THE former Ingle Farm Bowland will undergo a massive makeover complete with retro arcade games and pinball machines when GameRoom Essentials takes over this week.

The business has secured a permanent lease at the building — in the Ingle Farm Shopping Centre at the corner of Montague and Walkleys roads — and is in the process of stripping the interior to make way for more than 90 pinball and arcade machines from the 1980s and 1990s.

Bowland Ingle Farm closed in June after it went into liquidation with $125,000 of debt.

It will be GameRoom Essentials’ second new outlet in six months — it also has a base at the Craigmore Shopping Centre on Yorktown Rd.

Owner Danny Daly was forced to vacate his original establishment in Gepps Cross in February after Port Adelaide Enfield Council inspectors found the building did not have appropriate approval from the State Government’s Development Assessment Commission.

It also found the building did not comply with the council’s fire and safety regulations.

Mr Daly said the new lease at Ingle Farm Shopping Centre was a huge relief.

He has also added another 40 retro arcade machines, which have been manufactured in China and feature classic games such as Donkey Kong, Pacman and Space Invaders.

“I’m pretty ecstatic about it all actually, it’s a big relief,” Mr Daly said.

“The Ingle Farm shop is closer to the city so it’s more central, and it’s also a purpose-built entertainment building — the Craigmore site was a retail store so it wasn’t really ideal.

“And I love the north, it’s my local community — I have friends here, and they have friends and so the word about our business is then spread, which means more people come to visit.”

Mr Daly said he had been losing about $1000 a week in insurance, liability, rent and website costs prior to moving in to the Craigmore site, and had to cancel $11,000 worth of parties.

It was the second financial blow for the northern suburbs man, after about $30,000 worth of gaming machines were stolen from the Gepps Cross site in July last year.

But Mr Daly is slowly rebuilding his business with plans to keep the Craigmore shop open for another month, eventually hiring new staff at the Ingle Farm site and opening another entertainment venue somewhere in the southern suburbs some time in the future.

“We would love to open another place in the south eventually as the business grows,” he said.

“And we would love to employ some people eventually when we can afford it — we are too small right now, but we have already had about 15 or 16 jobs applications, which is cool.”

GameRoom Essentials will be open to the public next week. Details: 0422 600 193.