Your old arcade hangout and what it is now.

[noice87]

Cool thread.

I moved a lot when I was a kid, so I have no idea what's in my old stomping grounds from the 80's.. but there was a place in Bradenton called Pirates Cove that I used to frequent, it had a large go-cart track, putt-putt golf, and batting cages also. It was a really cool place while it was there.

It's now an empty, sad building that's grown over with weeds. Lots of good memories there, especially with playing Gauntlet and I played the hell out of Cyclone pinball there. Ahh, the good old days!

Going back to the early 80's, I spent a lot of time in a pizza place close to my house that had Scramble, then Donkey Kong. I also went to Showbiz pizza alot, and of course the mall arcade.

In 83-86 I frequented a local bowling alley that had a great selection of games, including Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Karate Champ, and others.. and the best part about that place was that my older sister was dating the owner's son, so I always got hooked up with free credits

Which mall? I remember being sad that the mall in Bradenton didn't have a arcade (84-85). I did go to the Showbiz in Bradenton and played Chexx. The CEC which was in a barn like building was out of business when we were there. We went to some bowling alley (Galaxay?) that had a few games and there was a skating rink next to our motel (Days Inn) but we never went inside so no idea if they had games.

Tampa Lanes?

 

[IvanTT]

"Golf 'n' Stuff" Metrocenter Phoenix, AZ is now Castles and Coasters, the crowds are smaller and half the games are crap but they have a ton of classics and pinballs. The inside is virtually unchanged.

"Superfun" Paradise Valley Mall Phoenix, AZ is a Tilt arcade last I saw.

"Astro's Arcade" 32nd st and Shea (behind Uncle Sam's) Phoenix, AZ is now a karate studio.

Below are some pics of the places the first 3 are Golf 'N' Stuff circa mid 80's as is the last blurry one of the sign. The forth one is Superfun in 1979. No pics of Astro's.

 

[p1899m]

As a kid the arcades I was at the most were CEC and golfland. There were a few in my area. The biggest most impressive CEC is still there. The golfland I frequented is also still there. Around my high school years I hung out at Key stone arcade for the one year that it was in Capitol Square in San Jose. It moved after that year and I think a dance studio opened in it's place. I believe the dance studio is still there today. From sophomore thru senior year in high school I visited my friend in Sacramento every summer. We used to hit The Game Room in the bird cage out door mall. Not sure what it is today but it hasn't been an arcade for years. When I finally moved to Sacramento I frequented a place called Supercade. It's now a rug store i believe.

 

[louisurfer]

Fun Quarters, early 80's E. Street Owned by "Vince" San Berdoo, CA. It's now some kind of art store, but has been many things over the last 25 years.

The thread about the 49th st arcade with the giant hair got me thinking. My back in the day arcade is now a Sylvan Learning Center and has been for some time. It also has a ceramics/craft store in it. What became of your favorite arcade? Did it bite the big one altogether and get demolished or is there some other buisness living there?

 

[KevinMullins]

"Golf 'n' Stuff" Metrocenter Phoenix, AZ is now Castles and Coasters, the crowds are smaller and half the games are crap but they have a ton of classics and pinballs. The inside is virtually unchanged.

From the description and the pics.... I'm betting that's the place I remember as a kid. (9th grade or so) My grandmother used to live in El Mirage.
It's nice to clear up a broken memory.

I also moved all over as kid, so most of the places I remember going to were bowling alleys and skating rinks, not too many "arcades"...... and most of those places I don't even recall their names.

 

[caldwert]

I just went in Crestwood Mall on Tuesday night to witness the ghost town as I ate dinner over that way. Exhilarama closed in January 2008. Last time I was in there was about a week before it closed and I even told myself I should take some pictures, but didn't, then I got a call from a buddy that it closed. Nothing took their spot, the mini-van on hydraulics simulator thingy is still in there. I should go take pics. I was walking around in there telling my mom this is where Atari Adventure was, and then it moved over by Champs/American Eagle. Only about 10 legit stores left in there, the rest are art spaces and whatnot. The mall itself is still in good condition, still unbelievable that it is closed.

Other St. Louis haunts are Northwest Plaza Tilt which I understand has been closed for a while. Along with that there was Highlands off of Watson that's now just a parking lot, never understood why it got torn down. There was that other place further up Watson that went out years and years ago like 2001, was across from Coral Court, but had go karts and a large arcade. Sunset Bowl still had some machines in there the last time I was there. The place I spent most of my youth in was Show Me Bowling Alley and I know they still have some pinball machines and a few racers. I think the only legit arcades left are Mid Rivers Tilt and The Mill Tilt which I've never set foot in either. I know there was an Aladdin's Castle in St. Louis Centre up until like 2003 because I remember going there and seeing an arcade full of crap, but a Marvel vs. Capcom 2 machine with dudes 5 deep on either side willing to pay $1 a credit. There was also a Tilt in Union Station right as you walked in off of 18th?, whatever runs right on the side next to the Post Office off of Market. That went out about 2001 when I was still in college at SLU.

