How to Have a Totally Rad 80s Date Night

It’s 80s month here at Kind of Going Places, and we here at Kind of Going Places have put together a totally rad 80s date night for you. So grab your finest neon outfit and hair spay and let’s get to it!

Set the Scene

The 1980s was a time of vibrant colors, and a great time to rock the neons. Geometric shapes of purples, oranges, bright pinks and greens were everywhere. 

From roller skates to MTV to mix tapes, if you’re looking for some fun nostalgic props, check out this bundle.

Rock the Tunes

You can’t have an 80’s date night without an epic soundtrack. The music of the 1980s is a world of its own, from hair bands to ballads. Lucky for you, we’ve made you an awesome playlist to get your date night started!

What to Wear

Ah, there’s nothing quite like 1980s fashion. Big hair, more neon, fanny packs, leg warmers, bangles…no matter how you look at it the 1980s were full of color and fun. If you’re looking to put together an awesome 1980s outfit, we’ve got some tips for you.

Ladies: The bigger the hair the better. Hairspray was key in the 80s. Or feel free to rock the pony tail with a scrunchy for the win. For a casual look, try colorful leggings with colorful leg warmers, off the shoulder shirts, leotards, tutus, fishnet gloves and big hoop earrings. For a dressier look, try a short miniskirt or tubular dress, bolero style jackets, and don’t forget the shoulder pads!

Fellas: Now is the time to break out those parachute pants! Bright color shades, tank tops, polo shirts, were the rage. For a classier look, men wore oversized blazers, pinstripe suits, and for an added twist, they rocked suspenders with a tie. For business casual style, men typically wore a t-shirt under their suit jacket.

What to Eat

You can’t have an 80s date night without thinking of the menu! The 1980s may not have been the perfect image for a healthy diet, but it sure was delicious. For a classic yet casual 80s date night, we opted for the following:

Breakfast: We decided to skip the health factor for our 80s date night and embrace nostalgia instead. So we kicked our date off with a Pillsbury Toaster Strudel for breakfast – blueberry of course.

Snacks: This was another easy one for us. English muffin pizzas were personal favorites of us both. For the record, they’re still delicious.

Meal: Here at KOGP, we believe there is beauty in simplicity, so an easy choice for us was sloppy Joes. Here’s a great recipe we found from Natasha’s Kitchen.

Dessert: Keeping with our theme of classically fun, we immediately locked in on the idea of Twinkies for dessert. Neither of us have had a Twinkie in decades, so we got pretty excited about this. Thankfully we found a small pack of Twinkies so we didn’t have to indulge in an entire box. It was a great walk down memory lane.

More food and fun: Other fun 80s date night (albeit not the healthiest) snacks to indulge in include pizza rolls, pudding pops, beef stroganoff and fondue!

Rad Fun

We already covered the tunes for your 80s date night above, but there’s plenty of other ways to enjoy the day!

Pepsi Challenge: We wanted to do something simple and fun and instantly we both thought of the Pepsi challenge. In the 1980s, Pepsi launched a campaign to give participants a blind taste to see which they preferred between Pepsi and Coke. We got a small bottle of each and made our own test box. For the record, we not only both preferred Coke, but we got it right each time!

Activities: Popular activities in the 1980s included going to the mall, rollerskating, going to the movies, arcades, break dancing, and skateboarding.

Movies: There are lotsssss of amazing movies from the 1980s for your 80s date night.

Childhood nostalgia: Transformers, Care Bears, Labyrinth, Never Ending Story, E.T., The Land Before Time, The Little Mermaid, and so many more.

Classics: The Breakfast Club, Scarface, Heathers, Top Gun, Wise Guys, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Full Metal Jacket, Stand By Me, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Closing Time

We hope you enjoyed this breakdown for how to have an epic 80s themed date night. Let us know if you created your own! If you loved this and want to give more a try, check out our 90s inspired Sleepover Themed date night.