# Episode 9 - Operator Spotlight: Pop's Pinball Parlor

**Source:** Wedgehead Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2023-12-18  
**Duration:** 44m 5s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** Buzzsprout-14097883

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## Analysis

Alan from Wedgehead Pinball Podcast interviews Daniel Radin and Ty Ueda, operators of Pop's Pinball Parlor in Boston, discussing their operator philosophy, game selection strategy, regional market differences between Boston and Portland, licensing/permitting requirements, location acquisition tactics, and maintenance practices. They emphasize serving underserved markets with curated vintage and unusual games rather than new Stern releases, and stress the importance of community building and reliable maintenance.

### Key Claims

- [MEDIUM] Portland and Seattle are the two biggest pinball cities in the country and probably the world — _Alan discussing regional pinball density and historical factors_
- [MEDIUM] Mike Mahaffey is credited with saving pinball in Portland by maintaining and placing games during the 1990s pinball decline — _Alan discussing Portland's operator history and the role of key local figures_
- [MEDIUM] Boston has a starved market for pinball machines compared to Portland despite being a major metro area — _Daniel and Ty identifying market opportunity that led to their operator model_
- [HIGH] Amusement licensing in Maine is significantly higher ($300+/game) compared to other regions — _Ty discussing Maine licensing costs and Arcadia Portland's fee tournament response_
- [HIGH] Most pinball operators are not full-time operators; they maintain separate careers and treat pinball as a side hustle — _Alan stating this is something that would surprise people about the industry_
- [MEDIUM] Games set up too easy (allowing 20-30+ minute play sessions) ruin the pinball experience and reduce replayability — _Alan expressing strong opinion on game difficulty settings and player retention_
- [HIGH] Boston's licensing regulations vary by town, with some falling under entertainment license (no per-game fee) and others requiring per-game licensing ($150/year) — _Daniel explaining Massachusetts municipal licensing variation_
- [MEDIUM] Portland's loose zoning laws and rainy climate historically supported arcade/amusement growth more than other regions — _Alan discussing historical and geographic factors contributing to Portland's pinball density_

### Notable Quotes

> "knowledge is sort of tribal. people that work on games talk to other people that work on games and people have knowledge that they can help you with or things that they've been through before"
> — **Alan (Wedgehead host)**, early in episode
> _Establishes the concept of operator community and knowledge sharing networks_

> "pinball is supposed to be hard. I will always say that. It was always hard from its earliest days with the little flippers and no in lanes no ball saves"
> — **Alan**, mid-episode
> _Core philosophy on game difficulty and operator setup preferences_

> "Mike Mahaffey is the dude that saved pinball in Portland"
> — **Alan (attributed to business partner)**, discussing Portland history
> _Recognition of key historical figure in Portland's pinball operator scene_

> "we're not getting rich doing this. I can guarantee you that. But it's more like pinball is supposed to be hard."
> — **Alan**, discussing game setup philosophy
> _Addresses misconception about operator revenue motivation while defending difficult game settings_

> "the ball fell through no way the ball fell through the playfield and cannot be read and the machine cannot read it"
> — **Daniel (quoting customer issue report)**, discussing communication challenges
> _Humorous example of non-technical customers describing technical issues_

> "Most pinball operators are not only pinball operators. They also have real jobs and careers that pay them actual money and the pinball is on the side"
> — **Alan**, late in episode
> _Key insight about operator business model sustainability_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Daniel Radin | person | Boston-based pinball operator operating under 'Our Lady of Pinball' brand; co-owns Pop's Pinball Parlor with Ty; musician and philosophy graduate; described as good player but too goofy to take tournaments seriously |
| Ty Ueda | person | Maine-based pinball operator operating under 'Three Knocks Pinball' brand; co-owns Pop's Pinball Parlor with Daniel; 'Craigslist goblin' who sources unusual games from private sales; focuses on pristine restoration of uncommon titles |
| Pop's Pinball Parlor | organization | Pinball operator business in Boston area run by Daniel Radin and Ty Ueda; known for operating vintage/unusual games rather than new Stern releases |
| Alan | person | Host of Wedgehead Pinball Podcast; Portland-based bar owner/operator with pinball arcade (Wedgehead); culinary trained; also operates separate route with business partner |
| Wedgehead Pinball Podcast | organization | Pinball podcast hosted by Alan featuring new 'Operator Spotlight' series; community-focused coverage of pinball operators and business models |
| Three Knocks Pinball | organization | Operating company name used by Ty Ueda; references Gottlieb high score award credit mechanic, not Addams Family seance reference |
| Our Lady of Pinball | organization | Operating company name used by Daniel Radin; Jewish-themed reference to Jay (Jesus) as famous Jewish figure |
| New England Pinball League | organization | League organized by Daniel and Ty; described as 'probably the biggest league that runs over all of new england'; hosts casual and tournament play |
| Bear Moose Brewery | organization | Everett, Massachusetts location with 8 pinball games operated by Daniel and Ty; owner Drew previously owned Pinbot; became gateway location for their operator expansion |
| Portland | organization | Oregon city described as one of two biggest pinball cities in country (with Seattle); has ubiquitous pinball presence in bars, coffee shops; long history of strong operators |
| Seattle | organization | Washington city described as one of two biggest pinball cities in country (with Portland); similar rainy climate and liberal zoning history to Portland |
| Mike Mahaffey | person | Late 1990s Portland operator credited with saving pinball in Portland; legendary tournament player and pinball tech; maintained only working games during pinball's decline; friend of Lyman Sheets; still works on route but doesn't compete much in tournaments |
| Mitch Curtis | person | Boston-area operator who mentored Daniel and Ty on operator business; described as phenomenal player and tournament-level competitor; runs many new games and maintains perfect play on all machines |
| Silhouette Lounge | organization | Boston dive bar where Daniel attended college; now hosts 3 pinball machines operated by Daniel and Ty; hosts casual Sunday afternoon tournaments; converted from dart/pool bar to dart/pool/pinball bar |
| Arcadia | organization | Portland, Maine arcade that faced high amusement fees (~$300/game); ran 'amusement fee tournament' fundraiser to pay licensing costs; made public stink about outdated 1990s-era fee structure |
| Navy Yard | organization | Boston-area location where Ty has pinball games; owner Joe required years of persistent outreach before agreeing to host games |
| Lyman Sheets | person | Historical pinball figure; friend of Mike Mahaffey; top tournament player era |
| Boston | organization | Massachusetts city described as having starved pinball market despite being major metro area; has multiple pinball hubs but less ubiquitous presence than Portland; complex municipal licensing by town |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Operator business model and game selection strategy, Regional pinball market differences (Portland vs. Boston), Amusement licensing and regulatory compliance by jurisdiction, Location acquisition and community building tactics
- **Secondary:** Game difficulty settings and player experience philosophy, Operator knowledge sharing and professional networks, Maintenance and customer communication systems, Pinball operator career sustainability (side hustle vs. full-time)

