# How To Arcade With Amy McDonough of Tilted Orbit **Source:** Bash Pinball Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2025-12-18 **Duration:** 65m 16s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.bashpinball.com/2025/12/18/s2-ep13-hta-amytiltedorbit/ --- ## Analysis Don and Matt from Bash Pinball Podcast introduce a new interview series focused on arcade operations and routing games. They interview Amy McDonough of Tilted Orbit about her journey from casual pinball player to aspiring arcade operator in Massachusetts. Amy discusses her path to pinball fandom, the regulatory and logistical challenges of launching a large dedicated arcade (4,000-5,000 sq ft with bar/food service), her acquisition of 56 pinball machines, and her vision for a pinball destination in the Five College area of Western Massachusetts that complements the regional pinball community. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Amy McDonough owns 56 pinball machines, which exceed the capacity of her planned arcade space — _Amy states directly: 'I ended up buying in total—I have 56 pinball machines.'_ - [HIGH] In Massachusetts, liquor licenses are allocated based on per capita calculations and can cost $100,000 when purchased from closed businesses — _Amy explains: 'liquor licenses are available for towns based on a per capita calculation' and 'there was a bar that closed down in Northampton and their liquor license was for sale, but it was like $100,000.'_ - [HIGH] Amy is planning a 4,000-5,000 square foot arcade space with bar and food service in Massachusetts — _Amy states: 'I think I need something like 4 to 5,000 square feet.'_ - [HIGH] The Western Mass Pinball Club has approximately 80 pinball machines and does not provide food/drink service — _Amy: 'the Western Mass Pinball Club, which is great, and it has like 80 pinball machines... but you have to bring your own food and there's nothing there to drink.'_ - [HIGH] Amy bought most of her machines before securing a lease on her arcade space, which she views as a mistake — _Amy: 'this is probably one of the first ones—was like going on a pinball buying spree before I had a location.'_ - [HIGH] Bash Pinball is planning a multi-episode interview series covering arcade operators at different stages of development — _Don states: 'we have at least three or four more episodes like this that are sort of lined up over the course of season two.'_ - [HIGH] Amy left her job to work full-time on the arcade project — _Amy: 'eventually I did leave my job and I started working on this full-time.'_ - [HIGH] The Five College area in Western Massachusetts (including UMass Amherst) lacks dedicated pinball arcade space — _Amy: 'there's nothing really up there. Even the places that there are, I would be frustrated sometimes—the quality of the games.'_ ### Notable Quotes > "I ended up buying in total—I have 56 pinball machines." > — **Amy McDonough**, N/A > _Reveals the scale of Amy's machine collection and the challenge of fitting them into a planned arcade space_ > "It like it breaks my heart that they're going to be alone there in old storage, you know, so—and then when they should be played." > — **Amy McDonough**, N/A > _Demonstrates Amy's passion for machines being played rather than stored, driving her routing mindset_ > "There's not enough pinball. Like even if—even if there was a place like down the street, I think I would still be doing this." > — **Amy McDonough**, N/A > _Emphasizes Amy's belief in the demand for dedicated pinball space despite emerging competition_ > "I have visions of a pinball passport where folks visit each other—like Danny's—Mystic Pizza pinball...we're going to complement each other." > — **Amy McDonough**, N/A > _Shows Amy's collaborative regional vision rather than competitive approach with nearby operators_ > "this is probably one of the first ones—was like going on a pinball buying spree before I had a location." > — **Amy McDonough**, N/A > _Self-identified operational mistake that serves as cautionary tale for potential arcade operators_ > "I felt like I at least had the confidence of putting together a pretty robust business plan even though the numbers are pretty much made up." > — **Amy McDonough**, N/A > _Candid acknowledgment of the challenge in forecasting revenue/costs for a novel venture in an unfamiliar market_ > "I want a Stranger Things Premium...if anybody wants to send me a Stranger Things Premium, loan me one...give me one for half price." > — **Don (Matt at one point)**, N/A > _Lighthearted aside revealing Don's personal game wishlist and highlighting specific game demand_ > "You clearly need to do something with this." > — **Joe Bowers (quoted by Amy)**, N/A > _The catalyst moment when an outside observer recognized Amy's passion and suggested she monetize it_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Amy McDonough | person | Founder/operator of Tilted Orbit, aspiring arcade owner in Massachusetts, pinball enthusiast who transitioned from casual player to operator, owns 56 pinball machines | | Don | person | Co-host of Bash Pinball Podcast, interviewed Amy McDonough | | Matt | person | Co-host of Bash Pinball Podcast, operates with Don from studio/shed cade space | | Tilted Orbit | company | Amy McDonough's planned arcade venture in Massachusetts, 4,000-5,000 sq ft dedicated space with bar, food, pinball and arcade games | | Western Mass Pinball Club | organization | Existing pinball club in Western Massachusetts with ~80 machines, no food/drink service, located roughly one hour from Northampton | | Bash Pinball Podcast | organization | Podcast hosted by Don and Matt, introducing new season 2 series on arcade operations and routing games | | Northampton, Massachusetts | location | Amy's home base, population ~30,000, limited liquor license availability, target location for arcade | | Five College Area | location | Region including UMass Amherst and four other colleges in Western Massachusetts; identified as underserved for dedicated pinball arcade space | | Chris Cardaci | person | Operates Chris Cardaci's Pinball Services in Providence, Rhode Island; Amy's partner in game rotation strategy and logistics | | PinFanatic | event | Massachusetts pinball expo where Amy played her first tournament and connected with regional pinball clubs | | Albany Bells and Chimes | organization | Regional pinball club network that Amy connected with through PinFanatic | | Funspot | company | Large pinball and arcade venue in New Hampshire featuring indoor bowling, golf, and extensive pinball collection | | Addams Family | game | Early pinball machine that sparked Amy's initial interest as a graduate student at University of Vermont | | Theater of Magic | game | Pinball machine at the University of Vermont location where Amy first reconnected with pinball during graduate school | | Stranger Things Premium | game | Modern pinball machine available at arcade in Northampton; Don expressed strong desire to own it | | Mystical Pinball | company | Existing pinball venue in Turners Falls, Massachusetts, closed during COVID, reportedly reopening | | Mystic Pizza Pinball | company | Pinball venue operated by Danny in the Route 91 corridor region; features older games with music focus | | Gravitate | company | Pinball venue in Brattleboro, southern Vermont, approximately one hour from Northampton | | University of Vermont | organization | Where Amy reconnected with pinball as a graduate student in the mid-1990s | | ClickUp | product | Free project management software used by Amy to track arcade development tasks with interdependencies | | Joe Bowers | person | Former renewable energy colleague of Amy who recognized her passion for pinball and encouraged her to pursue it commercially | ### Topics - **Primary:** Arcade operations and business planning, Regulatory and licensing challenges (liquor licenses, local permits), Pinball machine acquisition and inventory management, Regional pinball community and venue strategy - **Secondary:** Project management tools and methodologies, Pinball history and player journey, Game routing and location management - **Mentioned:** Arcade podcast content production ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.78) — Generally optimistic tone throughout with enthusiasm from both hosts and guest. Amy's passion for pinball and her arcade vision is well-received. However, some candid admissions of mistakes (buying too many machines early) and challenges (regulatory complexity, storage logistics) temper the entirely positive sentiment. ### Signals - **[business_signal]** Pre-location machine acquisition (56 games) created unexpected storage and logistics burden, identified as operational mistake by Amy (confidence: high) — Amy: 'this is probably one of the first ones—was like going on a pinball buying spree before I had a location' - **[business_signal]** Amy McDonough transitioned from full-time renewable energy project management role to full-time arcade development (confidence: high) — Amy states: 'eventually I did leave my job and I started working on this full-time' - **[community_signal]** Bash Pinball launching dedicated season-long interview series on arcade operations to support community members interested in opening venues (confidence: high) — Don and Matt explicitly frame this as an 'interview type series' to 'get this information out there like how different people are going about this endeavor' with 3-4 more episodes planned - **[event_signal]** PinFanatic expo serves as key networking hub for regional pinball community development and tournament exposure (confidence: medium) — Amy's attendance at PinFanatic led to connections with Albany Bells and Chimes and