Northwest Plaza is closed? When did that happen?

I grew up right behind Crestwood Plaza and would frequent the old Atari arcade as a youngen, then Exhilarama (AKA Tilt) when I got a little older. Havent been there in awhile (maybe Tilt is still around?), but last time I checked Crestwood Plaza was practically a ghost town, just Sears and a few ma and pa shops were all that was left. Pretty sad. Seems some malls in the area arent getting the love like South County & West County centers are getting.

 

[Zud]

Galaxy World -- Carol Stream, Illinois.

I was there back in the day too.

Sad to say the 2 I used to hang out at while at Lane Tech HS in Chicago are now parking lots.

 

[Schusler]

I was there back in the day too.

Sad to say the 2 I used to hang out at while at Lane Tech HS in Chicago are now parking lots.

Same here.....That place is AWEFUL now....Cool thing about that place was Williams and Bally tested their "newer" pins at that time there....

Alot of my memories come from the Showbiz Pizza stores, rollerskating rinks and Aladdins Castle...

 

[OregonPacman]

Wow! I didn't realize that this thread would be so depressing when I started it. Good to hear that some of the places are still open. Another I remembered is a laundromat that had a DepthCharge, maybe a Carnival (its been so long), and some EM pinball. They also had a popcorn machine that gave you a nice little bag for only 10 cents. That place belongs to a drycleaning service and has been used to store crap for years. There's so much in there that its hard to see in to tell what it is.

 

[KevinMullins]

one is an empty shell of a building covered in weeds with a "For Sale" sign in front of the lot

Maybe you should peek in and see if anything is still ..... ah, nevermind.

(I was just kidding of course.)

 

[RonnyRage]

i played at the Super Just Games (now Nickel City) in northbrook all the time. I probably still have cups that I got from birthday partys. As well as the Aladin's castle in what was then Hawthorne Mall in Vernon Hills. I remember they had a dynamo big boy set up with mortal kombat 3 that just blew my mind.

there was also a place called chimpys that was somewhere in mt. prospect.

also, Lazer Zone had some rockin' games.

I do know that Dennis' House Of Games was where they tested the mortal kombat games. probably the only place you could find one of those umk3 machines that hooked up to the internet.

 

[mrsodapop]

Star World in Portage Mi. This place was huge! Now it's sadly a Jo Ann Fabrics.

 

[alfonzotan]

Happy Times in Enterprise, Alabama. Last time I checked it was a rental car office.

UPDATE: Nope, it's some kind of a weird credit agency now. That's in the last location; it moved around the corner about halfway through the early 80's arcade game boom. The original location is now 1/3 of a large (and probably soon-to-be-closed) Blockbuster store.

 

[loadrunner]

BITD in the hood of Bowness the only place that had video games was the 3 star laundromat...pacman/galaxian and some other wierd one I just cant remember....I was by there the other day...and the place is now a laundromat but with different owners and a different name...closest actual arcade near me was the Wizards Castle in Market mall.....and I have no idea what it is now as the mall went through a huge expansion which completely changed it.

 

[sosage]

Lets all be depressed together

Playland in a corner of Concord CA. Use to be a movie theaters arcade, until the cinema got turned into a lamps plus. Had a reputation for being shady until it cleaned up it's decor and tried to become more kid friendly (lots of prize games). Hot spot to play Virtua Fighter 2 in the far east bay. Closed suddenly, randomly, in the middle of the week in 1995. Word was someone robbed the place and the hit on the bottom line was enough to close the doors. Became a kid's furniture store.

Cyberstation in Sunvalley Mall. Was Aladdin's Castle and before that...hell if I can remember. Became some random food spot when arcades just could not hold on anymore around the late 90's/early 2K's.

Starcade in Pleasant Hill. Was the Century Dome's main arcade (they had machines scattered throughout, with Starcade next door being the main arcade). I was actually there during its last week around 2005-ish. Really sad state of affairs. Everything broken and jacked to shit. It was turned into extra storage for the movie theater.

I still remember the day my local 7-11 replaced their Street Fighter machines with ATM's. Thought that was so fucking lame. It was when ATM's seemed like an "extravagance", so the shitty feeling towards that was increased 10X.

The Great Entertainer on monument in Concord...large pool hall/arcade. Was a pretty shitty place to begin with and from how I understand -- the owners weren't so great either. My Mom actively made sure I did not go there (thanks County Connection buses!). It's now a grocery store.

Pleasant Hill Bowl. This was where I played my first video game ever (Dragon's Lair) and was exposed to a lot of classics as a very little kid. My parents would bowl in a league and dump me off near the machines. I have fond memories of a sitdown Pole Position. I remember when they first uncrated it, all the guys my Dad's age crowded around it and discussed how race car drivers are probably using it for training. During that first month there was serious competition amongst the men-folk, that typically thought these games were stupid, trying to out drive each other. Every time I got to play, my parents would seriously evaluate if I would grow up to be a bad driver. Deep down I want one for the memories, but they are notorious for breaking down and I don't have room for one. Anyways. Bulldozed and turned into a shopping center.

