Building Arcade Nostalgia & Community Into Business At Pinballz

Pinballz is a series of three establishments that began with the home location in Austin, Texas in 2010. As you might expect, their claim to fame is pinball machines. How many machines? Across all three locations, there are well over 200 working pinball machines arranged in beautiful rows of color, lights, effects, art, and mechanics. That’s not including old-school arcades either. The Pinballz universe shares every age group of exciting, score-slaying arcade machine to suit all kinds. They have their share of ticket games, prize games, and other attractions too, but Pinballz is a rare bird where those games don’t make up the majority. The Pinballz crew know what they do and they invite all kinds to their party.

With such an awesome set-up, we were itching to get out there and see it all. Thankfully, owners Darren and Mikki Spohn, and Marketing Manager Gregg Primm were willing to share the whole thing with us. Not only did they take us through the original, Lake Creek Pinballz location, they, also, sat down and talked to us at length about how this awesome collection of yesteryear and contemporary arcade machines came together.

Where Did It Start?

According to Darren, owning a pinball machine had long been a bit of a desire of his. He intended to start small, but things quickly went beyond one or two machines in the garage.

“I wanted my own pinball machines for years,” Darren explained. “I went out and bought a couple online. Originally, I had only planned to buy two, but I ended up with seven or eight of them and they were all being mailed over. I took Mikki out to dinner and told her ‘I have some news. I got a pinball machine. Could we put it in the house?’ She gave me the green light and that’s when I told her, ‘okay, what if it was more like seven machines arriving tomorrow?’ She was surprisingly okay with it. And the more we played them, the more they reminded us of good old days. It wasn’t long before I decided I wanted to collect even more machines. I have a little bit of an obsessive compulsive personality for collecting things like this.”

From that spur-of-the-moment starting point, the Spohns began to hunt down machines where they could. Before they knew it, they had a decent set of machines and an idea stirred.

“We were amassing a collection,” Darren continued. “And we decided in September 2010, ‘hey, what if we open up a little arcade with what we’ve got?’ We had some property we had just secured for a technology and security company we were running, so we decided to co-locate it to that building. Our original store pitch was classic arcades, pinball machines, and other ticket games.”

It wasn’t simply Darren’s plan to share their collection with others there. It happened to be that there was another opportunity – An awesome opportunity for the entire Spohn family.

“We have two boys, and at the time they were coming to the age where they needed to get jobs and learn how to work,” Darren explained. “So we thought it’d be a good fit as well. It wasn’t like we had to twist their arms to get them to work at an arcade.”

Nurturing A Pinballz Community

Indeed, as we walked around Pinballz in both Austin and Lake Creek, we actually saw Pinballz employees doing regular maintenance on machines on the floor, making sure they were well-oiled, fine-tuned, and in stellar working fashion that persisted throughout most of the collection. Darren and Mikki are folks that love and care for their product. Even beyond their kids, the community and staff that has built up around Pinballz responds well to that passion.

“Austin was a perfect place to do this,” Mikki said of the community. “It’s already got a very retro mindset to it and there were already a lot of gamers and gaming companies here. So it made for a very good place to start. We love this stuff and the people who come in are almost as, if not more enthusiastic as well.”

“Austin also has a very particular feel that you’ll only find in places like Seattle or Portland,” Darren added. “They say ‘keep Austin weird,’ but there’s more to it than that. There’s a special kind of attraction to family-owned and family-run establishment. Places like Dave & Buster’s are what they are, but this is more of a community-oriented business. We’re not going to make tons of money, but we’ll certainly have fun doing what we do.”

With all of this talk of community, we had to know what Pinballz does to get people together. According to Darren, there are a ton of regular events throughout Pinballz locations that invite like-minded people to join in the fun – Sometimes for competition and sometimes for a good cause.

“We run regular tournaments,” Darren answered when asked of Pinballz events. “Most of them are International Flipper Pinball Association (IFPA)-certified. We usually have the correct machines on hand for them, so there are a lot of industry-certified events going on regularly. We also do fundraisers. Some great players come in here and compete because they put up scores on the international level, but we also get some great folks together for good causes. We like to put in towards the Austin Humane Society. That’s our charity of choice because we feel it’s one of the best ways to give back to the community around us.”

