Fanon:Amar's Hangout

"Yo, what's up? Looking for the place to be?? Come to Amar's Hangout — THE place to be! Owned by none other than Amar Newbie the Servo, an awesome hangout spot awaits you!" Amar's Hangout is a community lot in SimVille, owned by Amar Newbie. It is the only owned venue in SimVille, and is Amar's largest owned community lot. Given the amount of time he spends there, it is also evident that this is his favourite business lot.

History
The lot was Amar's first forays into the world of owned businesses. Initially, he aspired to combine as many facilities into one place as possible, and the lot sold crafted goods such as robots, toys, and flowers alongside its recreational offerings. The lot began with three floors, with the third floor being almost completely reserved for employees. Gradually, as Amar amassed more wealth and began opening up more businesses elsewhere in town, he moved the production and sales of crafted goods to other, more dedicated lots, and Amar's Hangout became solely a venue, focused exclusively on having fun. The crafting room, initially located on the third floor, was removed, and a gym was constructed in its place, opening up more of the third floor to guests. Amar's Hangout gradually saw more additions and expansions, each building on top of existing development. This resulted in a disorienting layout, as the lot had initially only been designed with two accessible floors for guests, with the third being almost completely reserved.

In 2019, several parts of the lot were redesigned to include elevators and a more coherent, logical, and consistent layout in order to accommodate a fourth floor with more recreational facilities. The lot still bears some signs of its short-lived past, such as the cash register located near the main entrance and the old crafting room—now a storage room—on the third floor.

Original MTS post
The following was posted to ModTheSims on May 29, 2017. The original post can be found here.

Amar's Hangout

I thought I'd take a little break from playing the Sims themselves and focus on the lots a little bit. First up: Amar's Hangout.



Yo, what's up? Looking for the place to be?? Come to Amar's Hangout — THE place to be! Owned by none other than Amar Newbie the Servo, an awesome hangout spot awaits you!

Amar's Hangout is the largest and oldest of Amar Newbie's businesses, and judging by the amount of time he spends there, it's also his favourite lot out of them all. Amar's Hangout is currently a venue, although it had masqueraded as a shop selling craftable items at one point in time. When Amar opened more businesses and moved the business of selling items to another lot, he decided to turn Amar's Hangout into a fully-fledged venue, selling the opportunity to have fun rather than a toy car. Amar's Hangout is open 7 days a week from 9AM to 12AM, and all are welcome to enter! ...well, except Serge Barb, but if your name isn't Serge Barb, Amar's Hangout welcomes you!

Now that you're here, let's go on a brief tour of the place, shall we?


 * First floor



Don't be fooled by the amount of doors here; even though it looks open, you still can't just waltz in without paying. Two Bandatrons are located near the main entrance selling tickets that let Sims legally enter. Tickets cost §25 an hour and must be shown when requested. Failure to produce a valid ticket will result in a flat §500 fine.



Selling entry is generally very easy since the lot is filled with motive-boosting items; things venues are expected to have. Granted, I still get the occasional customer that wants to buy a plastic watch, and are disappointed to hear that this place is a hangout spot, not a shop! They become unhappy... then they go and play pool and next thing you know they have two customer loyalty stars. Hehe.

To the left of the main entrance is a counter with an unstaffed cash register. This is a legacy of the early days when Amar's Hangout used to sell things. The store shelves are long gone, but the cash register remains. I liken it to an information/welcome desk that customers can use to get help from.



Past the information desk are four private music rooms, each housing only one musical instrument and no chairs. They're good for Sims looking for a quiet place to practice in. And if they ever get tired, there are vending machines selling sodas and snacks just outside their doors!



Amar's Hangout also has some outdoor activities for those who aren't afraid of a little sun... or moonlight, if they're vampires. The hangout offers a soccer goalpost, a basketball net, a monkey bars set, and a swimming pool. While it may not be the largest "park" in SimVille, it certainly does keep Sims occupied long enough to feel like they're getting what they paid for.



On the other side of the lot lies a restaurant. Even though Amar owns a dedicated restaurant lot elsewhere, he still keeps this one running since a hungry guest is an unhappy guest! The restaurant features four booths in the middle, along with a bar that has a few countertops available for Sims who prefer staring at a bartender over staring at white tablecloth. The bar is staffed too, so Sims can order drinks when they're finished their meal.



Amar's Hangout has the nicest restaurant kitchen in the hood, hands down. The kitchen is off-limits to customers, though as with any restaurant, customers will still violate door locking settings to tip servers. Thankfully they walk straight out afterwards instead of leaving food on the stove for a bonfire to start.



Additional seating can be found outdoors. When the restaurant is busy the host will usually seat arriving customers outside, but otherwise this place actually doesn't see a lot of traffic. There is a commercial coffeemaker staffed by a barista that serves Sims looking to get some caffeine after being drained from having too much fun.