accelerated community involvement - **[licensing_signal]** Massachusetts liquor licensing creates significant barrier to entry for arcade operators seeking to differentiate via food/beverage service (confidence: high) — Amy details per capita allocation system, $100k secondary market prices for closed bar licenses, requiring location-specific strategic planning - **[market_signal]** Significant undersupply of dedicated pinball arcade venues in Five College region of Western Massachusetts despite nearby colleges and communities (confidence: high) — Amy identifies gap in service between Northampton (30k pop) and surrounding areas, contrasts Western Mass Pinball Club's 80 machines with bar/restaurant routing of 4-8 machines each - **[personnel_signal]** Chris Cardaci's Pinball Services becoming key logistics/partnership partner for Amy's arcade, managing game storage and rotation (confidence: medium) — Amy describes Chris as crucial helper and partner in game rotation strategy with Providence location, helping move games repeatedly - **[product_strategy]** Amy planning 75-25 pinball-to-arcade game split with retail/turnover model to absorb excess machine inventory from 56-machine collection (confidence: high) — Amy: 'I'm not going to be able to fit that many... it affords a lot of opportunity actually with the arcade to potentially function as a sales floor' - **[sentiment_shift]** Amy's transition from casual nostalgic player to serious operator reflects growing accessibility and professionalization of pinball operator market (confidence: high) — Amy rediscovered pinball via Funspot, accumulated 56 machines, and pivoted career entirely within approximately 2-3 years - **[business_signal]** Amy pursuing collaborative regional pinball passport strategy rather than competitive positioning against existing venues (confidence: high) — Amy describes vision to complement Mystic Pinball (older/music focus) with family-oriented arcade, enable cross-venue tournaments/leaderboards --- ## Transcript Hello, Matt. Hello, Don. Look at this beautiful space. We have a drum set, a loot, a bass. Is that a We have lamp. Is that a tambourine? That is a tambourine on a high hat, and a weird keyboard from the 80s. Oh, and I think that's a like a Casio. So, so where are we, Matt? We are in our little This is a studio. It's a real studio. It's a It's a baby music studio. Yeah. Yeah. So, this studio is like part of our shop where we make stuff. Right now, we're making a podcast in here. Right. So, so the shed cade was is temporarily kind of down because you're waiting for some fiber to be installed. Yeah. There's not as many fibers as there should be, but yeah, the internet sucks at the shed cade right now. And it was supposed to be fiberified today, but they lied. Um, most of our future videos will probably be in the shed cade and there may be pinball machines in the background instead of musical instruments, but this is still cool. Yeah, it looks cool. Yeah. Yeah. So, what So, what are we going to talk about today? Today, we've got like a different sort of episode than the usual. I don't know what is considered a usual episode for us cuz we like to switch it up. But this one's going to be extra different because it's an interview. Yeah, this is I would almost say this is um to me feels almost more of like a like a side quest pro like a side project within the project because you know part of what we're doing this season on the podcast is covering routing games and yeah, I wouldn't call it a side quest cuz it it really is what this season is about. It's just a different aspect cuz we, you know, we've talked about earlier how our own aspirations are to start an arcade. And we thought, well, how are we going to do that? It's kind of complicated. It's confusing. There's a million different ways you can do it. So, what better way to figure out how to do it ourselves than to talk to other folks who are doing it and who have done it, who are trying to do it, who are in the middle of it. And we just we kind of happen to know a decent number of folks who are kind of in this process. And so we figured let's talk to these folks and like get this information out there like how different people are going about this endeavor of like routing games, routing pinball machines, building arcades, right? So yeah, basically this is going to be like an interview type series where we're going to talk to different folks at different stages. you know, starting halfway through maybe having owned an arcade for a couple years to kind of get like a pretty broad range perspective of like what it takes to start it, to run it. Yeah. Okay. We're going to talk to people all over the country. Maybe we don't have anybody now, but maybe we'll find somebody in another part of the world that's trying to do it. That would be great. Side note, contact us if you're in, I don't know, Bangladesh and you're trying to start a pinball arcade or anywhere else. Like, it'd be cool to talk to somebody in a different country who's trying to go through the same process, right? Totally. because it is different everywhere and every community and every place that you might consider putting an arcade is going to have completely different community, different types of populations, regulations, so many considerations. So, yeah, we just want to make this information more readily available to folks so that everybody can feel like there's less hurdles, right, to actually jumping in and starting an arcade. And I mean selfishly we're we're benefiting from this ourselves because you know ultimately this is a dream of ours as well. Yeah. Maybe find some like common pitfalls, common themes, common reasons why people do this. Yeah. It's like a little like a little study. We really want to get into the minutia of how you do this instead of it just being like this vague nebulous thing like well what's actually involved? You know what are the steps? like how how much money does it cost? You know, all these different things. There's so many elements to it. For this series, the episodes can be a little longer, too, right? Yeah. I mean, it's just however long it takes and probably more conversational, right? Less of the kind of sound effects per se or production value. More of just like conversational kind of understanding and learning about the process of starting an arcade or routing games. These are going to be more not formal because we're going to be talking to people we like that we're friends with largely, but we're trying to actually make something that is useful and functional. So, we're going to be asking a lot of folks the same types of questions on these different interviews because we want to know how different people in different parts of the world are approaching the same types of problems. Uh, yeah, this will probably be a little bit more informational. Um, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're still going to edit these things, so you know, they'll move along quickly. And I mean, if you have zero interest in arcades, then you might not find a lot here. But if you have even a passing interest in routing games or you've ever thought like, wonder if uh I can make some money off the games that I own or anything like that, you're going to get a lot out of this series. And we hope that this can be like a benefit to the pinball community at large. Sweet. Great idea. Nice job. We have at least three or four more episodes like this that are sort of lined up over the course of season two, which I don't know when that's going to end at this point, but this is going to be an ongoing series as we meet more and more folks who are engaged in this Tom Foolery of trying to start an arcade. So, on this first one, we've got Amy Mcdana, who we met through the podcast about a year and a half ago. And since we met her, she's kind of had this idea, and she's just in the last two years started to really like put forth great efforts to to start like a really cool legit arcade in Massachusetts. And so, we're going to be talking to her about where she's at in the process, what she's been through to get to this point, what she's done right, what she's done wrong. It's it's really cool to have her as the first guest too because we were kind of there unofficially right as this was kind of starting like from inception in a way she contacted us and made it known that she was like hey yeah I kind of have aspirations for you know sometime pretty soon you know have my own place and sooner than later man like we're here like she's doing it. Yeah. And and usually when somebody says that, I'm like, "Uh-huh." Right. Right. It's sure usually like a 70% chance that it's probably not going to happen or maybe 60, right? I mean, who doesn't want to start an arcade? That's that's cool. But yeah, Amy is legit and like really was serious about this thing. No, she's serious. Yeah. So, yeah, it was it was cool to follow along and see where she's at now. And you know, we look forward to kind of seeing her continued development and progress. But right now, we have a really cool snapshot of being right in the middle of starting a commercial arcade. A big one. A big one. Not not just like a little Yeah. like side corner thing like like an actual thousands of square feet and, you know, multiple areas and Yeah. So, so we hope this will be inspiring and informational and useful and thanks to Amy for jumping on here and just being very open and transparent about sharing, you know, all the ins and outs of what she's gone through to get to this point. Yeah, thank you, Amy. Yeah, thank you so much. And without further ado, here's Amy. Amy, I'm really excited to talk to you because we've been basically