Any Good Arcades in Salt Lake City?

Nickel Mania!!!

There's a 99 cent admission coupon on their site. It's seriously an amazing place. About 15 pins in good shape, TONS of classics (including a Tron and several vectors) and games are all set to nickel play.

Do not go to Nickelcade. They're pretty dumpy. Nickel Mania is amazing. GO GO GO GO!
 
damn - wish i'd have known that when i went with the family up to utah this summer (my wife and i grew up in layton and kaysville, respectively, and our families are still there). looked around on the 'net and the only one that looked decent was Game Grid (in the Valley Fair Mall) so i took my kids there. meh. had a few OK games and two good pinballs (Shrek and Indiana Jones) but nothing very exciting. i have no idea how i missed Nickel Mania in my 'net search; next time we're up there i'm definitely hitting that place! thanks for the tip :).
 
Some pics...

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There's lots of JAMMA and redemption stuff too.
 
Nickel Mania!!!

There's a 99 cent admission coupon on their site. It's seriously an amazing place. About 15 pins in good shape, TONS of classics (including a Tron and several vectors) and games are all set to nickel play.

Do not go to Nickelcade. They're pretty dumpy. Nickel Mania is amazing. GO GO GO GO!


Nickelcades in UT are run down and dumpy. I don't remember Nickel Mania being "seriously amazing with TONS of classics though. Although it's been a bit since I've been there, they must have had to make a lot of changes for it to be that great. I know it has new ownership but he would have had to change a lot and clean it up majorly.
 
The pics look like it has more games then it use to but has it been cleaned up? Those places always feel so dirty. Jar do you work for Nickelmania?
 
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The pics look like it has more games then it use to but has it been cleaned up? Those places always feel so dirty. Jar do you work for Nickelmania?

Nickel Mania has always been really clean. There's only two locations, one in Jordan Landing and one on State Street. I've never seen either of them dirtied up. They do often get confused for Nickelcades, which are truly terrible.

I don't work there, I just drop in when I can. I snapped the pics with my cell phone, that's why the quality is awful.
 
Nickel Mania has always been really clean. There's only two locations, one in Jordan Landing and one on State Street. I've never seen either of them dirtied up. They do often get confused for Nickelcades, which are truly terrible.

I don't work there, I just drop in when I can. I snapped the pics with my cell phone, that's why the quality is awful.

No they haven't. They have been cleaner then Nickelcade yes but really clean no. Last time I went the carpets had spills and stains and the games all needed a good deep cleaning. No, there are three Nickel Mania locations. Jordan Landing that use to be Gasoline Alley, the one in Murray on State Street and one in Provo. The one in Provo is stilled owned by the old owners of the Murray location.

Oh, the coupon comment made me think you either were a employee or a friend of the owner (it sounded like his comment he puts on his ksl ads).

The row of pins I must say looks very nice!
 
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Heh, no, I just remembered the coupon was there.

I didn't know about the Provo location. I lived in Springville while attending UVSC (UVU now, I guess), and there was never an arcade in good condition down there. I think they suffer more from the unattended kid abuse than anywhere else in the state. I wouldn't be surprised if the floors were bad down there.

Isn't the Jordan Landing Nickel Mania pretty new? I just got out there for the first time back in July and it looked fairly new to me. It's not as good as the State Street location in regards to games, but it was spotless and wasn't crowded at all.

Come to think of it, I did run into a sticky floor problem by the pinball row in the Murray one, but it was also during a big birthday, so I just figured it was from that group. It would be a shame if that was a common thing, but I've only seen it that one time.
 
I believe the Provo location has been open the longest out of all the Nickel Manias, I think, I could be wrong though. I haven't been to the Provo location in a very long time but the last time I was the floors were bad.

Not really. It opened up as Nickel Mania just recently but the location itself was used for another arcade prior (Gasoline Alley). I haven't been down since he took over that one but it was also owned (for a year) by the guy who owned the Murray Nickel Mania so it wasn't the cleanest either.

Well with kids, food, drinks and games your bound to have a mess but very few of the arcades seem to take the time to carpet clean, mop and sanitize the games like they should. As a mom, dirty = germs = not good.

The new owner has defiantly made improvements to the locations because he is actually investing money back into the business I just wish those places didn't always feel so icky.
 
Awesome! Which location is the one in the pictures? That row of pins looks great. I really appreciate the heads up. If I don't make it out there tonight, then I'm definitely headed there tomorrow.
 
That one would be the Murry location located on State Street by Fashion Place Mall.
 
The one in Orem (not Provo) has been a Nickelcade for last last number of years. Mike P, who lives in Payson has been running the Nickelmania in Murray and possible the other for the last few years as I recall. I am not sure if he bought out the owner of the Provo Nickelcade, but it has changed location and is now a Nickelmania. This just happened within the last 9 months. They also added Laser Tag.

Last time I went to Nickelcade in Orem (a few years ago) they had a row with Tron, Burgertime, and other classics. I was still pretty run down, but the classics looked like they were in great shape. The Burgertime looked almost new.

I'm hoping to visit it soon
 
Just wanted to say that I went to Nickel Mania last night with a couple of my coworkers and we had a FANTASTIC time. It was so wonderful to see so many playable classics in one place. Granted, there were some gameplay issuses on some games, but those were few and far between. Most games were fully operational and the selection was incredible.

Highlights for me include classics such as Qbert, Dedicated Smash TV, 6-player x-men, Joust, Moon Patrol, Working vectors like Tempest and Star Wars, a nice selection of pins including Revenge from Mars, Junk Yard, Stargate, Star Trek, and more. I also appreciated modern titles on hand like Terminator Salvation and Guitar Hero Arcade. However, what really took me back was getting to play bubble hockey - I haven't played that since I was 10 years old.

Lastly, I wanted to give public props to forum user "insertcoins" who contacted me via PM. Chris works and Nickel Mania, loves games, and is a all-around nice guy. He even gave me and my friends a ride back to our hotel so we wouldn't have to take public transit back late at night.

I highly recommend checking this place out if you are ever in Salt Lake City. I spent $7 and played for over 3 hours non-stop. Great time!
 
JLastly, I wanted to give public props to forum user "insertcoins" who contacted me via PM. Chris works and Nickel Mania, loves games, and is a all-around nice guy. He even gave me and my friends a ride back to our hotel so we wouldn't have to take public transit back late at night.

Chris is by far one of the absolute nicest guys you will ever meet! He is an all around genuinely great guy.
 
Chris is by far one of the absolute nicest guys you will ever meet! He is an all around genuinely great guy.

I'll vouch for that. I bought a Jackbot from Nickel Mania and he took time to help me load it up even though the place was packed (kid's b-day going on and general Saturday craziness) and he was running all around.
 
+1 for Chris as well and that nickle mania. I had all the same questions before I moved here and so far everyone and that arcade and Chris have been great. Shhh but dont let the secret get out...LOL
 
just wish we had something like that in albuquerque. sigh. i'll try to hit it when we're home to visit the family at thanksgiving...
 
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