80's Bay Area arcades, remember these ?

ArcRevival

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Anyone else here that remembers Lemans Speedway arcade that was in the lower level of Southland Mall in Hayward back in the day ? What about Galaxy in Fremont? ( i think that is what it was called). Would love to get my hands on old pictures of these places.
 
I grew up in the east bay. I would love to see old pictures of Aladdin's Castle in Sun Valley Mall and the arcade next to the Dome theater. Both were located in Concord/Pleasant Hill back in the 80s and early 90s. I think I still have tokens from Aladdin's Castle stored away somewhere.

Southland Mall is now a sorry sight unfortunately. Never went there BITD, but I've gone recently and will most likely never go back. Wish I had seen it when the arcade was in there.
 
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I mostly went to the Galactican arcade near Prospect Rd and Saratoga Ave in SJ. Would love to see pics of it. I also have very fond memories of going to the Pier 39 arcade in SF. My dad had a restaurant on Pier 39 so sometimes we would go there on a Saturday morning and after breakfast my brother and I would go play arcade games.
 
Wonder if the producers of Starcade got that idea since the show taped in the Bay Area?
Oh those were the good ole days. As video games, not even Nintendos nor Playstations can compete with good ole cabinets!
 
In the South San Jose area, we had Time Zone in Oakridge Mall (it became Alddins Castle), Nova in Sunrise Plaza and then later in the early 90's, there was an arcade in Almaden Fashion Plaza and the name escapes me though.

-Tom
 
In the South San Jose area, we had Time Zone in Oakridge Mall (it became Alddins Castle), Nova in Sunrise Plaza and then later in the early 90's, there was an arcade in Almaden Fashion Plaza and the name escapes me though.

-Tom


I think that was galactican yogi owned it.

Also there were a few keystone locations.

At capital square in sj there were 2 one was space shuttle the other I think was a time out or or time zone. They were accross the street.

there was also a family fun center next to k-mart just a few blocks away..

Eastridge also had an arcade.
 
I mostly went to the Galactican arcade near Prospect Rd and Saratoga Ave in SJ. .

I bought my Gilligan's Island pin from Yogi,who owned Galactican and went to H.S. with my uncle.
That was about 8 or 10 years ago at least.
 
I think that was galactican yogi owned it.

Was there more than one galactican then? As I mentioned, the one I went to was right near the intersection of Prospect and Saratoga near the OSH. It never occurred to me that maybe there was more than one. Either of you guys know how to get in touch with yogi? It would be so cool for me personally to hear him tell some stories or share some pics or something. If someone could get him on klov to post about it that would be cool (I think even people who never went to that arcade would enjoy hearing stories from an arcade owner), or heck, if you can share contact info I'd even get a big kick out of contacting him myself. I'd think he'd enjoy hearing from a fan with fond memories of times in his arcade! :)
 
We lost touch with Yogi.
I think he got out of the Arcade business.
I asked my uncle awhile back if he had his number but no go.
 
I remember the Carousel in Monterey had a pretty good arcade going on back in the late 80's, spent a lot of time there while I was in the Army at Ft. Ord.
The bar across the street Macabee Beach would serve me at age 19 and they had a Nintendo red tent inside, a buddy and I would play vs Baseball on it for hours... :)
 
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I lived in Palo Alto so I mostly frequented the arcades that were in adjacent Mountain View. There were 2 primary 'cades: Central Park, and Time Zone.

Later on, CP closed up (around 1984), and TZ became an Aladdin's Castle that lasted until the early 90s if memory serves. There was also one called "The Outer Limits" that opened around 1984, but it only lasted a couple of years.

Others I went to included a Chuck E. Cheese in Sunnyvale (long since gone), and of course Golfland which is still there. Oh yeah, and we sometimes went to the Tressider Union which was the Student Union at Stanford that had a respectable arcade at the time. Last time I was there, it was now a computer lab...even the bowling alley that was there was gone.

Sadly, I never thought to take any pictures of any of these...plus I didn't own a camera :( ...

Oh yeah...and I did frequent the Southland arcade in the mid-90s. They still had a few classics at the time including the only Robotron I knew of that was still out in "the wild." Fortuitously, this Robotron was taken away at almost the same time I was set to move away from Hayward where I was going to graduate school at the time to yet another school out of state that had an arcade that also still had a Robotron :) .

Jon
 
I also remember Galactican near Prospect and Saratoga Ave. It went in around mid 80s, as I recall, and survived into the early 90s.