emailing back and forth for like has it been over a year? I think so. Man, I am so excited and so happy that we're finally doing this. Like you we are actually chatting on the podcast about what you're doing and you've been keeping us basically updated kind of along the way and it's been really really cool to kind of like just see someone doing it and now you know it's even cooler to actually have you here to talk about that. Thanks. So maybe Amy, you can tell us how did you get interested in pinball? That seems like the first place to start, right? Sounds great. I like I played a little bit of pinball when I was a kid, but it wasn't like where I lived in Ohio. There weren't like the kind of places where you could get on your bike and, you know, go. They were too far away. I really got into it in graduate school when I was at the University of Vermont. I had done all my geology field work and I was supposed to be writing my thesis and I didn't want to and I was going to the local place a lot and he put in two pinball machines, an Adam's family because this was mid '9s. Okay. Adams family and a theater of magic, I think it was. Awesome. That's a good starter pack. Yeah. And I was captivated with the Adams family and I loved it. And Mike was the name of the the pizza guy, the pizza owner, and he was really into it. and we started putting tournaments together after we just, you know, wanted we wanted to play with more people all the time. And then I graduated and moved to Boston and um got a job and got married and had kids and like just didn't think about pinball. It wasn't accessible back then to just like where am I going to go, you know, look up at a map and figure out where the pinball machines are. So, right, I kind of forgot about it until just like several years ago when my daughter was working up at Lake Winnipegasi in New Hampshire at a summer job and she was working on an island. So, she had two weekends off and I got one and our dad got the other. It rained the whole weekend and it was where Funspot is in New Hampshire which is a really big pinball and arcade. Got everything indoor bowling, golf and all kinds of stuff with my son and my daughter and their friend and I was like following them around like a mom does, you know, like, oh, what are they into, you know? And all of a sudden I was like, wait a minute, do you have pinball? Cuz it was all arcade. It was it's like three levels. Haven't seen any pinball yet. And they were like, yeah, you got to go upstairs in the museum. And I went running upstairs. my kids three hours later they're on the like you know the PA being like Amy Mcdana blah blah blah you know because I was it was like riding a bike I went home from that and was like I got to play more and that's when I started to realize like the whole landscape had changed and it wasn't too long after that that I was like wait a minute I could get a pinball machine you can get one yeah if I'm at a place where like you know I could do that so it it's funny how that happens It kind of like sticks in your pinball. Pinball has like a space in your craw, right? Your pinball craw kind of lays dormant there for a while and if you haven't played it for a while and then you know you kind of always come back. It is like kind of like riding a bike like you said. You you never really you never fully lose those basic skills. Instincts. Pinst. That's good. So what was the first game that you got at home? Did you get an added family? I did. Nice. Nice. How much longer till you got the next one? Three months. Okay. Similar tra similar trajectory to me. Okay. Okay. Yeah. At what point did you decide, okay, these are not my games anymore. Okay. I actually want to make this more of a public thing. for work. I was going to New York and I had an office in Troy and I wanted to play pinball with other people and there was this little those local group at a brewery that was doing regular once a month tournaments on Tuesdays. So I started rearranging my work schedule. So I was there on Tuesdays and I stay Yeah. And it was the community that was like probably building that was making me realize how big pinball was compared to the super small scope of it that I kind of understood it to be. But it was through that I met the um Albany Bells and Chimes and then uh through them went to Pantastic. It wasn't too much long after that then Pantastic happened which is a Massachusetts expo. I went to that played my first tournament. Everything I did I was like oh it's bigger. It's even bigger. Oh my gosh this is huge. And I was loving being a part of that community. There was a guy that I used to work with in the renewable energy business named Joe Bowers. He's awesome. He was just like what is with this pinball thing in you? like I've known you for years and you're just talking non-stop about pinball all the time. And we were at lunch and I remember describing to him the moment that like really got me in pinball and was showtime on the Adams family when you get multiball and there's the boom boom boom and everything's going crazy. Like I never anything like that and it set like a real goal for me that I always wanted to get multiball. And so I explained that to Joe and he was like you clearly need to do something with this. And then it wasn't too long after that that I think I emailed you guys. I was looking around for other ways to get more pinball. Figured out from my own travels around and playing pinball in clubs and bars and different places that I felt like food and drink were really important and that I wanted to be like if I put if I was going to do an arc, I wanted that where I went and if I was going to do it, I wanted to be able to provide it. So So the biggest arrival of driver in liquor in drinks is liquor. So I knew I was going to have to do something along the lines of a bar or I wanted to. And so that gets to in Massachusetts liquor license are available for towns based on a per capita calculation. So I live really in the middle of nowhere in Northampton has like 30,000 people and UMass sorry Ammerst up the road is equivalent in size and has some colleges in it but otherwise most of the towns out here are pretty small and there weren't any liquor licenses available. You can also buy liquor licenses. Like there was a bar that closed down in Northampton and their liquor license was for sale, but it was like $100,000. So that's non-starter. Northampton is really popular. So people are waiting in line to try to get liquor licenses and they can sell that pretty well. So the whole time I'm trying to work out like or you know I'm trying to figure out where are their liquor licenses. I'm also working out that yeah I want indeed I want a big arcade and I want um you know food and I want a bar. So I think I need something like 4 to 5,000 square ft and now you where can I where's the per capita and an available liquor license and where is there a space that big and that really narrowed it down to just a few locations in the end. Yeah. And so I'm curious because we've looked into beer and liquor licenses in North Carolina where we are in Massachusetts. Are you specifically talking about a liquor license or is there a separate beer only license that you could get that's not as regulated? Yeah. No, you can. So if beer and wine is licensed or wait wine and malt license as they call it and in the local authority licensing entity can award it to you at least in Massachusetts but as soon as you add liquor that's when you have to both get local approval and then state level approval. Gotcha. Yeah. Amy, as you were figuring this out, right, the space, the size, the licenses, did you already know a lot of this? Were you kind of figuring it out as you as you went? Oh, yeah. And did you have previous experience in retail or starting companies or businesses from scratch? Right. No. No. No. Well, so what I did before was kind of complex project development and management. So like you know projects with a lot of paths that have to move forward with interdependencies and timelines and risk and cost and schedule issues like all that kind of stuff is like I love it. I absolutely love it. Um, so you like hurting cats. That that's the project manager. It's and that's definitely what renewable energy is like too, right? Because not everybody's for it. So you're like all for it and then you're like, you know, nobody else wants it. So, so I approach this in kind of the same way in terms of um what are all the paths and then start you start to break those down and and I do that by just calling up people and talking about it nonstop and cool tap into the people that know the answers to it and it's it's a dozen different people because it's there's so much new stuff to me that I haven't figured out before but at least I have like I have a structure to put it in of like how you you know think about these issues. And then, you know, what you have to worry about now versus what you have to worry about later, putting together a business plan, putting together a budget, you know, the the calculation of buildout and startup costs and buildout costs and um all of those types of things I was very familiar with. So, that I was making up the numbers in this application, but the structure of what to think about and probably some of the risks and some of the extra things like insurance and taxes and stuff, I was familiar with all of that. So, I felt like I I at least had the confidence of putting together a pretty robust business plan even though the numbers are pretty much made up. And now I've been like that was in the beginning and now I've been validating those numbers. Are you using some like project management software or