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.78) — Generally optimistic tone about operator community, market opportunities, and shared knowledge. Hosts express passion for curated game selection and community-building. Some criticism of overly generous game settings and licensing barriers, but framed constructively. Respectful of competitor operators and historical figures.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Location acquisition requires persistent outreach (5+ follow-up emails/visits) and proof of reliable maintenance to overcome location owner skepticism (confidence: high) — Ty: 'i must have dropped my card like 10 times and then joe was finally just like oh yeah i saw your card... i've been emailing you for like years'
- **[community_signal]** Operators building community through casual leagues, tournaments, and consistent game curation to drive location traffic and repeat play (confidence: high) — Daniel discussing Bear Moose: 'we made it a New England Pinball League location. We got like a group of players to come pretty consistently to that. And we started running tournaments.'
- **[community_signal]** Operator professional network exists and shares knowledge about game performance, maintenance, licensing, and business strategy across regions (confidence: high) — Alan: 'I asked our buddy mitch if i could sit down with him and kind of just pick his brain about operating... knowledge is sort of tribal. people that work on games talk to other people that work on games'
- **[design_philosophy]** Operators emphasize game difficulty and balanced setup; games set up too easy (20-30+ minute plays) reduce enjoyment and player retention (confidence: high) — Alan: 'when you get to the point where as even a mediocre player who plays pinball regularly if you start getting to the point where you can play games for 20 30 40 minutes the game is set up too fucking easy like that ruins pinball to me'
- **[venue_signal]** Portland's rainy climate, loose zoning laws, and historical operator presence (Mike Mahaffey) created self-reinforcing pinball ecosystem; Boston lacks similar historical foundation (confidence: high) — Alan discussing Portland: 'We have a rainy season that lasts 10 months... inside activities do very well... loose zoning laws which means... there's no differentiation between what can go where'
- **[market_signal]** Regional licensing variance creates significant barriers to entry; Maine at $300+/game vs. Massachusetts varies by town ($150/game or covered under entertainment license) (confidence: high) — Ty discussing Arcadia fee tournament due to Maine's high amusement licensing; Daniel explaining Massachusetts town-by-town variation
- **[market_signal]** Boston identified as underserved pinball market compared to Portland/Seattle; Daniel and Ty found niche by serving locations lacking curated pinball presence (confidence: high) — Daniel: 'Boston's a big metro area that maybe doesn't have as many pinball machines on location as it should. Is that fair to say? That's certainly how we felt.'
- **[operational_signal]** Most pinball operators maintain full-time careers; pinball is side hustle business model; limited financial return despite operational effort (confidence: high) — Alan: 'Most pinball operators are not only pinball operators. They also have real jobs and careers that pay them actual money and the pinball is on the side'
- **[business_signal]** Boutique operators (Daniel/Ty, Alan) differentiate through vintage/unusual game selection vs. mainstream Stern new-release model; filling market niche with curated lineups (confidence: high) — Alan discussing why operators avoid new Stern-only lineups: 'you go to a lot of places and you see a lot of the same games from the last five years... we try not to do that'