The main stairway is located in front of the main entrance. Behind those stairs is an almost completely unknown fishing pond. The pond is open to the public, but fishing's not really a popular pastime in SimVille, so it's not used that often. The Newbies still fish in it from time to time though.


 * Second floor



Up the main stairway, into a new level of entertainment! The east wing has largely been left unchanged since Amar's Hangout first opened. The west wing used to be where the store shelves were, selling craftables like robots and toys.



The east wing contains two pool tables, some tables and chairs, a bubble bar, and a Fruit Punch Barrel. There's also another commercial coffeemaker, another bar, and a buffet table that's stocked during the lunch and evening hours. A wall-mounted TV with a video gaming console exists for the social gamers wanting to play together.



There's another set of washrooms for Sims to use, just so they don't have to go trekking downstairs in order to pee. There's also another kitchen up here that's connected to the one downstairs by a flight of stairs. It's off-limits to customers and it generally isn't used, although the servers do climb up the stairs to clean up the dirty dishes left behind by guests feasting from the buffet table. After hours, the Servos often spend some time preparing food for Fresh Rush Grocery, Amar's grocery store that also sells pre-cooked meals for those who don't have time to cook but can't stand for takeout.



In the west wing (sans the store shelves), there are some computer desks, pinball machines, and more musical fun. There's a karaoke machine for those who are willing to show the world their amazing singing voice... or just sing like a drunken pirate that spent the night in a longboat hanging precariously off the starboard side of the ship. The room next to that is a band music room with a drumkit, a guitar, a bass, and a piano. This is also the room that The Servo Band used to practice in before the music room back home was constructed. Now you can perform in a piece of Newbie history today!



Behold! The great Tribal Flame a la Coconut Pinball machine adorns the gaming room of Amar's Hangout! Fire! Lava! Smoke! Intensity!!! Be careful as you anger the tiki spirits! Have some fun, and earn some Simoleons ... Er, sorry, ***CORRECTION*** YOU do not earn the Simoleons — the business does! Amar's Hangout is actually a net loss for Amar; the business is supported by Amar's other, more lucrative enterprises. Amar sees his popular hangout spot as a way to give back to the community, but YOU can give back to Amar too! Come back when you're bored as nuts and then PLAY this machine like it's the best thing that's ever happened to you!


 * Third floor



The third floor used to be almost completely reserved for employees only, but as the hangout grew in popularity, Amar decided it was time to expand the business upstairs, and heavily renovated the place. It's still one of the quietest floors on the lot... at least until the gym was constructed.



While there are better and larger gyms than this one, the more athletic Sims in town finally got what they asked for. The treadmills are the main highlight, given how Sims are weightlifting weenies but have no trouble with falling down on a moving belt. There are also three punching bags here. One of them is the Exerto Punching Bag career reward that shipped with the game. The other two are one-tiled ceiling mounted punching bags from MTS.



In the west wing there's a small nightclub, complete with lights, dance sphere, and a DJ booth. The DJ is usually one of the Servos, and they always rotate. A Servo's endurance also means that the DJ booth is staffed at all hours of the day... or at least, the hours when the hangout is open. And yes, the nightclub also has seen relatively little change since the hangout was built.



Here's the crafting room... or what's left of it. The crafting room used to take up the space where the gym now resides, and the office used to be located where the third floor bathrooms are right now. When Amar's Hangout stopped selling craftables, the crafting stations are now moot, so the room they were in was shrunk, and the extra stations sold off. Now they are here, gathering dust for the most part. The Newbies still use this room on occasion to craft items for their other businesses when their inventory runs low. Amar has plans on cleaning up this room and opening it to the public, but that's not a high priority right now.

On the bottom left you can see the office. It's seldom used (Since it would seem that Sims do not have to do the bookkeeping and accounting aspects of running a business... since that would be BORING), and it's not very impressive, but if a Newbie needed a computer to use in private, they have one at their disposal.



The employee break room is here, and it's equipped with a mini-fridge, a TV, couches, a table with chairs, and even a food replicator I got from the Booty. The stairs lead down to the two kitchens, so exhausted restaurant staff need not disturb the other customers during their trek to luxury at work.



Amar's Hangout also has two private showers for employees, and they're actually nicer than the public ones downstairs (Which were installed ad hoc and without much planning, I admit). The bathrooms here are also available for exclusive use by the employees.


 * Conclusion

Phew! Taking pictures was a lot of work! Anyways, there are more images of this lot up on The Sims Wiki, so if you're interested, have a look. Hopefully I'll be able to get another family done soon!

Other MTS posts

 * Revamping Amar's Hangout (Original)