didn’t exactly get to pursue it so was like, ‘We’re in a town with art, so why not?’”
Domond said that the pair has been renovating the space for eight months, having begun “in November of last year, while we were still in school.”
The space, Domond and Williams said, lives up to its name.
“Our space offers sip ‘n’ paint classes as well as creative classes where people can come in and create whatever the theme is,” he said.
The arcade section features two retro emulators — old-school gaming devices that feature older arcade games like PacMan — as well as an air-hockey table, a basketball two-person shooting game and two standup arcade cabinets — Street Fighter and The Fast and the Furious.
“We’ll start by doing gaming-inspired or theme-of-the-day canvases,” Williams said, “and we’ll give you all the supplies — paint brushes and aprons — and you do your own thing, or we have instructors to do instructor-led classes. And we have a board game section for people not into arcades.”
Beyond games, Palette Play & Arcade plans to offer a variety of frozen drinks and snacks, like soft pretzel bites, mozzarella sticks, nachos, sandwiches and other grab-and-go items.
A “snack ‘n’ play” package is offered for board gamers. Williams said that they are waiting for a wine and beer license.
Domond and Williams said community interest has been keen.
“Everyone who’s seen the space has said, ‘This is a good idea,’ and something they’re looking to support,” he said, adding that June 8 marked the grand opening.
“We just need to get our name out, now that we’ve worked so hard on the space itself,” Williams said.
Customers, they said, have been primarily “a lot of locals.”
“We want to create this environment for everyone, but we are aiming for kids our age, which we created this for,” Williams said, “but everyone is welcome. Toward later in the evening, it is more adult, but, during the day, it’s definitely more kid-friendly.”
Domond and Williams said that as they establish Palette Play & Arcade, they hope to grow.
“We are interested in hosting tournaments, not only for gaming, but for the art side,” Domond said. “For tournaments for the arcade, it would be Street Fighter or Fast and the Furious; (for the art), we would kind of have everybody do a theme and, whoever can recreate it best, they would either get their work displayed in the front of our store space or receive a prize.”
“Also, being that we are SUCO students, we would like to partner with SUNY Oneonta,” he continued. “We were talking to the SUNY gallery about how we could infuse some art practices with them into our space and possibly get art students as interns.”
“We hope to expand to other college towns that might not have as much things to do,” Williams said. “It’s a whole ‘have fun’ feel.”
Palette Play & Arcade is open 2-9 p.m. Tuesdays to Thursdays, 2-10 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays and noon to 6 p.m. Sundays.
For more information, visit paletteplayarcade.com, find “Palette Play & Arcade” on Facebook, follow @palettelplayarcade on Instagram or call 607-431-8245.