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## Transcript

 Hello everyone, this is Alan from the Wedget Finball Podcast, Coming to you with a special episode, a new edition we're going to do called an Operator Spotlight Series, where I, as an operator, get to talk to other operators across this country. And this first Operator Spotlight Series, we're doing some friends of the podcast, friends of Wedgehead, Daniel Radin and Ty Ueda, who are two friends and operators in Boston, and they have a rad pinball parlor called Pops. How are you both doing? Very well. Thanks for having us. I've got a headache, but that's just me. That's unrelated. yeah yeah yeah definitely i mean i hope oh yeah yeah no no no no you've got a great how i you've got a great uh radio voice you're good thank you yeah um for sure will you guys introduce your you each have your own i assume llc or operating company do you want to plug your own brands yeah sure my name is ty ueda i operate under the name three knocks pinball i guess i i live in maine but most of my games are down in boston or up in portland three knocks is a that's a reference to the gottlieb high score credit thing everyone always thinks it's an adams family reference but it is like the oh really yeah it's like the standard the gottlieb if you get a high score to date says you awarded three credits and it's just a fun oh no no i know that i'm surprised that people didn't i mean i guess i'm i'm jaded by doing it so long i'm like yeah obviously that's a grand champion reference yeah everyone thinks it's an adams family the seance which i think Oh, interesting. I guess that's fair. And what about you, Daniel? Yeah, I'm Daniel Radin from the Boston area. I operate under Our Lady of Pinball, which is just a reference to being Jewish and thinking Christianity is interesting. Just curious. Yeah, just, you know, Jay curious. Jay was a Jew. That's true. Pretty famous one. Yeah. Pretty debatably the most famous Jewish guy. Well, we're getting right into it, into the deep topics. Well, that's awesome. Like I said, I just wanted to talk to different operators. And I got to meet Daniel in person when you came through Portland on tour briefly with your band. And I talked to both you guys over Instagram pretty often. I think that's something that maybe a lot of people don't know is that us operators, we talk to one another because we're in this weird niche. And, you know, knowledge is sort of tribal. people that work on games talk to other people that work on games and people have knowledge that they can help you with or things that they've been through before and i think a lot of players just don't really understand what being an operator is or what it entails or how these games get to places who fixes them all that kind of stuff and the work that goes into it so you and i we know each other over the internet i met daniel briefly but i quickly felt like you guys were sort of kindred spirits as far as like the way you operate games the games that you choose to put out because i don't think it's any secret probably for most people that listen they probably realize you go to a lot of places and you see a lot of the same games from the last five years the same stern games the stern lineup and that's something that we try not to do and it's something that i think you guys definitely don't do either so i don't know if you want to talk about a little bit about that and your game choice and what games you choose to operate because you could just as easily buy every brand new stern and have every one of your locations look like that but why why do you choose not to yeah i think that's it's like a there's a few reasons the first really was when i started getting interested in operating i i asked our buddy mitch if i could sit down with him and kind of just pick his brain about like operating pinball machines and uh and like you were saying earlier about us sharing knowledge i don't think i've met an operator who doesn't want to talk about either like what game's breaking a lot what game's earning well what whatever fun information that like only we give a shit about yeah but is really interesting for some reason so i sat down with mitt and he routinely like you know he does operate a lot of new games but i remember playing his games and being like okay even though other people might have sterns his play like absolutely perfect and i was like so this guy's crushing it in terms of putting all the new games out making them play perfectly updating them everything's like you know spot on so i was like okay well what i and i think ty as well really gravitate towards are games that are that have you know earlier games so it felt like there was a niche at least in the boston area that wasn't being filled it was you know fun for us to try and fill it i would also just add in that i think you know daniel and i are long time like craigslist addicts yeah craigslist goblins to a certain degree and so i think a lot of our game selection also and especially in the early days just came from like i got this like crazy deal it's like insane game like uh and i guess i'm gonna make it work perfectly now and and and you know i think part of it is the challenge of making a game that's maybe a little bit more unusual work perfectly but but also just to provide an experience that you know no one else is going to be able to see a fully working x y and z game uh at any other or at most locations you know so trying to focus on really bringing like pristine games that just that you just don't see and also just because we always happen into like you know weird games in someone's basement yeah completely resurrect so yeah like where are you going to play a x's and o's well yeah yeah there might be a reason for that but yeah i just want to talk a little bit more about regionality because we're at portland oregon which is a big pinball town you're in boston massachusetts on the other side of the country how do you think the overall scene is in boston particular i know you guys have a really probably the biggest league that runs over all of new Robert Englunds the new Robert Englunds pinball league but in boston itself is there a lot of machines out or is it a is a relatively small market i think there's always been a lot of games i mean boston's pretty i guess it's pretty similar to portland in that there's a lot of like kind of stranger suburbs there's always a bowling alley that has like a bunch of games but i i think the other big thing is that there's a lot of really good tournament level players in boston as well and in new Robert Englunds in general so i feel like there's always like um people looking for like uh you know good playing games in the area there definitely aren't too many locations, like in the sense that. Yeah, I guess that's what I'm getting to is like it's starved for more. Like you guys saw that you could add something to your local community that wasn't being serviced. Like it sounds like you have your friend Mitch, who's also an operator who I'd love to talk to in the future as well, it sounds like. But Boston's a big metro area that maybe doesn't have as many pinball machines on location as it should. Is that fair to say? That's certainly how we felt. I mean, for example, one of my favorite dive bars, Silhouette Lounge, I would go there in college and be like, I wish there was pinball here. And then, you know, years later, I wish there was pinball here. Eventually, I'm like, I'll ask them if they want some of my pinball machines. So now we have three pinball machines there, which is, you know, it's a very small dive bar. So three is kind of the max. Before it was like a dart and pool bar. And now it's a dart, pool and