According to Mikki, there’s also a bit of league action in the Pinballz community that offers options for all ages and skill levels.

“We do several different level leagues,” Mikki explained. “We know some of our fan base are incredibly good players, but we also invite enthusiasts who are a little bit more green to get into it, so there are novice, intermediate, and expert leagues for all players. We have one of the largest collections of classic arcade games and pinball machines in the state, if not the country, so we draw a lot of considerable talent and skill around those games.”

The league and community scene isn’t confined to the original location or the old-school games either. One of growing events in the Pinballz location features a modern machine built on retro style called Killer Queen. Killer Queen is a 10-player, 5-on-5 arcade that plays similar to Joust, and the growing league around it is one of the things that brought Marketing Manager Gregg Primm deep into the Pinballz community.

“The machine I play the most by far is Killer Queen,” Gregg explained. “It’s unique because it’s so socially-oriented and a great way to get together with a lot of people. It’s the only modern arcade we keep near the retro games because it’s easy to spot all the nods it gives to old-school games. It’s got the Joust vibe and there’s a sort of Mario Bros running and jumping feel to it, among other things. There are three ways to win and a bunch of characters to choose that do different things, so there’s a little strategy there too where you have to work together with your pals and thwart the other side from being able to get through to one of those victory conditions. When we get together for the Killer Queen ATX league, it’s really something spectacular.”

The Killer Queen ATX is a growing league of over 50 people with sponsored tournaments and events that invite new players to join in the fun. Gregg took us briefly through what the league is up to and how the group brings more and more people in to give Killer Queen a try.

“Monday we’re playing competitively and gearing up for a league tournament,” Gregg continued. “That’s where a lot of the regulars are, but the first Fridays of a month are a great night to get introduced to it. That’s when the league does a more casual night called First Friday Free Play. Killer Queen doesn’t really work well without a lot of people playing, but a 5 vs 5 arcade game can be daunting for someone who has never played before and isn’t sure what to do. People are really nervous to try it and mess up the game for everybody else. So we came up with the idea of putting the machine on free play for three hours on the first Friday of every month. It eliminates that risk and fear of messing up and people are more willing to jump in and have a good time.”

The Prized Collection

With so many cool machines to speak of, we had to ask what some of the rarest and interesting machines of the Pinballz universe were. Darren was happy to share with us some of the crown jewels of his collection.

“The hardest one to get initially was Medieval Madness,” Darren explained. “It was a top-tier machine and really expensive at around $7,500. We got our first one in 2012. The game came from the 1990s when there was sort of a golden age of pinball. They were making some killer machines that could never be replaced. It just has a simple medieval theme to it, but the shots, mechanics, and effects make it a very unique and fun game. Among the rarest of the pinball machines we have are actually two Defender pinball machines. There were only around 350 of these made and we have two copies of it. We’ll move one or the other out of storage now and then and let people have a crack at it now and then.”

One of the more interesting among the bunch was a Hercules pinball machine. This machine is enormous, featuring oversized buttons, bumpers, and mechanics. According to Mikki and Darren, it’s not only rare, but a little precious.

“Hercules which was one of Atari’s last pinball machines,” Mikki explained.

“That was another of which there were only around 600 made and we have them at each of our locations and one spare one,” Darren added. “That’s one’s tough to come by as well because these machines have what you might call ‘unobtainium’ parts that make them difficult to maintain if anything breaks.”

Rareness aside, we had to ask what catches the eye of a pinball collectors and enthusiasts like Darren and Mikki. Both had more than a little to say about their favorite part of the job.

“For me, there’s nothing more spectacular to me than the third ball,” Darren began. “And what I mean by that is that nearly every pinball game gives you three balls to play, and it’s all about one good ball. You’ll see people come in and have a bad first couple balls and on that third ball they’ll just dominate. You only need one good one to really turn the game around and I’ve seen players do it so many times. They’ll actually be like Tommy & The Who where they could literally just close their eyes and still do no wrong on their shots for that particular ball. Seeing that one good third ball when someone just kills it is a moment that really makes me happy.

