Button Mash, a bar and restaurant in Los Angeles' Echo Park neighborhood that features an array of classic video game cabinets and pinball machines alongside its food and beverage offerings, has teamed with collectible company iam8bit to raise funds to help the struggling business amid the coronavirus pandemic.offers a range of collectibles, cookbooks, in-store tokens, comics, soundtracks and more.
Button Mash and iam8bit have had a close relationship since the restaurant first opened in 2015, with the collectibles company subleasing a small room in the bar and operating its own shop. "We furloughed almost our entire staff," says Weiss. "We're really just running the place with myself, Gabe Fowlkes, my co-owner, two people in the kitchen and a little bit of extra help on certain days when needed. We went from a staff of 30, not including Gabe and myself, to two."
"They've extended a lot to the customers and made it seem like they're trying to help, but offering free delivery to [customers] doesn't do much to help the restaurant itself," he says. "One of the conversations that's starting to emerge as people find time to focus on it is, these businesses are very predatory. They take a pretty significant cut."