pinball bar. And we run like a super casual, friendly Sunday afternoon tournament. So yeah, I think seeing the niche of like, the way we operate is intuitive of like, what do we enjoy and where do we want to play pinball and what's the vibe we want to play pinball in so like do we want to be in a loud really busy brewery maybe not most of the time but like but you know percent that's a big part of um when we're placing games what we're thinking about i will say i think also i've been to portland a number of times and i i feel like portland's really special in that every single place has like a seems to have like a crazy lineup of games at least from i guess the last time i was there was probably in like 2018 or something but it i will say that there are definitely like pinball hubs in boston and that like this place has like a ton of games or something but it's rarer that you'll walk into a place and there's just a pinball machine there yes you know there are a couple like pretty monolithic feeling lineups in a couple different places but it's not as like visible in the eye of like every single bar has a has a pinball machine or something. I'm sure there are plenty of historical reasons why that is, but it definitely is. It's a little bit, I would say maybe a little bit harder to find than Portland comparatively. I mean, Portland and Seattle are probably the two biggest pinball cities in the country and therefore probably the world. So we've always had a long history of strong operators in the region. So we have lots of competition, but again, it's not really so much competition. We don't really view it as competition. We view it as sort of like the tide rises all boats totally because pinball is ubiquitous in portland like you're saying every dive bar coffee shops like it's common to run into one to three to four games anywhere yeah and honestly like that's how i grew up playing pinball was moving to portland and then and then being able to play on location and then being everywhere and i still to this day it's not that i'm against arcades but i prefer to play in a bar and i love like a well curated like three to four game lineup Yeah, I fucking live for that shit. I really live for that shit. I love like a comfortable, cool bar. I could just go tuck out and play some pin in the corner. And I love sort of like, you know, maybe they have three or four games. And maybe it's like maybe some one of those games or not all of them are like my favorite games of all time. But maybe it's a game I haven't played in a while or know very well. And I'm like, well, I'm already here. Like, I'm going to learn. I'm going to spend time on Roadshow or something like because it's here. Like, that's what I'm going to play. I'm going to learn it. And it really gets you into something. And I really love the atmosphere of pinball and especially pinball on bars. I feel like that's the natural environment. Like, isn't it dark bar? Is there any reason in particular that Portland has such a robust scene? That's something I always wonder about. Like, if you look at just like a general map of pinball machines, like open for public play, I've always wondered why Portland and Seattle have such a robust scene. Because sometimes when I see like Chicago and like anywhere in the Rust Belt, New Robert Englunds to some degree, Like they're all over the place in those zones. And then like the Midwest and the Southwest have like nothing. And I always thought it was kind of interesting that the Pacific Northwest is like such a hub. Well, I can speak for what I know of Portland. I assume Seattle is a little bit similar. But in Portland in particular at Portland and Seattle the Pacific Northwest we have a rainy season that lasts 10 months out of the year or whatever So it gray and dark So inside activities do very well We also have a history of loose zoning laws which means that we have a lot of strip clubs We have a lot of bookstores. We have, and there's just historically, there's no differentiation between what can go where. You'll have a strip club or a sex shop next to a school or a church or whatever. So in a lot of cities, that doesn't happen. So the liberalness of like how things got placed, I think that it extends to amusements and how everyone I think knows something of the story of how pinball machines were considered illegal in most places or in different places. And the famous Roger Sharp story, which we don't need to get into because it's well documented. But it's like I think in Portland. So there was always in a barrier to entry was easier. And I know that for a fact in the late 90s, there's a local operator named Mike Mahaffey, who is a great, great pinball player, pinball tech, who ran games after pinball kind of died. Or in the 90s, he was running the only games that were working around town. He's the guy that used to go to Papa every year and play. He was friends with Lyman Sheets, right? Like he's that level of like top, top, top tournament player back in the day. But he's credited with sort of putting games on location and making sure they worked. So, and then because they were everywhere, then other operators come in, add more games. So it's just been a rich history. I don't, I would say like my business partner has told me repeatedly, he's like, Mike Mahaffey is the dude that saved pinball in Portland. Yeah. So like, we have nothing but utmost respect for Mike and what he's done. He's older now. He still, you know, works on the route and, um, but he doesn't really play in tournaments so much anymore, but he is a phenomenal player. Zoe can attest to this as far as, like, I'm not impressed by anyone's pinball skill level. Like, it just doesn't impress me at all. But when I saw Mike Mahaffey, like, almost roll our alien star by his second game, and he was just like, oh, if I had another two shots at it, he's like, I was like, I couldn't fucking believe my eyes. This dude is unbelievable. well um i also think that that's kind of an interesting brings like good community is having is really having like operators who play and care which you know 100 which 100 mitch it definitely i mean mitch curtis so we keep bringing up he is he's a phenomenal player yeah and he's really tournament good yeah i think daniel daniel are both pretty good players but we're also like way too goofy to take that shit seriously but but like but we care when like a game play as well and I guess it sounds like in the 90s that Mike over there in Portland was that guy who was like played and cared and did it. Who knew how it was supposed to play. Right. And what would be a fun way to set it up. And we talked about this when I met you. It was like, and you touched on it in one of your episodes, but about if a game is too easy or it's playing too generous, it can be actually less fun. Yeah. Oh, I will die on that hit, man. Oh, my God, dude. I take so many arrows for the way we set up games. And I want to do a whole episode of pinball setup because I think there's a wide variety of how people set up games and it'll cause fights amongst enthusiasts and pinball players. But people think it's, I was there to steal your quarters. And that's, I can assure you, we're not getting rich doing this. I can guarantee you that. But it's more like pinball is supposed to be hard. I will always say that. It was always hard from its earliest days with the little flippers and no inlanes no ball saves and like it's only till recently that we add those features which i do think by and large are overall a good thing the modern progress of a pinball machine is good it's not that they don't make good games but i i think when you get to the point where as even a mediocre player who plays pinball regularly