some tools to help you kind of organize this project? I am. I'm using I think it's called ClickUp. It's a free software online that just allows you to put in all of your tasks and the most important thing is it has interdependencies. So you can put in dates, you can put in what's related, what can't start until you get something else done or whatever. I felt like this was something that I could either through, you know, quite a bit of effort probably build up myself through spreadsheets or I could, you know, find something that would help me do it. And that program has been working pretty well. It's very simple. Nice. Cool. That's good. Maybe some folks can benefit from that. Mhm. Great question. Yeah, there's so many free tools out. You said it's a free software, right? Yeah. Yeah. There's so many great free tools out there now that it's hard to know which ones to use. So, it's so nice just having somebody be like, "Use this one." It's like, "Okay, I don't have to research 10 different Yeah. I guess let's go back. So, you you got your first game, you got a couple games, and you played, you know, in New York, you said, right? And you kind of got more of the community aspect of it and realized you wanted to get more people involved. So then locally, right? What was the next step? When I went to that um pinttastic event, like a group of bells and chimes from Connecticut and Albany in Boston, they had a room there where they had everyone was bringing pins. So I got to really kind of understand who they were and what they were doing. So when I went home to Western Massachusetts, I was looking for bells events and that's pretty much what I did exclusively for a while until the bells that I got to know were saying, "Well, you got to you got to come to this event. You should come to this. It's so much fun. These people are great." And there's a really great place out here called the Western Massachusetts Western Mass Pinball Club and it's been going for years and they're dedicated to it and it's a great environment. Started going there and kind of branching out a little bit. I had to like kind of pull back a little bit cuz I felt like I was neglecting my children. Relatable. Oh man, I've heard that from at least like three or four different people. Yeah, it's crazy. There's so much to do around here. Honestly, there's a lot of events which is great. So, the local pinball scene in Northampton where you are, you said the population is about 30,000. Is that right? So, as far as other arcades that are already there, what made you think you should add on to the scene in the way that you are? Yeah. Well, you know, like the Western Mass Pinball Club, which is great, and it has like 80 pinball machines. Not all of them are on the floor, you know, all the time. great space, but you have to bring your own food and you there's nothing there to drink. You got to bring it all yourself. So, like I was going there, it's kind of like, gee, you know, this is where my thoughts were kind of starting to get to, gee, I really wish or wouldn't it be great if we didn't have to go get food and come back. That place is about just a little shy of an hour away. That's an easy travel for us pinball folks around here. So, we will travel that far to go to a place. And then right in Northampton, unless I'm forgetting something, for pinball, it's mostly bars and breweries that, you know, people have uh machines routed within. And so the a lot smaller, you know, four or eight games or something like that. It's it's like a typical bar first with pinball machines. So in that area, so there there isn't really like a dedicated pinball space. It's pretty limited. Yeah, that's right. You can go up to Vermont in southern Bra in Bradleboro in southern Vermont and there's a guy up there gravitate who's got a pretty cool space but you know you just there's there's nothing kind of right where we are and there's nothing in what we call the five college area so there's five colleges right around here and most of them including the University of Massachusetts and their Amoris location which is a pretty big campus is up there in Ammerst and there's just there's nothing really up there even the places that there are I would be frustrated sometimes the quality of the games because you know it's restaurant first, you know, for kind of like what's the point of playing these games, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If the games aren't set up and maintained well, it's just kind of a bummer. It's really It's really like a novelty, you know? I think a lot of bar owners don't even understand the actual value and and the community behind pinball. I think it's just like another put something in that corner and maybe people will play it. I don't know. Yeah. I don't think I mentioned, but eventually I did leave my job and I started working on this full-time and um a arcade did open up in Northampton and eight pinball machines and and and video arcade games and some console gaming and and stuff like that and and it's great that they're there. They have an awesome Stranger Things premium if anyone wants to play us there. I want it. Wait, if since you mentioned it, let me just put put this out there because I need to put this out there. I want a Stranger Things premium. Really? It's on my wish list. Yeah, I actually Yeah, that that's the game that I want the most right now because my kids are super into Stranger Things and I'm like maybe I can get them into pinball cuz I've been trying to find like that one game that might actually get them into pinball. So, I'm just putting it out there like if anybody wants to send me a Stranger Things premium, loan me one. Um, give me one for half price. You know, I'm just putting it out there. Okay, you may continue. Amy, thank you for bringing things universe to get back, Matt. That's funny. I get it. Totally. You gave me the window. I had to take it. So, thank you. That's right. That's right. So, but the thing about too like and and actually then since then I found out that there's another town close to us named Turner Falls and there was a place there called Mystic Pinball before CO and I think kind of COVID impacted them and they're now reopening. I want to bring this all up because there's not enough pinball. Like even if even if there was a place like down the street, I think I would still be doing this. And one of the great things about talking to everybody about it and, you know, walking up to the owners of Gamecraft in Connecticut and the guys that are doing pinball at Almost Famous and all this kind of stuff and saying, "How do you do this and and why do you love it and is it sustaining you and where are you going to go with it and all that kind of stuff is I've gotten to know people?" And where we live in Massachusetts, there's this 91 route 91 corridor that goes up through Connecticut and up through where we live and all the way up to Vermont. And there's a ton of pinball places if you were to hopscotch all the way up the place. And so I have visions of a pinball passport where voting each other like Danny's Mystic Pizza pinball sorry his games are older and he's he likes a different era than like I'm really focusing on and the vibe in his place is got a music focus which I'm really focusing more on the arcade feel like bring your family bring your kids that kind of thing. So we're going to compliment each other and I think we can all compliment. That's awesome. Right. We could we could like set high scores and you got to go over here to get it or play this certain game that's only over at this other location. So, I love that idea, Amy. Like a pinball crawl. You know what I mean? It's cool. That's cool. You should do that. I'll be the first one in line to do it. We should all do it. Yeah. We should do like the pinball crawl event. Yeah. In your arcade. It sounds great. Yeah. So, what I wanted to know too, you started kind of accumulating games. Let's say collecting games. So, yeah. So, which came first, the accumulating games or actually getting the lease on the space? Oh, I had the games before, right? Yeah. Well, that that was my next question. But you are routing them, right? Is that right? Yeah. Well, yeah, I guess. Yeah, I am technically I have some games out there right now. I've lent games to friends because I think somebody said earlier something about just like a sentiment of wanting the games to be played. Like I I feel that very strongly. like I'm going to be putting some in storage in a little bit and I just it like it breaks my heart that they're going to be alone there in old storage location you know so and then when they should be played but I would say thinking about this conversation I was reflecting a little bit on mistakes and this is probably one of the first ones was like going on a pinball buying spree before I had a location I was working with a friend of mine who's in pinball and They had developed a pretty good criteria for how to think about what's a good game, what's a bad game. Just few simple steps of looking at it and it was always in the end the fourth item was is it a good tournament game? Will it throw people off to have it at a tournament and I was always kind of a winner. There was a lot coming on the market over the last year and he was always sending me this is a great game. This is a great deal and I'm like you're right it is and I always I wanted to play that game and it was expanding my own horizons massively. So anyway, I ended up buying in total I have 56 pinball machines. Wow. And I'm not going to be able to fit that many. Unbelievable. Yeah. That won't even in the arcade. So I mean if I want to do some arcade games like video arcade