Decaying state of a childhood arcade (STILL OPEN)

OregonPacman

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I was briefly in my hometown of Columbus, NE today. I stopped at one of my old haunts, Westbrook Lanes and visited the arcade (what was left, anyway). Pretty sad state. Down to 3 vids. About a year ago there was still another pair of drivers (forget what) and another vid or 2. They had a crane that had the carriage missing and a blow up diagram of the carriage sitting on the toys. It sat that way for 3 months.

A little background, this is a 16 lane alley. No idea how old it is but its been around as long as I can remember. The arcade area used to be an indoor mini golf originally until some time in the late 80s or early 90s. At the time, the only vid they had was a speed up Ms. Pac at the far end of the building. After the mini golf was removed, they put a bunch of vids and pins in there. I remember a Double Dragon in a DK cab and several pins like Addams Family and G'N'R. The air hockey has been there a long time. Up to a few years ago, there had been other good pins like Congo, Demolition Man and No Fear. Hard to remember everything but its all degenerated into mostly redemption junk. Didn't even check the redemption counter but it looked pretty sparse. The Light House had a mere 2 prizes left in it. The 3 compartment candy machine was totally empty. DDR was out of commission. The left Daytona unit has major jail bars. The Skee Ball seemed the best working of everything and one of two games that I actually played. The cover of the start button is missing but it does play. Altogether a pretty sad state for the place. The best part is the awesome murals which seem pretty new. Looks like the DK one is not yet complete. However, the ironic part is that none of the featured characters appear in any of the games that are present. I guess its still a working arcade, if that counts for something.
 

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A couple more.
 

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Any chance you can get me some redemption tickets from this place?

Thanks Steven

I have some. They are really generic looking.


I also remembered that I used to play NBA JAM and Mortal Kombat there. Used to have some cool stuff. I thought about stopping into the other bowling alley but I don't know if they even have any games anymore.
 

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It doesn't make a lot of sense that they would bother to paint something cool on the walls rather than fix the games, one would think the priority would be in fixing the games so they could make money. Unless the place is painting the walls and the operator is a route op that puts the games there.
 
... I guess its still a working arcade, if that counts for something.

Yeah, as most of our youth arcades are long gone.

You should buy that place and redo it exactly like you remember...now THAT would be a cool arcade restoration!

:D
 
That's beyond cool that the place is still...I wan to see pictures of the bowling lanes!!!! 16 lane little house..That's too cool!!! I have a GnR in a 52 lane bowling alley!!!!
I was briefly in my hometown of Columbus, NE today. I stopped at one of my old haunts, Westbrook Lanes and visited the arcade (what was left, anyway). Pretty sad state. Down to 3 vids. About a year ago there was still another pair of drivers (forget what) and another vid or 2. They had a crane that had the carriage missing and a blow up diagram of the carriage sitting on the toys. It sat that way for 3 months.

A little background, this is a 16 lane alley. No idea how old it is but its been around as long as I can remember. The arcade area used to be an indoor mini golf originally until some time in the late 80s or early 90s. At the time, the only vid they had was a speed up Ms. Pac at the far end of the building. After the mini golf was removed, they put a bunch of vids and pins in there. I remember a Double Dragon in a DK cab and several pins like Addams Family and G'N'R. The air hockey has been there a long time. Up to a few years ago, there had been other good pins like Congo, Demolition Man and No Fear. Hard to remember everything but its all degenerated into mostly redemption junk. Didn't even check the redemption counter but it looked pretty sparse. The Light House had a mere 2 prizes left in it. The 3 compartment candy machine was totally empty. DDR was out of commission. The left Daytona unit has major jail bars. The Skee Ball seemed the best working of everything and one of two games that I actually played. The cover of the start button is missing but it does play. Altogether a pretty sad state for the place. The best part is the awesome murals which seem pretty new. Looks like the DK one is not yet complete. However, the ironic part is that none of the featured characters appear in any of the games that are present. I guess its still a working arcade, if that counts for something.
 