if you start getting to the point where you can play games for 20 30 40 minutes the game is set up too fucking easy like that ruins pinball to me like that's a a hot take that no i'll walk away a lot of people don't agree like yeah i'll walk away from a game if i'm playing for like 30 minutes i'll just get i'll get like fucking bored i'm a busy man i think i place this it's like i don't want to fucking yeah dude it's like it makes you not want to play with your friends right no you can't play with somebody if everyone's having balls like that like it's it's just crazy and it lengthens tournaments to an obscene length and yeah that's a whole nother discussion for a different time but i want to get back quickly to why you think Boston maybe isn't, it doesn't have the same level. I want to talk about like, have you guys as operators, because I think a lot of people don't realize this, like we in Portland, like we have an amusement permit that we have to pay for. So ours is, ours is based on number of machines per location. So what happens is, is when we put games in a location, we have to pay based on the number of games, but really the rate's pretty low, which is also why I think you see it a lot. But I know in some places it's really high i think in maine it's pretty high but maybe ty can attest to that i don't know if you have any of your games out in maine yeah i'll let daniel kind of take the bulk of this but i do i have a small answer to the main thing but uh i i know that i when arcadia opened up in in portland maine i think they got hit with some like i think they wanted like 300 bucks a game or something for a white yeah and they it was some sort of crazy number and uh oh they had like a like a go fund me or something well they had a good money and then and the way that they pay the amusement fee was before they opened they had that crazy tournament that we went to oh yeah and uh i think it was called like the amusement fee tournament or some shit like that but i mean they made kind of a pretty big public stink about it and i think it's i want to say it's actually up for both because it was some sort of outdated number from like the you know the 90s or something and they were like listen no one's actually doing this anymore like we don't there's That way it's easy to get. All the pins I actually have in Maine, the locations offered to pay that fee yearly for me. The Navy Yard does it. I know Portland, the Arcadia does it. So I've kind of lucked out dodging having to handle the Maine numbers, which is super generous of all the owners of the places that I have games up there. Yeah, and in terms of Massachusetts, all the laws are so different for each town. because like like i only operate i think between the two of us operate three games in boston proper like all of our other games are are in either you know cambridge or everett or wherever like all or waltham where they each town has their own ordinance their own law for running amusements and then a lot of them get covered just under like again this is like really inside baseball but like a lot of them get covered under no i ask i think people the thing about it is what i want this series to be is people don't know this yeah you're not an operator you don't know this and a lot of people are becoming operators and they don't know this yeah yeah so it's like i want these episodes to be to explain to people like the what goes into running a route what goes into operating games well i'll also say that there's a couple out of every group there's like one geek who wants to know all these things so yeah i mean if i'm that way if we have it all on this podcast we can just send them there yeah like i'm trying to free up this stuck ball i don't really have the Time to answer this. Yeah. But like, so a lot of our places, we just fall under entertainment, luckily. So like if they can have a band play, then they can have a pinball machine or a pool table or whatever. Oh, okay. That's cool. Yeah. So it's not per game in the Boston region. In some, like I had games in Framingham for a bit, and they did have to get a license for every game at a brewery. How much was that? Do you remember? It was like $150 a year or something. Okay. Which they covered. yeah i think that's also the other thing is that like we've always had good luck having it covered by whatever location we've had him run under yeah knock on wood there but i knocked on wood yeah for the listeners at home yeah i know for us in portland like my business partner i think we do sort of the same thing as far as like his route it just sort of falls under stuff that they already have at their business it's typically covered by them but in our wedge head in our arcade in our pinball bar we have it through the city and i believe it's we're just over right like which sucks but it's like they have it they have it on rates of like zero to zero to five it costs i don't know like 200 bucks then then five to 20 it's like 500 bucks and then over 20 it's no it's a thousand no no no no no no collectively okay collectively but it's graduated like that okay interesting yeah i was i thought you were talking for game and i was like you you gotta No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, that would be terrible, man. It wouldn't be as popular because games don't earn money like that. That's something we'll get to in future episodes and talk more about earnings. I have a whole economics, pinball economics that I really want to do that I've outlined, but just about the earnings of pinball machines and what it costs to buy them and operate them and all that kind of stuff that we don't need to get into here. But the next thing I want to talk about is like, how do you guys find your locations? How do you approach your locations? Because this is another thing that I get asked about a lot by people that have a couple games and they want to start a route. And they're like, well, how do you get in? How do you find these places? I mean, to start, I just sat down on Google Maps and made, like, a list of every brewery within, like, 30 miles. Because I was like, okay, breweries have a lot of space and very little to do historically besides, like, board games. and I basically just cold emailed probably like 50 or 60 breweries. There's a lot of breweries in the area, like mini breweries. One of the first ones to respond was this brewery we work with. Our first like bigger lineup, which is eight games now. Is that Bear Moose? Yeah, Bear Moose Brewery in Everett. The owner, Drew, emailed me back. I said like, hey, like here's my pitch. Here's how it worked, blah, blah, blah. I explained it in the introductory email, how splits work. We'll provide a change machine. You know, you don't have to do anything. we'll handle all the maintenance and he just said responded like yeah put as many as you want so that's awesome i mean but he's it turns out he owned a pin bot like on board with pinball before but never had time to he's the main brewer at this brewery so totally yeah he can't handle like putting pinball machines in and maintaining them and all that kind of stuff in addition to what he already does so he our email to him was just like a dream come true he's like oh great i've involved up my brewery and I don't have to do anything. And we even operate now two games for him at the brewery, including his pin bot, which we fixed up. Yeah. I mean, that was the kind of the gateway. And then we built that space. We made it a New Robert Englunds Pinball League location. We got like a group of players to come pretty consistently to that. And we started running tournaments. And once you have kind of that one location, you really put a lot of effort into building