games, probably a 7525 split pinball to arcade games, but it affords a lot of opportunity actually with the arcade to potentially function as a a sales floor, right? to put games out there that we own, we've refurbished, or we've shopped out and we want to turn them over. So, I I expect to have some turnover like that on the Cool. Yeah. Once you're up and running, do you plan on kind of rotating through your collection of games and and adding stuff? Yeah. And I have someone that I'm working with who also has games. And so we're kind of viewing our game collection. And he he's located down in Providence, Rhode Island, which is a a hour and 45 minutes away. So when there's something that's old to me now, I can send it down there. And it's like new down there at games. Like he has a sorcerer that I want to get so badly. It's Chris Cardacy Pinball Services. I don't know if I'm allowed to drop that, but sure. Sure. Good friend of mine, Chris. And the other thing too is that I never anticipated how many times I would have to move those games and Chris has helped me with that a lot. So 56 games where So where do you have these games located now? Of them are at Chris's warehouse space. Some are with a very good friend of mine who is an electrician and has some extra space to put them in. And some are being babysat by friends. Are you Matt? Are you thinking what I'm thinking? I know. I just want her to tell me where they are so I can go rent a 18wheeler. And exactly what I was thinking. I got some right now. I That's so funny. Long story. They're available to good friends. Yeah, they take up a lot of room, too. Like you don't really think about it when you have one or two. It comes quick. Like you run out of space pretty fast. Yeah. It's like 10 square foot of machine, not including like being able to walk around them. So, go back a little further. Like, you know, I was talking to everybody about it all the time. And I went down to this club that some guys had started uh you know down in Springfield. It's like 354 minutes away. Started talking to those guys about my plans. And one of those guys was like, "Oh my god, this is my dream realized." You know, and we started talking about, you know, just so excited how we could work on this together. Long story short, they ultimately invited me to bring some of my games to their club. So it was the four of us and the place was called Upper Playfield. And then two of the guys dropped out. We were really, we were doing a lot. I think they just wanted to play their games a little bit, you know, not at home. So then it was just the two of us running it and we were doing tournaments and all kinds of stuff and I had moved more games there and uh it was going real well and then my friend just had a couple strokes of bad luck where he broke his leg and lost his job and like layoffs were happening, you know, earlier this year and he was like, I just I kind of can't do this. And at that point, we were doing what's called the New Robert Englunds Pinball League, which is a really big, it's like over 40 locations in New Robert Englunds. And we were doing Monday nights, and we had a pretty solid family of people coming to play, plus new people coming all the time. And I really wanted to keep that going. And that was ultimately how I ended up like moving it to the house. Um, and then I held two seasons here at the house. It ended up being a lot. Amazing. Amazing. What's the parking situation like at the house? Yeah, I happen to imagine having I have a long driveway. Oh, a long driveway. I told people they could park on the grass, so people would just like park in diagonally. And I mean, I would be getting like between the most I ever had at a tournament was 28 people, I think, but league was like 12 to 14 to 15 people, and tournaments were, you know, 15 to 20 people, stuff like that. So we That's a That's a decent chunk of people to have at your house. Yeah, man. When pinball calls, you answer and you kind of only answered, Amy. Yeah, that club, the upper playfield was in this old mill building. You know, it's like confined and you had no elev like you had to go up these creaky old stairs and at night there was very little lights outside so the whole thing just kind of felt creepy. I was there late after a tournament and I had left on Evil Dead because I hadn't played it all night and I just wanted to play it before I left and I turned off everything else and was leaving and I went, "Oh, wait. I forgot I left Evil Dead on." So, I ran back like, "I'm going to play Evil Dead." And I turned it on. All right. Like I hit start and it was like whatever Evil Dead does when you start. It was like, you know, and all like creepy noises. And I suddenly realized that where I was was really super creepy and I was like, "Nope." And I turned off the game and I like ran out and I couldn't even deal with like it spooked you. It spooked me. So that's where we find pinball a lot, right? like your guys' story about going and buying pinball machines. Like a lot of times we encounter places like just to make pinball happen that like aren't the best. Pinball calls you answer. Yeah. And tell us the name of it, too. Right. I didn't know if we're going to reveal that right away. Yeah. If you want if you want to reveal the name. I think it's time. I think it's time. It's the Tilted Orbit Arcade. Tilted Orbit Arcade. All right. That's cool. Cool name. Yeah. Can I like just go off on a slight tangent and tell Yeah. Yeah. Like even for someone who's kind of used to putting projects together from scratch, like it's a lot of two steps forward and one step back of constantly trying to reconcile the vision and what it costs to do that, what the budget is and then where you think the revenue is ultimately going to come from. It's a constant uh effort to refine it, you know, to try to come up with that best thing that you can. That's probably taken like a good 6 months even from knowing what I wanted to do. a real refinement where now I I'm I'm locked in and I've prepared a a zoning board application for the town and it's submitted and we're getting their feedback about what we're going to have to do to get our our permit. It is this kind of constant bit of iteration and even if you think you have it so well thought out, you're going to learn so much as you lean into it. Like unless you have prior experience that you just have to be kind of prepared that you're going to have to sit back and be like, "Okay, knowing this now, I have to like rethink all these other things." And in a project like this where I'm doing buildout, I'm putting in a bar, cooking capability, and obviously the investment in all of the games, it's a kind of a triad of like cost and schedule and risk and like, you know, what can I start now or what do I want to lean into now and and how does that all fit into the budget? That is the process of putting something like this together. So, I think sometimes people think they're going to figure out and they're going to go and they're going to run with it and then they're kind of bummed out or devastated even when it doesn't work, but you have to just be prepared that it's not going to work and you have to pivot and rethink what you're doing. Always the goal is how am I going to do this pinball thing? And if you keep focused on that, you'll you'll figure eventually. In terms of money, have you found that so far it's costing like significantly more less or about kind of what you estimated? about what I estimated originally. I did want to do food made to order, right? That was my original concept. Wasn't going to be big, but it was sandwiches and stuff like that, but it was like you have a menu and you put in your order, it's cooked and comes out. I couldn't do that. The cost for the kitchen just eclipsed the cost for the bar, but doesn't bring in the revenue that we expect the bar to bring in. So, I had to just really lean into the bar and kind of minimize the food, thinking that later on I'll like, you know, figure out what what we can make work if we need to. Right. The space that you're leasing does not have a commercial kitchen currently. The space that I'm leasing is actually an old was a supermarket, like a local kind of supermarket. It has three bay sinks and grease traps. That's actually a big step towards the components of the kitchen, but no, other than that, it doesn't have the even the equipment that was there is gone. So, you would be having to basically finance all of that stuff from scratch in order to be able to cook kind of onsite and Yeah. And there was more buildout involved with that option. So, if I just, you know, again, like reoriented my thoughts, rethought about the different profit centers of the business that I'm trying to put together, I'm like, "Yeah, this one we can put aside." I still think food's important, but you can do really great things now with um like those ovens even that they have in in Starbucks. Starbucks y and microwave oven at the same time, you know, something like that, plus your regular snacks. And the place is going to be set up to the front part of it is going to be kind of a more of a family feel arcade and it will have a a snack bar, a concession stand kind of thing where kids can go and order and then the bar is kind of towards the back. We have to have separation in Massachusetts, many states, right, between the bar and where the kids are going to be. Okay. So, that food that what that oven can do actually lends itself real well to the the kind of vibe and the theme of the arcade where the games are first and the food and the alcohol is kind of secondary. And so, hours wise and like operating, do you have a plan as far as how late you guys are going to be open? I I know around here the bars that have pinball, they kick out the kids at like 7 o'clock. 