The original one in the area was in El Paseo de Saratoga - diagonally across the intersection from where Galactican was. I don't recall the name, but it was probably Merlin's Castle or something Castle. It went in sometime in 1979 or 1980 and was the hot arcade of the area. Much bigger than Galactican and always packed after school and on weekends. It always had the latest games and tons of Atari games, given the South Bay location. I even recall playing Indy 800 there.

On the downside, it was also one of the first arcades in the area to start the 3 tokens per dollar crap... Probably did that in 1982.
 
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Was there more than one galactican then? As I mentioned, the one I went to was right near the intersection of Prospect and Saratoga near the OSH. It never occurred to me that maybe there was more than one. Either of you guys know how to get in touch with yogi? It would be so cool for me personally to hear him tell some stories or share some pics or something. If someone could get him on klov to post about it that would be cool (I think even people who never went to that arcade would enjoy hearing stories from an arcade owner), or heck, if you can share contact info I'd even get a big kick out of contacting him myself. I'd think he'd enjoy hearing from a fan with fond memories of times in his arcade! :)

I only went to galactican once. Yogi was closing it down and was selling the games. I was interested in some of the pins and the strikeforce. But strikforce was in a robotron cabinet so it was a pass. I think the pins were too high and I passed on them too.

It was probably the one on prospect and saratoga. Really can't remember.

Yogi dropped off the planet after he closed his showroom. I think he popped up 1 time at a SJ auction.. That was like 7-8 years ago..
 
I lived in Palo Alto so I mostly frequented the arcades that were in adjacent Mountain View. There were 2 primary 'cades: Central Park, and Time Zone.

Later on, CP closed up (around 1984), and TZ became an Aladdin's Castle that lasted until the early 90s if memory serves. There was also one called "The Outer Limits" that opened around 1984, but it only lasted a couple of years.

Others I went to included a Chuck E. Cheese in Sunnyvale (long since gone), and of course Golfland which is still there. Oh yeah, and we sometimes went to the Tressider Union which was the Student Union at Stanford that had a respectable arcade at the time. Last time I was there, it was now a computer lab...even the bowling alley that was there was gone.

Sadly, I never thought to take any pictures of any of these...plus I didn't own a camera :( ...

Oh yeah...and I did frequent the Southland arcade in the mid-90s. They still had a few classics at the time including the only Robotron I knew of that was still out in "the wild." Fortuitously, this Robotron was taken away at almost the same time I was set to move away from Hayward where I was going to graduate school at the time to yet another school out of state that had an arcade that also still had a Robotron :) .

Jon

I grew up in Los Altos in the 80's . I remember some of those arcades .

I went to Bullwinkle's in Santa Clara alot , anyone remember that place ?

I remember they had a Starwars cockpit back in the corner in a room by itself .
 
Hey ScumBum, do you remember the restaurant Mac's Tea Room on Main St. between 1st and 2nd in Los Altos? My dad owned it from the early 80's until it closed around 10 years ago. I worked there for several years as a teenager. Man, I ate a lot of food there. The other employees would always get a kick out of me ordering stuff like a cheeseburger (1/3 lb plus fries) AND a chicken fried steak. Ah, good times! :D

(sorry for the derailment)
 
My buddy has a killer Galactican shirt. It has a wizard on it if I recall correctly.

I tried to go go there when I first moved to the south bay, but it was just closing down. My wife and her brother used to live like 2 blocks away.
 
@ Bill - Yes! it was a Keystone at Almaden Fashion Plaza.

I forgot to mention the Golfland on Blossom Hill Rd. as well. I always played this ratty tempest that was there in the main room.

I participated in the Street Fighter II tournament at the Milpitas Golfland in '92, IIRC. I made it to 35th place or something like that. There were like 200 people in the tournament.

-Tom
 
So when exactly did it close? Man, I wish I had a galactican shirt. He doesn't want to scan it, does he? :)

Yeah Tom, I played at that Golfland sometimes, but more often at the one in Sunnyvale.
 
One of my games had an orange sticker stapled to it that read "Serviced by Yogi". For the life of me, I cannot remember which one it was.
 
I went to Bullwinkle's in Santa Clara alot , anyone remember that place ?

I remember they had a Starwars cockpit back in the corner in a room by itself .

Don't remember the cockpit but I remember going to bullwinkle's. I have a token from there. I remember the animitronics as you walk in. The water show in the dining room and I recall the image of a long row of games when you first walk in. I believe there was a step up to another level of games. I believe there was also a hand rail separating the levels.
 
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