a community around. It makes it a lot easier to sell the idea to another place where it's like, hey, here's this cool thing I'm doing. Are you interested in being part of it? Versus like hey can I please put a big bulky electronic item in your bar Like you know what I mean Yeah bring I going to bring a bunch of people in but they going to be nerds that are going to come up to your bar staff and tell you that something that you never heard of isn functioning or whatever in the most inopportune moment right Yeah, we're not making fun when we say this, but we and I see it. But we have like, you know, a QR code on our games to report issues so that so that the bar staff can say, scan the QR code and send a send a report and you know, an issue report. And we always we always joke like we are nerds. We know how everything what the proper name for everything is. The average person doesn't nor should they like that's fine. But I love translating or interpreting people's report issues. like sometimes it's like a literal game between me and ty our favorite one being um which we still say to each other uh the the ball fell through no way the ball fell through the playfield and cannot be read and the machine cannot read it the machine cannot read it and we're just like we're like what the so i was like okay i'm like really genuinely trying to figure out what i think and just the answer the solution was i believe it went i think the attack from mars opto just wasn't working and the scoop didn't kick it out like that's what it sure yeah yeah um which like i just use a whole bunch of dumb words when i said that so like obviously they're not going to be like i think the opto is not reading in the scoop you know what i mean like of course they're not going to say that but but but i think it's also that with all of our games that we put out most of the bosnian community knows now very true to like use the qr code or like message us personally with our player base we i feel lucky that you know we never have people who go up to like the bar staff and are just like, oh, this doesn't work. That's possibly just because we, you know. Well, you built brands. You built brands. You make it easy to communicate with your QR code. We do a similar thing. We do a, I put a text number. I have a separate line set up. That's our tech line. And I put a sign on each game that says, you notice any problems? Text this number. And I say, pictures are appreciated for the exact reason that you just stated, which is that some people write things that I don't know what to make sense of. Yeah. So usually if they can like take a picture of like where a ball disappeared and wasn't red, you know, I'd be like, oh, it's the scoop. It's probably the switch and the scoop. Right. Like I can, I know where to look and it allows me to text them back if I'm really unclear about what they said. Right. But yeah, I think. Going back to the question that you mentioned of just like, what's, how do we convince, what's the pitch? like one of the biggest selling points is really selling the location that you're taking care of the maintenance like because i it seems like every bar in the area has had an experience of like oh yeah we had a pinball machine once and it was always broken and it sat you know and and money being able to like really firmly present to you know to any brewery or bar restaurant owner just like no no like we take care of these games they work you know and you don't have to worry about any of that that's usually the biggest barrier into getting getting places to sign on and it's just is is sure you know having proof that you maintain and take care of those games and then just continually bugging the piss out of every single person that you ask just said is sending like five follow-up emails i must have at the navy yard i must have dropped my card like 10 times and then joe was finally just like oh yeah i saw your card yeah just put as many as you want just come on down it's like seriously i've been emailing you for like years you know yeah well i will say as a bar owner and operator of a bar uh and i do the food at wedged head that's what i was classically trained as i've been cooking in kitchens since i was 16 but it's like i got a lot going on as a business owner people are always trying to get your attention with anything so someone coming in to operate pinball machines if i wasn't already you know pinball operator at a pinball bar we you know it'd be like it'd be one thing that's like hey, so-and-so emailed me. I'm like, man, I get a bunch of emails. I get a bunch of questions. I have a bunch of things that I have to deal with. Right. So it gets lost in the shuffle. So I think what you're saying is, you know, be polite, but be persistent. Persistence pays off. Yeah. And once you guys get a couple locations under your belt, it does it for yourself. Because if anyone's even curious, people that you weren't even thinking about, right, that wasn't on your radar, they'll reach out to you and be like, hey, I have this bar or I have this space. I would like to put some pinball machines in, could you, would you do them? Or I've been to Baramoose or I've been to the Navy Yard or whatever. And they're like, can, can I get some games? And you're like, hell yeah. And then it becomes easier. The more locations you have, it becomes easier to get new ones. And that's where it becomes like, then you get into the situation of like, do I have enough games? How, how much do I want to stretch myself? Because the other thing is, I think what a lot of what would surprise a lot of people is most pinball operators are not only pinball operators. They also have real jobs and careers that pay them actual money and the pinball is on the side side hustle something that they do because they're passionate about pinball yeah i yeah daniel's giving me this like knowing look where he's like you know well so we touched on it earlier but the part of what i've been supplement so i'm a musician as you mentioned earlier so i do go on tour um obviously there's so much money in music and it's just an amazing just throw money at you on stage it's crazy yeah man you guys you're making money hand over fist oh yeah i know i studied philosophy in school too so i'm really just nail it anyway but part of probably part of the reason there isn't as much location pinball i'm thinking is there are a lot of people in the area with home collections yeah and some of them are really amazing techs and do play field swaps and restore beautiful games like our friend chuck does really amazing job but there aren't that many texts so like i put a goo you know we both put google ads up like hey like we repair pinball machines we operate them blah blah and the amount of calls i get just like hey can you come fix this game it's like it is now getting to getting to the point where i'm like sure in four weeks yeah so so that is like if you're if you are interested in routing older games where you will have to fix them and and shop them and uh you then you have those that skill set you know you can charge people like a pretty decent hourly wage to work on their games in their in their home collection often they have a lot of games like you're kind of charging plumbers rates you know like but it's for sure but it's for something just purely fun like everyone's mad at the plumber for not showing up on time because they're like i want to use my shower but no one's like mad at the pinball tech they're like oh i'm excited to play my game but it's not like i can't shower and i smell now so it's like a really sweet well and there's also less techs right like with a plumber there's other plumbers you can call, right? Like there's, there's