7 o'clock, I think, is the time. Yeah. Yeah. 21 and up after 7 o'clock. Yep. I'm going to do something like that, too. I don't There's not a mandated time, as far as I'm aware, but we'll transition from daytime to nighttime just to make it easier to manage like what's happening at the bar, right? How many hours can you be open and and still keep your business profitable and staffed? Right. Well, right now conceptually, I'm going to be open five days a week, but we may go to six if it's working real well. And the closed days are going to be Tuesdays and Wednesdays because I really want to keep I want to have my Monday leagues again and start that up at Tilted Orbit once it's open. Uh cuz we have a der of that. People do leagues on different nights and there's no Monday, right? So, I also want to be closed at least one day a week because I'm going to do whole event space rentals. It's been one of the most common things that people that aren't even pinball people when they just hear the concept come up to me and say, "I would love a place to have a company party that is cool and people have things to do while they're there, not just, you know, a DJ and a throw down dance floor kind of thing." I'm thinking 1 to 10 on weekdays and then on weekends or Friday night, you stay open till midnight. I think I said 1:00 in the application cuz I expect them to push back to midnight. Hope they're not listening. will open up at 11 on Saturday and Sunday, you know, so earlier. And just to expand on that a little bit too, I I think about the footprint of the lease area as like how much money can I make within this footprint. I mean, not like greedy way, but like how many revenue streams can I, you know, operate and still provide the kind of experience and customer service that I want to. So, I have a golf simulator room in the back of the arcade. that there'll be a golf simulator and it's a multi-game simulator. So, the reason why I'm bringing this up is because I'm hoping to be able to kind of make a connection with the local country club because they don't have a golf simulator and of course it's winter time. You know, people got to figure out where they're going to play golf. And I set this up in my permit because I didn't know if there was something I needed to do to secure the alcohol to have my golf pro come in at 8:00 and start his lessons. you just can keypad into the space, go back to the golf simulator, do his lessons, signing up online every hour, and then I imagine that room will transition into like the multi-game, you know, zombie dodgeball kind of thing in the back room like later on. But so again, like trying to eek out more hours, but actually with like no manpower at all needed to be there while they're doing it. Have you figured how much staff you're going to require on like an average day? I would just say that I think I'm probably going to have I say 10 to 15 and sometimes I think it'll be more 10 to 15 people on staff. Maybe more because of shift being open that many days and then shift because it's kind of like you have almost two meals, right? You you'll you'll have lunch and then like a late lunch and then you'll have a dinner time thing. So you could think about that as potentially being, you know, different shifts and you need multiple people to cover the schedule. So I never thought I would need that money many. And the more I thought about it, more I talked to people about how you have to think about staffing, the more I realize that you need kind of a deeper bench in order to cover all your scheduling needs and that you're talking 10 to 15 total employees. I think on the floor, like say it's a weekend evening, there would be two bartenders, probably two to three people on the arcade floor, and then there's going to be someone at the welcome desk cuz when you first walk in, it's like, how what is this place? How do you pay? How do you play the games? Do you have to pay to go to the bar? All those questions that you get as people first walk in. And then the concession stand. So, adding that up, I'd say like eight or nine. And then you like I'll be running around, you know, the general managers kind of filling in everywhere, too. I'll have an arcade floor manager and and not necessarily to be like on the floor but to be those are business units right so they're going to be managing those how do you pay have you thought about that or you know where are you tokens I'm going to do pay by the hour pay by the day pay by the month so you yes you you know you can pay for I've been thinking about eight sessions is like the right like or eight visits is the equivalent of a one month and then you can bring a friend twice for free or like little that you add on to it like a membership and and every game is on free play. Yeah, every game will be on free play. I will say that one of the hardest decisions and I have been researching this for months and I feel honestly no more equipped to make this decision now than I did before is how what's the paytoplay system? Is it RFID? Is it simple Teflon wrist, you know, wristbands? Is it or tieve wristbands or, you know, is it something else? Is a card that stays? Is it a wristband? you know, how how are you going to do this? And especially early on when we're thinking about this, how do you manage people only playing for one hour? That's you don't care about all day and you don't care about monthly memberships. It's just the people that come in for an hour and you manage that and wanting to avoid what I have heard consistently is a bad situation to get into or if you can avoid it is the tapping customers on their shoulder going, "Hey, you know, it's time's up." you know, and that type of I just that's not the vibe I want at all either, but I do want to kind of manage that part of it. So, I have been doing research on different systems and I have spreadsheets and spreadsheets of different like what's my criteria, what do they offer and I I just really I still don't feel equipped to make the decision. But when I went out to Chicago Expo, the last day I went to a seminar where I can't remember the title of it, but it was basically you want to be an operator, like you own a couple games and you want to be an operator kind of thing. And it was a panel of two guys and a moderator. And the two guys had just like for lack of a for kind of little hyperbole had amassed empires by buying routes and buying arcades and buying in vending and video and and or vending and arcade. And one guy kind of had that kind of empire and another guy had become a distributor plus routing and stuff like that. And they introduced the concept of the amusement and musician operators association. And one of them was president Bob Burnham is currently the president. He was on the panel. And eventually someone asked the question that I had of like how do you know where to go? you either have like, you know, incredible hardware costs or fees later on that you have to pay the company. And you're talking about a like a card system type of thing. Yes, exactly. The RFID system. But, you know, and then there's this question about server architecture. Is it cloud-based? Is it hybrid? Is it local server? All these different things. Like I said, I've been researching it like crazy and I don't feel any better off. But now Bob Burnham, that guy who was the president of the AMOA, we're in contact with each other. Nice. He's basically someone did say how do you decide and they were like talk to us afterwards because we basically have acquired so many different systems that we can kind of talk you through maybe steer you towards ones that work for you. But I am talking to Scorbbit right now. We'll we'll see just preliminary conversations to because their timing and my timing with the scorbit you know 2.0 that they're coming out with. I know that Scorbit has like score tracking right but does it also include some payment? system. What they rolled out at Chicago Expo is kind of their next generation which is now incorporating a tap pad and an app on the phone and you tap in and it works with different types of payment systems including like the the pay by the hour or pay by the day type approach that I want to take. Cool. And I like it because one of the ways that I want to really get people or I plan on getting people into this place, I want it to be a pinball players arcade. And I I feel like one of the ways to keep people coming in is to have a very full and consistent calendar of events where there's IFPA events and there's nonFPA events, but there's kind of consistently like a fun tournament on Saturday nights or Bell's tournament on Thursdays and you know, things like that. And I like the scorebait because you can with that platform that they have already, you can set up these kind of running tournaments that are running in the background all month that people are just coming in and contributing to the ante, you know, and contributing to the pot. Having tournaments is great, but you have to have people to run them too, which is like, you know, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to just, you know, rely on staff to do that or will I bring people in. I would love to bring people in and expand the culture in the community to include like tournament guest hosts that are there doing their special kind of tournament like electric bats, you know, with Chewies. I can't remember what it's called, but I always hear about it and I'm like, I want to go, but they're in Arizona. Yeah. Well, actually, one thing that we didn't talk about is maintenance, game