Mini-golf off of Clayton. Turned into apartments.

 

[xDisciplex]

My old arcade I used to go play at when I was a kid was Aladdin's Castle in Grand Junction, CO. It was a pretty decent sized arcade, spent countless hours playing Mortal Kombat (1-4) and Street Fighter II, TMNT, NBA Jam and Blitz.

Sadly it's long gone and has been divided into other stores for the mall, I think a hat store and some cable company thing

 

[Braido]

In my home town there were 3, they were Pine, Gus's, and Danny's pool Hall. Pine was across the street from our High School and it was where i hung out from the time i was 13 till i Graduated at 18. I mostly played Foosball, Asteroids, Eight Ball Deluxe, Gauntlet, and a sh*t load of Bubble Bobble with my girlfriend (now wife). Pine was a converted house that was made into the Arcade and they sold Smokes by the single, crazy! It's now been converted back to a house, thank god! My kids now go to that high school!

Next was Danny's Pool Hall, what a Sh*t hole this place was!!! The building was a complete dump and it was rough. But for some reason they always had the latest video game. Right bay the entrance on it's on little platform there was a Space Invaders that i would play, I went back and bought that game from them non-working years later after the Arcade had "Burned" down.

The 3rd best place to go to was Gus's now this was one rough and bad @ss arcade growing up in a Loggin town, you had to be brave and tough to go into Gus's on a Friday night. Gus's was a 5,000 square foot concrete building, just massive. Gus had everything from Q*Bert, to Joust, to all the Atari Vectors, unfortunatley it seems Gus converted as soon as this came into fashion. Gus's is still around today with mostly games from the mid 1990's, Foosball, and Pool, i have purchased most of the Arcade games that he had (in a back room out of the Arcade) but most needed to be deconverted. I have saved and brought back Q*Bert, Frogger, BurgerTime (this was a tough deconvertion), Tron, Galaga, and a few others, all had been coverted to some type of fighting game or Arkoid!

My Grandparents and Uncle and Aunt lived in the Okanago there we woud spend many hours at an Arcade called Scandia and another across the Street called Malibu, both are still there but both are crappy now. Scandia has many of the old Arcade games i loved all convereted to new crap no on plays! Even the old Cockpit Star Wars, errr. Malibu has a few newer games and many pinballs but mostly just redemtion stuff. The one game they have in perfect condition is a Burgertime, i play it evertime i still go through town.

Other than that the other places i played at were Chucky Cheese, Circus Circus, and, Addladins, etc... but being from Canada this was always on holidays but always a blast. I was use to Concrete buildings with no carpet and no paint on the walls, in the USA IT WAS GO BIG OR GO HOME! Great stuff, black light carpet, tons and tons of games and TOKENS, LoL great stuff,,,, Bring back the 1980's (oh yea i did in my basement

Braido...

 

[bronson2112]

Went to Ridgmar Mall in Fort Worth yesterday. This mall opened around 1976 and had a Space Port Arcade. I spent the majority of my youth is this arcade... It was where I played all the classics when they were new. Night Driver, Drag Race, Star Fire (Cockpit), Sprint (many versions) Lunar Lander, Asteroids, Missile Command, Space Duel, Gravitar, Armor Attack.
The Space Port was in it's original location in the mall until '86 or '87... it moved to a new part of the mall, and even though it was still named Space Port it didn't have all the space themed "coolness" about it - it was just bare walls in an open spot in a different part of the mall.
The old location of the space port was walled up and I assumed it became a storage space for the mall or something or something like that - no other store ever occupied the original location.
No evidence of the old Space Port existed until they started to remodel the mall. They took down the old wall where the original entrance was and opened a new arcade in the same spot.
The layout is exactly the same as the Space Port was back in the day - even though somehow it seems smaller now (I guess I was smaller back then as well).
The arcade that is there now is just a bunch of redemption games and stuff like that (no classics)

It felt kinda cool to see the spot once again - even though it's been decades since I was there.

Here are a few photos I took with my iphone (sorry about the quality).

The wall where the skee-ball games are now is where the row of Asteroids stood back in the '79.... ah the memories.

 

[Scott C]

The thread about the 49th st arcade with the giant hair got me thinking. My back in the day arcade is now a Sylvan Learning Center and has been for some time. It also has a ceramics/craft store in it. What became of your favorite arcade? Did it bite the big one altogether and get demolished or is there some other buisness living there?

The mall is still there, but the arcades are long, long gone. Their spots have been more different stores than I can count. Another arcade across town was turned into office space. Another arcade was in a different mall that was demolished years ago and replaced with a Wal-Mart.

Boy, now that I think of it, this is really a depressing thread....

Scott C.

 

[devils1982]

Fun n Games Wayne, NJ = Willowbrook Mall Management Offices