even in places like Portland, it's like, we know, I know all the techs, man. It's like, I know all the people that know anything about working on a pinball machine. Right. So it's like, and even in a city where we have as many as we do, I don't know, maybe there's, maybe there's a dozen or so people that are good at working on games. And I'm sure there are some hobbyists that we don't really know, but you know, when you have over a thousand games in the Portland metro area on location at any given time, that's really not that many people. Yeah, exactly. All right. I think that was a pretty good introduction to kind of becoming an operator and sort of finding locations and things like that. Collecting feedback on games, I think it's a big deal. I would also say, I think we sort of touched on it, but I want to reiterate that I do think that what we're seeing nowadays, which is awesome, is we're seeing a lot of pinball players turn into pinball operators. Historically, what made it hard to get into places where a pinball machine go in, an operator was also operating jukeboxes, pool tables, buck hunters, stuff like that. Stuff like that that's sort of like turnkey. They don't really need to do a lot of maintenance on. They show up and they take money out. They put money in a change machine or fill an ATM or whatever. They're not there to really fix many things very often. And a pinball machine is the opposite of that. And so, you know, they would just sort of, you know, fall apart on location and not be serviced. And now what you're having is a lot of pinball heads become operators and pinball players make the best operators because you want a game to play well because you're a player you're the consumer i think that's that's also a good point though is that daniel and i both started on all this just because we bought games and wanted to work perfectly outside of you know outside of operating you know and and that being the primary focus of what we do and they're running out of space and having to put them somewhere is really you know a big transition as well yeah i want to give a shout out to my dad who like i had you know we were we were being like as we said like craigslist goblins just like trying to find games for a reasonable price and i had like i think i had three games in my basement and my dad was like cool as the pandemic was starting to ease and my dad just goes like what are you gonna do with three pinball machines in your basement yeah i don't know sell them sell one get another one he's like why don't you put them in a bar make some money i was like oh shout out to daniel's dad dude i mean he's like awesome he's like i always like to argue with him he considers himself a moral capitalist which like i don't think exists but like i like to hear his opinions on it he's a very smart guy and yeah so that was partly how ty and i really started working on it together was like hey i'm putting a i think ty sent me like a monster bash he's like you should buy this like if you're going to start routing games i was like all right so i put a monster bash in a creature like one other maybe a hot wheels or something random just those two just those two to start yeah yeah add bare moose and then it just it grew from there yeah that's also crazy that man my first two games there were oops and silver slugger too i forgot about that that's fucking crazy yeah that was before that was before you were trying to make money off he was like i was like oh yeah these fucking games roll like they got these fucked up flippers and like there's robocop playing baseball like how could you not fucking love this oh man i uh it's been a pleasure talking to you both i want to end this episode by asking you about your combines location since you guys operate around towns of different bars uh and places but i wanted to talk to you about your your combined spot pops pinball parlor and i want you to give me you know the synopsis what's what's pops all about how did you find that space and how do you build a community at pops and sort of what makes it unique like what do you feel like is your unique fingerprint in the Boston area or in the pinball community at large? Yeah. So Pop is at Bow Market, which is a sort of like a, it's hard to describe. It's a mini hyper local mall in a courtyard. So it's like all these micro businesses. There's a brewery, a wine bar, a cocktail bar, a chocolate shop, like in a bunch of stores, like a vintage shop. So it's all these little businesses all in this one little area. So you can kind of patronize a whole bunch of local business all at once And I been bugging them for a while As I was saying earlier I just kept being like Hey you guys want pinball And they were like no And that was in months go by Hey you guys want pinball I mean by the way don just email someone Hey you guys want pinball That nothing That not an email It was more eloquent But that my short version I think like at the third or fourth time they were like come see this space so i went in and it was like it's like a 300 square foot room it was like this mini grocery store before and we kind of just pitched them on a pop-up to be there for two months and ty i remember ty sending me like he's very good at layout stuff so he sent me like this like freaking sim city like like layout of like okay here's exactly how i'm like yeah we could probably for like 20 games i don't know and ty's like no we can fit exactly 10 or 11 games and here's how the look and so he was much more detail oriented but we also like you know they showed us that space we thought about it a little bit and then i thought about for like one day we thought of yeah i guess the reality it was but the quicker thing is that we we signed the key you know we signed the deal on that space and in two weeks we were open like that's kind of the thing that that's nuts about it as well is that we pitched it as a pop-up and we were only expecting to be there for two months yeah the original plan and that meant we had two weeks to get it up and running yeah and so it was it was just an absolute mad dash to get you know all the games in there all the games up and running you and i both had a ton of things going on at that time and and we just we knew we had to do it it was the it was the only it was the only option was just to gun ho go for it you know you can you can do anything stupid and crazy for two months yeah you know like Like, we were just like, yeah, sure, of course we can. That would be great. And part of the goal was to see, like, can Boston or will Boston patronize a pinball space? Like, a space that is so, and just as a side note, Pops is literally just a 300-square-foot room with 11 games and vibe. Like, that's all it is. You can buy, you know, a cocktail upstairs and bring it in legally. That's okay. I can say that. But we don't sell alcohol. We don't sell food, nothing. thing it's like we sell you know we just have pinball some stickers a fortune telling machine like sweet merch we do have some some sweet merch some sweet merch yeah uh yeah that was the idea to see if boston will support a pinball bar basically or a pinball-esque and i think the other thing too is that there are a couple there are a couple places in boston you can you know we have like there's a place called roxy's that is like the classic like meat market barcade there's like 200 college students who wait in the line to like go like pump quarters into like big buck hunter and like try to bang their classmate or something and and there's like that spot there are like a couple like large pinball areas in large pinball spaces in the area um there's like some bars that have good collections there's home collections there's a couple