The Light House had a mere 2 prizes left in it. The 3 compartment candy machine was totally empty.

This is what I never understand about any prize redemption machines... The entire point is for customers to win prizes... If your machines are empty you basically have a $5000 paper weight. Do people who run these things think that someone is going to dump money into it when there's nothing in the machine to even win?

It's one of the main reasons that Japanese style UFO catchers don't work in the US. The ones that require you to restock a prize after someone wins something don't do well because employees are too lazy/not paying attention and don't restock the machines often enough.

I go to Round One and sometimes half the machines are empty for over an hour. That's easily several hundred dollars lost on a busy night.
 
That is pretty cool that your childhood arcade is still there. Mine closed down in the late 90's.
 
That is pretty cool that your childhood arcade is still there. Mine closed down in the late 90's.

I'd rather a former fondly-remembered arcade close down entirely than to be a depressing, neglected, declining shell of itself. The slow-fade happened to a couple of arcades from my childhood, and it really bummed me out to see that. Especially since it's obvious that the remaining games aren't getting anywhere near the TLC they desperately need. I'd much rather see preservationists take those units home and work their magic.

There's a pretty sweet arcade in Manitou Springs in Colorado...lots of Golden Agers in pretty good condition.

http://arcadenation.tumblr.com/post/98469911498/theglassframework-penny-arcade-manitou

This is only a small part of it. Several games are in pretty decent condition (not mint of course), though I'd like to see some of them get a tune-up (and some of them NEED it). I will be back out there in July and can't wait to take my 7-year-old daughter, who not only knows quite a few of these games, but can actually play a few of them reasonably well. Her skills for someone her age are pretty good (can get a free life on Dig Dug before losing her first one, etc).
 
"That is pretty cool that your childhood arcade is still there. Mine closed down in the late 90's. "

Its a bowling alley, so the arcade kind of comes with it. The other alley is still there but not sure about its arcade. There was a Bally's LeMans that crapped out in about '83 and it was the best. It had all of the great stuff at the time.


"This is what I never understand about any prize redemption machines... The entire point is for customers to win prizes... If your machines are empty you basically have a $5000 paper weight. Do people who run these things think that someone is going to dump money into it when there's nothing in the machine to even win?"

Not to mention, sucking electricity out of the wall and in that case, needlessly putting wear on a motor that runs constantly.

"That's beyond cool that the place is still...I wan to see pictures of the bowling lanes!!!! 16 lane little house..That's too cool!!! I have a GnR in a 52 lane bowling alley!!!!"

That's nothing. There is a working 4 lane bowling alley here in my 1000 person dink town. The bowling equipment is vintage 60s machines connected to vintage 80s scoring equipment. We rented the place for my daughter's 5th birthday. The lady that runs it played 50's rock n roll and the kids loved it. We paid $50 and had the run of the place for 3 hours.



"Yeah, as most of our youth arcades are long gone.

You should buy that place and redo it exactly like you remember...now THAT would be a cool arcade restoration!"

Other than the mural and the games, it looks exactly the same as it did 25 years ago. Not even repainted or anything.


"It doesn't make a lot of sense that they would bother to paint something cool on the walls rather than fix the games, one would think the priority would be in fixing the games so they could make money. Unless the place is painting the walls and the operator is a route op that puts the games there. "

That's pretty much the deal, they don't own the games. Its a bowling alley with a bar, so it has to get some decent traffic. If the games were maintained and loaded with prizes and a better selection, they might be making some decent coinage. That air hockey should be making decent money by itself.
 
