gameguy1957
Active member
Picked up some tokens from one of my favorite arcades today
A long time ago there was an arcade at the local beach called Games By The Sea. I was taken there by my parents when I was young, went by there several times a week when I was old enough to drive, and made a couple of more trips by there while I was dating my wife.
The last time I went by the beach (about 15 years ago) the place had totally commercialized and all of the old hangouts were gone, including the Games By The Sea arcade. It had been replaced by a huge, multi-story surf shop.
Yesterday I saw an ad by a local coin collector advertising the tokens and I called and set up a time to pick them up. As a bonus I got all of the other arcade tokens he had in his collection.
So here's a little piece of local arcade history with pics. I'll post some pics of the other tokens.
Games By The Sea was located on the beach. Hwy 59 into Gulf Shores ended at the beach, and just to the right of the end of the road was the arcade. It looked, from what I can remember, almost like a barn. There was a large door or doors that opened in the front and you climbed stairs to get to the entry.
There was no air conditioning except for the employee's office. It had a large, open window so that they could see everything going on while soaking up the AC. The floor were large, wide wooden planks.
You would walk right off of the beach and into the arcade, wet, salty, and sandy. So I'm sure the games that were in there didn't last long.
-JM
A long time ago there was an arcade at the local beach called Games By The Sea. I was taken there by my parents when I was young, went by there several times a week when I was old enough to drive, and made a couple of more trips by there while I was dating my wife.
The last time I went by the beach (about 15 years ago) the place had totally commercialized and all of the old hangouts were gone, including the Games By The Sea arcade. It had been replaced by a huge, multi-story surf shop.
Yesterday I saw an ad by a local coin collector advertising the tokens and I called and set up a time to pick them up. As a bonus I got all of the other arcade tokens he had in his collection.
So here's a little piece of local arcade history with pics. I'll post some pics of the other tokens.
Games By The Sea was located on the beach. Hwy 59 into Gulf Shores ended at the beach, and just to the right of the end of the road was the arcade. It looked, from what I can remember, almost like a barn. There was a large door or doors that opened in the front and you climbed stairs to get to the entry.
There was no air conditioning except for the employee's office. It had a large, open window so that they could see everything going on while soaking up the AC. The floor were large, wide wooden planks.
You would walk right off of the beach and into the arcade, wet, salty, and sandy. So I'm sure the games that were in there didn't last long.
-JM