like massive vibe-less warehouses that have like 50 pinball machines that you know get played once a week but you know we also wanted to see if there was you know something a space we could make that was pinball focused but also still like really fun you know i think that was the biggest focus we were really trying to get is is how do we make this space fun like have you know you know we have paint by numbers everywhere and play like 70s music up you know it's like it's it's just like we're trying to make a space that's focused around this one activity but it's not a hyper competitive space it's you know got you know just good airy light foot traffic and you know it doesn't feel like you're in a dungeon somewhere we we wanted somewhere that we would want to spend time in basically was our yeah was like the style guide for for pops and we're really lucky to have attracted a whole community of people who feel the same way like when i come in and there's someone just like cranking away on like Rocky and Bullwinkle I'll be like crushing it I'll be like hey can I give you our soft bitch for tournaments and they're like sure and I'm like first of all I'm not a competitive person let me just start by saying that and I enjoy our tournaments and they're like okay I like that because like a lot of a lot of people are like I like playing pinball but I don't I don't like the competitive like I don't want anyone to be mad at me or or or you know there's sort of like a a vibe at certain pinball tournaments that are very serious and people are taking it very seriously and you kind of and that's fine like that's there's no issue with that but it isn't where i want to be and where i want to spend time and so myself either yeah and yeah exactly so we're trying to sort of curate an experience for people like us um who want to just like play pinball and have fun and not take it too seriously i want to say that as an operator and we have Wedgehead, I will say that in tournament people don't realize this, but there are way more people that play pinball than play pinball in tournaments. They don't understand that. They don't understand that they're a niche of a niche. They're unaware, right? They're blissfully unaware of it. But that's what we chose to focus on with Wedgehead was like we want more people to play pinball and so when we run our casual event howdy partner it's about getting it's the same thing you're talking about i was like hey i know you're not a tournament player neither am i right like here here's something you can go out and do and have a good time without the pressure or the weird vibes that some big very competitive tournaments can get not all tournaments are like that i don't want to be seen as a tournament hater But it's like that space is well supported. Yeah. Right. Like it's to their pinball tournaments everywhere across the country and every pinball spot tournament players will organize anywhere to get their tournaments and their points. What doesn't happen is the people that organize to get casual players into playing in an organized event, you know, and that doesn't exist as often. Yeah. Well, I think also there's Pops also operates under the New Robert Englunds Pinball League umbrella. Like we were a league location where the New Robert Englunds Pinball League players can play. And, you know, we have to take that at least like there's a degree of seriousness we have to present to those for league for league nights. um you know there's like three seasons a year and then an off season between those seasons but there are lots of places that do take you know the new Robert Englunds pinball league tournaments like super seriously and we have to at least like abide by a certain amount of guidelines but after eight weeks of that pretty much every single one of our players is like man i'm so ready for league to be done yeah for casual tournaments because i like i want to i want to be able to just like show up here and you're going to like force us to like you know like play with like a mirror on the ceiling and the play field obscured or something. They're like, I want to do something weird and fucked up. The best is, we have a player who comes in all the time, his name's Ben, and he's an amazing player. I think he won New Robert Englunds Pinball League, right? Yeah. But even he asked Ty, he's like, oh, do you guys know what you're doing for the next casual tournament? And we were like, oh, you think that we think more than 12 hours ahead of time? Usually it's like we're texting each other on the way, like, hey, what's some weird shit we should do? Yeah. But that is so fun to us that people are anticipating and looking forward to, like, what weird thing are you going to do for this next Thursday tournament? So that's such a cool feeling. And I think if we only ran serious tournaments, I think it would just be against the ethos of the space. But I just don't think people would have as much fun. At least not the crew that we have coming in. Yeah, that's fair. But I think it's just fair to say that there's plenty of that around. there will always be plenty of that around there's always room for somebody to do something different and i think you guys do a great job of that i look forward to going to boston visiting my friend zoe and playing in the boston scene and seeing pops firsthand and going to your locations and hanging out with you guys in person i just want to thank you both for joining me on the wedget pinball podcast you were some of the first people that reached out when i released the first episode with some very nice things to say and i i appreciate that very much and i'm just grateful that you would come on and talk about operating pins with me. And I hope that in the future we can get together and do another episode sometime. But I just want to thank you both for joining us. If you have anything else you want to say. I'm looking forward to more of these two. Daniel and I's dynamic is pretty fun because I'm definitely like the shit talker of the two. And like Daniel's like pretty, pretty like together. But like I'm I love diving into like weird minutia of details and stuff and just going hog wild on it. Yeah. Like I'm looking forward to more. Yeah, we're so on board with, like, the lack of patter. Like, your Lightning Flippers episode is just like, so, Lightning Flippers, let's get into it. Like, it wasn't even, like, I was like, yes. Like, I'm so glad you didn't talk about what you had for lunch today. Like, thank God. It's like, oh, let me read all the reviews of my podcast on air. Dude, for real. It's brutal. Anyway, thank you for having us. It's so fun. I'll end this episode like I end every episode, which is imploring people listening. Go out and play some fucking pinball in location. That's what this is all about. Support a local operator. And if you're in the Boston area, go to Pops, man. Go to Bear Moose. Go to the Navy Yard. Go check out their locations. Support them. Put some money in their machines. They're doing it as a passion project. These guys are passionate. They work really hard. Give you a good experience, okay? So go out. Have some fun. Play with some other people. They do casual tournaments on Thursdays that are a lot of fun. I think they alluded to. Go check one of those out. For everyone else, thank you very much for listening to this episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. Until next time, good luck. Don't suck. Across the North and South To the kiln I don't understand School operator School operator School operator School operator School operator Sweet Aqualad Sweet Aqualad Sweet Aqualad

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 6716f015-51f7-412f-876f-fa6ba1fe6420*