There's a pretty sweet arcade in Manitou Springs in Colorado...lots of Golden Agers in pretty good condition.

http://arcadenation.tumblr.com/post/98469911498/theglassframework-penny-arcade-manitou

This is only a small part of it. Several games are in pretty decent condition (not mint of course), though I'd like to see some of them get a tune-up (and some of them NEED it). I will be back out there in July and can't wait to take my 7-year-old daughter, who not only knows quite a few of these games, but can actually play a few of them reasonably well. Her skills for someone her age are pretty good (can get a free life on Dig Dug before losing her first one, etc).
That's actually *two* different arcades, two *different* companies. One has the games in the center area - has some newer games and some classics. That fella knows how to keep his games working. (May not be *perfect*, but they *play*.) The other is the penny arcade, on the south side of the mall area. That's full of the really old classics. I haven't been in there in 20 years because the last time I WAS in there, nothing worked. (I spent twenty years next to the Garden of the Gods park, so I wsent into Manitou a lot.

Back on-topic, one of my previous employers was Mountaisa or Colorado Springs. Off of Academy Blvd on the north side of town. When I was there ('95-'00) we had a huge arcade, mini-golf, batting cages, and bumper boats. When I left, arcades were in a downward spin, and I remember my boss commenting about how the crowds were down. My asst manager (who was more business savvy than the boss) commented about how he thought the place would be closed in 5 years.

Come today, and the large building that housed the arcade is now a *church*, and it looks liek the mini-golf and batting cages survived. The bumper-boats was filled in and a smaller ticket bulilding was put in. Likely, new owners, though I haven't met them yet. Saddens me, since I had a LOT of good times in there.
 
I can see the DK mural kind of working, in that it's in a bowling alley, but that Pac-Man one makes absolutely no sense.
For an arcade, the Pac-Man painting makes more sense than the DK painting, which depicts the SNES version of DK instead of any of the arcade incarnations. And neither of them makes sense in an arcade where the only video game is Daytona. I guess nobody there could paint cars. :)
 
Its better than somebody trying (and probably failing) to paint a DDR related mural. I guess you could put colored arrows everywhere. Arrows are easy to paint.
 
Man....Post some pictures of the 16 lane AND 4 lane bowling alleys!!!! Too friggin' cool!!
"That is pretty cool that your childhood arcade is still there. Mine closed down in the late 90's. "

Its a bowling alley, so the arcade kind of comes with it. The other alley is still there but not sure about its arcade. There was a Bally's LeMans that crapped out in about '83 and it was the best. It had all of the great stuff at the time.


"This is what I never understand about any prize redemption machines... The entire point is for customers to win prizes... If your machines are empty you basically have a $5000 paper weight. Do people who run these things think that someone is going to dump money into it when there's nothing in the machine to even win?"

Not to mention, sucking electricity out of the wall and in that case, needlessly putting wear on a motor that runs constantly.

"That's beyond cool that the place is still...I wan to see pictures of the bowling lanes!!!! 16 lane little house..That's too cool!!! I have a GnR in a 52 lane bowling alley!!!!"

That's nothing. There is a working 4 lane bowling alley here in my 1000 person dink town. The bowling equipment is vintage 60s machines connected to vintage 80s scoring equipment. We rented the place for my daughter's 5th birthday. The lady that runs it played 50's rock n roll and the kids loved it. We paid $50 and had the run of the place for 3 hours.



"Yeah, as most of our youth arcades are long gone.

You should buy that place and redo it exactly like you remember...now THAT would be a cool arcade restoration!"

Other than the mural and the games, it looks exactly the same as it did 25 years ago. Not even repainted or anything.


"It doesn't make a lot of sense that they would bother to paint something cool on the walls rather than fix the games, one would think the priority would be in fixing the games so they could make money. Unless the place is painting the walls and the operator is a route op that puts the games there. "

That's pretty much the deal, they don't own the games. Its a bowling alley with a bar, so it has to get some decent traffic. If the games were maintained and loaded with prizes and a better selection, they might be making some decent coinage. That air hockey should be making decent money by itself.
 
The 16 lane one is an hour drive away. Unfortunately, the 4 laner is only open for leagues or reservations. Otherwise, I would be happy to.
 
I was there once 20 years ago. Don't remember much about it besides meeting a girl there for a date. She lived in Columbus and I lived 45 miles away at the time. I still drive past the place when I drive from Lincoln to Norfolk.
 
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