“There’s also just the experiences we’ve had and the people you meet in this business,” Mikki added. “We’ve met ridiculously famous people through this business that have reached out to us looking for particular machines.”

That brought up an interesting point. It turns out nearly every pinball machine or arcade on the floor of Pinballz has a price tag and the Spohns are willing to part with a machine if someone is willing to pay the price. They’ve actually managed to sell quite a few machines to collectors and enthusiasts. That said, their client base includes some incredible names, as Mikki proceeded to drop a bombshell of a claim next about the people who had reached out to them.

“Stephen Spielberg bought two or three different pinball machines from us,” Mikki explained. “We’ve shipped machines to J.J. Abrams and Elijah Wood as well.”

Even a-list celebrities have time to run the bumpers and flippers now and then it would seem.

A Little Bit Of Everything For Everyone

Though Mikki and Darren were fairly happy with what they had built in their original location, they didn’t sit on their laurels. There were other things they wanted to do with what they had built and unfortunately, the original location simply couldn’t allow for it. So, they looked for opportunities elsewhere.

“Once we had proof-of-concept with our original location,” Mikki explained. “We wanted to expand into a situation where we could do food and drinks, but it was tough with our original spot because Austin is one of the toughest cities to get permits in. So we started looking for property outside the city limit.”

That’s when they came across a fairly decent plot of land south of Austin.

“We ended up finding property one mile outside of Buda, Texas that had indoor and outdoor opportunities,” Darren said, referring to the second location, Pinballz Kingdom. “So we were able to do outdoor attractions as well with that place. We were also able to do a scratch kitchen and a full bar there that stay open till 2AM, which is great for the whole business. Meanwhile, we found a beautiful location up north at Lake Creek that gave us 33,000 square feet. There we did a bar and scratch kitchen as well, but we also added a lot of party and event rooms. It allowed us to continue to keep up the theme of old-school arcades and pinball machines, but also add a ton of other attractions such as laser tag, mini-bowling, and a really great dark ride, just to name a few.”

Truthfully, there is a little bit of attraction for everyone in the Pinballz universe. Gregg Primm further expanded on how the Pinballz team is using the massive space of the Lake Creek location to do even more than just games as well.

“At the Lake Creek location we’ve do stay true to our core, but there’s a lot of other things we’ve branched into as well with the available space,” Gregg explained. “We have live music sometimes, as well as Comedy Sports, which is a nationwide franchise and sort of a Whose Line Is It Anyways?-type comedy show with improve comics and a referee judging, but they also keep it kid-friendly. We also had the Fantasy Poker League host their quarterly tournament here. It was a 150-person all-day event. We have a really diverse crowd of people coming to us for every reason and we’re happy to rise up and meet all comers halfway if we can.”

At the end of the day, the Pinballz Crew really has figured out how to create a fun place for every demographic, from the old to the young, and from the ticket scrapper to the high-scoring arcade and pinball point pusher.

“It really is something we tried to do a little different from our main competitors,” Darren concluded. “They all have niches, but we really do try to offer a little bit of something for everyone at all of our locations. There’s few things more satisfying than seeing a mom or dad with their five or six-year-old kid sitting up on a stool learning about pinball or classic arcade games, but they can just as easily run over to the ticket or redemption games and have fun trying to score tickets and get themselves a prize. There’s an episode of the TV series Mad Men that really spoke to me when one of the characters is showing off a carousel model. It creates that feeling of nostalgia that brings you back to bygone days when things felt really good. You can sell the modern goods, but you can also live in the golden times. And that’s the kind of feeling we want people to feel when they’re in any of the Pinballz locations.”

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We’re happy to see the Pinballz family and crew improve upon the modern arcade model. And if the doors are open and the silver balls are spinning, then it’s a place we here at Twin Galaxies, and many in the rest of Austin, will happily return to over and over. May the scores be high and the third ball be generous.

If you'd like to learn more about Pinballz, be sure to follow them on Facebook and Twitter. You can also find them at the Pinballz website for more info.

Want to check out even more nostalgic action? Check out some of the most interesting Twin Galaxies Atari 2600 records broken in January!