Goodbye to Good Time

For 17 years, the good times rolled in Assembly Square, with everything from Skee-ball to bowling.

But today is the last day Good Time Emporium will open its doors in Somerville to eventually make way for an Ikea, leaving many customers wondering yesterday where they will go now to find the same one-stop-shop for family entertainment.

Tamielle Greene, 26, of West Roxbury, recalled coming to the arcade when she was young. Nowadays, she brings her two sons.

“It’s really sad,” Greene said yesterday, as her 4-year-old son, Jathan, rocked back and forth on a mechanical ride. “There’s really no other place like this for adults and kids.”

Indeed, the Good Time Emporium has catered to both young and old fun-seekers, with arcade games, laser tag and batting cages as well as a sports bar and pool tables.

Over the years, it’s drawn big crowds to watch sporting events, and at times it had been known as a rough area where fights break out. This year, for instance, a brawl erupted on Easter Sunday.

But now that Good Time’s lease has not been renewed, managers are reportedly looking at the Westgate Mall in Brockton as a new location — one with three times as much as space.

City officials in Somerville envision one day a revitalized Assembly Square Marketplace, which now hosts several chain stores, such as Home Depot, spread out among other abandoned buildings, including a former cinema. But customers yesterday still wished there were some way the Good Time could stay.

“People come from all over to be here — Everett, Revere, Cambridge,” said 29-year-old Evan Dasilva of Brookline, who visited yesterday with his nephew. “It’s too bad.”