maintenance. So, what are your plans as far as fixing games, keeping them up and running? I know we talked a little bit about, you know, it's important to have these games playing well. Having them play really well is like one my number one priority for the arcade is have get growing the reputation of being, you know, a place that has reliably playing games because I do have a excess of games, I will have the luxury of if it's a game that needs a longerterm repair and this space actually has a storage room as well that we can work on games. We'll I'll be able to swap out games. So, that's actually pretty cool. But definitely the arcade manager is going to have to be technically proficient. And then Chris from Cardi Pinball Services is kind of even though he's down in Providence, he's kind of acting as a advisor for anything that that that you know anyone on the floor doesn't know what to do and collectively we'll figure that out. Um hopefully we'll be training people too. I mean there's so many things that I want to do with this space of like teach people how to work on their own machines. But I I'm glad that you brought up the maintenance like maintaining the games themselves on the floor is going to be really important. We're going to be refurbishing machines and selling them. So, you know, leaning into that. But my own experience with distributors has been that servicing games, it's been hard to find people. So, we've been talking a lot lately about how we can lean into the service department to actually have it be a stand on its own kind of like little business unit where, you know, we have enough people on the team to be able to do house calls to maybe even wrap like service packages around the games that we sell, whether they're used or new. Um, but certainly like maintenance for people. You know, 70% of pinball, what are they saying now? 70% of pinball buyers are home buyers. And yeah, a lot of do know how to work on machines, but a lot of people don't. A lot of people don't. Yeah. So, yeah, that's something that we're really going to lean into and try to stand out as like if you want to figure out how to get a machine fix. I actually just talked a guy out of selling me a Shrek the other day cuz he Can I can I sidebar and tell you this story? Really posted on Facebook Marketplace a Shrek and it's on my wish list, a Shrek for 4750. And I Yeah. And I was late to the game. Chris kind of made me aware of it. And I reached out to him and I was like, "Man, I will just pay you 4750 for that." Cool. Cool. So, I told the guy, reached out, said, "I'm starting an arcade." And he he picked me. He said a ton of response, but he said, "I love the fact that it would go to an arcade and get played." So, we finally get on the phone and we're talking to each other like, "What's going on with the game?" And and then he told me that he basically was saying, "I don't really know that much about how to fix games." And so I think it's this, but this is what's going on, but I bought this thing in 2008 and my son played it and my son's got the high score. He's telling me all these stories about it. And I'm like, Mike, you don't want to sell this game. And he's like, I don't know if I want to sell this game. And I was like, you just need someone to fix for you. And I know someone. And now he's in touch with Chris and he's going to get the game fixed and he's going to keep it. And he said, you'll always get right of first refusal. And I was like, you're coming to the grand opening of Tilted Orbit. And I made a friend even though I didn't get a Shrek, but He needed to keep that game, you know. He Thank you, Amy. Thank you. Here, I I want to shake your hand, but I I can't. You're awesome. See, this is what we need, man. Like, people like you. I swear. I was going to say something, too. Listening to like all these ideas, all the kind of like the goals that you have, Amy. I in like 10 years, dude. I see Amy as like I don't know, a a pinball uh like empress. Empress. Um, seriously, I'm I'm serious because you have so many good ideas kind of like fully encapsulating pinball and and kind of also just growing it as a as as a as like an interest for, you know, in general. And I think it's awesome. Yeah, it's clear that you've thought about all of the different aspects of pinball and the different ways that you can be of service to the community as it relates to to pinball and arcades. Yeah, I love that. I love that. And I hope to be, you know, a part of that to some degree. We'll be definitely. So, where are we now? December 9th, 2025. How long has it been since you started? I guess a little over a year and a half, I guess, right? And so, what's the what's the trajectory? What are we looking at? It's going to be another 6 months. And that is what I keep saying. I've been saying it for a while. It took a lot longer to get the lease done, but once I got the lease done, it really hinges on the permitting. And the local permitting is just not going to be easy. there's a couple hoops, a couple separate steps that I have to jump through. You know, if you if you get ask for a variance, that all of a sudden introduces something called site plan review and then you get that approval and once they're okay with it, then you have to go to the zoning board because I'm changing the use from a grocery store to an arcade with a little bit of nightclub action. Um, so, so it's always six months like because even if it only takes three or four months to get the permits, then you can't start building your you can't do any plumbing, you can't do any electrical until you have your permit. So, you get kind of three months of buildout even in the best case scenario. They're contractors, right? They got a lot of jobs, so they can't just jump on and do it all at once. So, that's why it's been like that. But I do have my zoning board application in and even if they tell us we have to go to site plan review first, the application is pretty much sufficient. They'll they'll tell us how we have to make it perfect. And so I think we'll start that process in January. They do their meetings monthly. So it's this kind of if you miss a meeting, you're missing a whole month, you know, so we can get on the January schedule. And then the other thing is the liquor license and I submitted and that like I said it's a town and a state process. So I submitted to the town. I had some minor things to fix up. I'm going to turn that back in this week and I'm targeting a January 9th local hearing. And if I get approved in the local hearing, then the town administrator, the licensing coordinator, he packages it up and sends it to the state and kind of does inter is the leazison between me and the state to answer questions. That's typical bureaucracy. It could be three months, could be four months, it could be six months. So, but you are on the hook for the lease at this point. I negotiated. I have a really wonderful landlord who my building is a standalone building and where it's located is on a 12 acre property that has been commercially developed by this woman, Cinda Jones, and her brother. It's a family-owned property that they've had for a really long time. It has a family business on it, but then she's done this grocery store that I'm now going to repurpose, but around it are three buildings that have commercial on the first floor and residential on the second. It's like 120 residential units. The reason why I brought up this development is that she very strongly felt like there was kind of this missing component. The grocery store had been empty for a little while, so she wanted to fill it, but she felt like an entertainment thing. So, she kind of wanted something like I was delivering. So, I pitched her a lot on my business plan, but then said, "It's all at risk. If I don't get permits, I can't operate. Is there any way I can get a period of time where I don't have to pay rent until I get the permits?" And anyway, long story short, in the lease, I ultimately negotiated a period of time where I don't have to pay rent as long as I'm putting reasonable effort towards uh getting the permits, which she definitely believes that I'm doing. I love her so much. I'm feel so lucky. She's very excited about it and wants to lean into it and promotes it within this. It's called the Mill District and she promotes all of it. And actually I have a Cactus Canyon in one of the commercials and a getaway in one of the other commercial shops up there. Oh, nice. That's awesome. Yeah. So, that is something like and I've talked to even people that are around me and trying to do something with pinball that just kind of didn't know that you could ask for that in lease negotiation. And and so I'm spreading the word like try, right? Like if they want to be successful, they can give you a leg up. This is not the kind of business where you have necessarily a lot of money and time to be able to put into it. It's very risky and it's very low margins. And she was willing, she saw the vision and if you can convince the landlord of the vision and what it's going to bring to the space and the longevity of that, then you know, get them to buy into your concept and maybe you can get a little like easing up on the lease. So yeah, ultimately if you're successful, then it benefits them because they have a long-term tenant. I'm going to I'm going to mark that down as a pro tip. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And then going back real quick, you said you have to get a like a variance approved with the zoning board because it's currently zoned to be a grocery store and you want it to be something different. So probably a lot of people don't realize is that every single building you're going to have a specific kind of function that this building is approved for. That variance process can be pretty involved. You have to put it before the board. Then you probably have to make sure that none of the surrounding residents or businesses are opposed to the thing that you're trying to do. And yeah, that can be that can be quite a process. A couple of the things involved in that permitting process is yes, there's a public hearing aspect to it. So eventually we'll have to put a notice in the paper and send letters to all of the abutters of the property and ask them to come to the public hearing and talk about why they support it or don't and what their concerns are. when the board comes up with things that they're concerned about, be prepared with answers or do your best to answer solidly on the fly and then ask if it can be included in your permit approval as a contingency. So, you don't have to go off and come back another month later with your brand new plan. You say, "Look, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm this and I'm going to do the best my ability to answer this and satisfy the town. Can my permit approval be contingent upon me agreeing to do this?" and then they say yes because they'll give you your permit to go make your changes and then they finally won't approve it if you haven't made them so they feel protected. So that can save you a month or maybe even more. Yeah. Yeah. Great tip. The whole permitting process has got to be one of the trickiest things for somebody who's never done anything like this before. And just one of the other things that came up is um occupancy is this really the whole thing with zoning is what is your building set up for in terms of your sprinkler systems or lack of how many people can you fit in it and is your new use going to accommodate that or are you going to be busting at the seams all the time and then what does the fire department and the board want you to do to manage that. So with games, some games don't count, some towns don't count the arcade games as footprint that can't be occupied. So you don't have the benefit. They actually just count floor as occupancy. And then they might say, "Oh, if you could fit in 150 people, you actually need four bathrooms. Now you have to add two, you know." And so what we did to try to manage that was we fiddled with the size of the bar, kind of extending it out into the space in order to have like less space that was considered customer space and try to manage the occupancy. The town did mention to us that they have some questions. I'm I have a meeting with them on Thursday and I think it's about like how are you guys thinking about occupancy? How did you come up with your numbers? And hopefully they agree with us just because managing occupancy can be you do you have someone at the door now that you have to hire to kind of count people going in and out you know or can you convince the town that no the way this is set up you really can't fit more than that many people. So, as long as we do X, Y, and Z, everybody's covered from a risk perspective. And then I'm sure the town is also concerned about any related traffic and parking and all that stuff is always a big issue with with zoning changes. Yep. They actually did bring up the potential to have to do a traffic study and I was like, oh god, oh man. Oh man. Yeah, there's there's a 15 grand you never get back. I you know I have a renew I have a permitting background. I did renewable energy systems but I do know a little bit about standing in front of boards but I I don't want to like kind of take credit for figuring it all out cuz I did have the benefit of having a little bit of experience and also in this town like you have to submit architectural drawings. So I have an architect advising me on like oh if you want to do that that's going to be a variance or if you want to do that that's going to be a waiver. Yeah. So, your best bet is to find a place that you don't have to change the use, right? Like that that's the simplest permitting. Yeah. Yeah. But it it sounds like you've got a great space. Every time I go into an arcade, I'm trying to figure out how many square feet it is because I'm like, "Okay, this place is successful, I think. How much space do they actually have? How many games do they have? How much space is the bar taking up?" All those kind of factors are limiting. And having a space as large as yours, you're really giving yourself the opportunity to kind of be free. I I think that's the way to go if you can pull it off. This space actually has room for expansion, too, which I didn't even know about until I stumbled upon at one point a brewery was looking at the space and they had put an extension on for their tanks and the town actually approved it. So, usually once a footprint is approved, you could feel confident that you at least could go back and occupy that footprint with more commercial space. So, it's a couple thousand square feet. If things are going like gang busters, you're right. Maybe it will be Amy's the Empress. I don't think it's a maybe. I think it's a win. Well, it I mean it really it sounds like you've thought of everything and I'm sure more stuff will come up. I I know what it's like having a project. I've been building a music studio for over 10 years, so I know what it's like saying, "Yeah, six more months. I think it's going to be six more months." There's always something that comes up. But it sounds like you've really got a handle on the situation and like you're really I really think we are exciting. Yeah. So I I'm excited to go to the grand opening. When when six more months, you know, summer it'll be summertime. You'll love it. It'll be perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Ideal. Ideal. July 4th. Let's make it a travel weekend. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, one other question just to kind of I think maybe wrap up is once the arcade is going and you guys are up and running, do you have a plan in terms of growing the arcade, growing the community, uh plans for how to make pinball more inclusive and more understandable to people who are new to it? For sure. And that's something that I really like about your guys' podcast more than anyone any other podcast that I listen to. One of the aspects that you focus on is, you know, how are you going to bring more people in? So, yeah, I definitely want to have one of my favorite images in pinball is when there's parents standing behind a little kid on a stool like playing pinball. Like, I want to see that all I can't wait till I buy my little stock of stools and they say tilted or I can't wait. So, I'm definitely going to do specific promotions or or family tournaments like like you know you somehow where you maybe come and play as a family, you know, or something like that and all ages and that's something that we've done through the Northampton Bells and Chimes too. My counterpart Anna put together a pinball 101 type thing that we had at at Hometown actually. They hosted us and uh yeah, we played on Stranger Things because that's a great game. they, you know, with the layout and uh we just kind of talked about the super basic things and how you play with each other and a little bit into like people were asking what tournaments are like and things like that. So, I'm going to do that and specifically do that like with things on the calendar related to those hours at times when it works for families. I am going to market to all the senior centers in my area. And I want them to get their seniors on the bus and bring their bus to my place and have them come in and rediscover or discover the joy of pinball because I really believe that like forget the crossword puzzles. Pinball is like so much better for your brain. And I want to have special hours where I'm open for an hour and you know just that it's just seniors so they can not you know worry about kids running all over the place or whatever. But I really want to try to purposely promote seniors coming and I'm actually you know you see neurode divergent people playing pinball. I often see parent child teams and I love that as well and UMass has a program specifically and if there was a connection I could make where conditions could be set up where that would be at all of interest and I could do that I would definitely love to do dedicated time to to something like that as well. That sounds awesome. Yeah, it's like the senior swim at the pool. All the kids out of the pool. Yeah, that's a great idea. That's cool. I think you're right about pinball being really good for your brain. Every day, you know, my Google feed is like, you know, some new thing is like this prevents dementia. You know, no one's studied pinball about preventing dementia, but they have studied pickle ball. They've studied other things where you're hitting small balls quickly and it's all about that like quick action and like quick reflexes. And pinball's got that more than just about anything you can think of. I think it's a healthy habit and hobby. It's not a screen. It's and it's fun and and it's exhilarating and it it kind of gives you like a little bit of like a rush. There's so many good things about it. I agree. I think that there's a real trend right now towards like more experiences, you know, away from the console and away from the TV and out of the house and out there with other people. And I think pinball is like this perfect balance where you can go out and hang with friends and then take a little break where you're you're you're breaking but you're breaking up what you're doing to go do something different, right? Especially out here there's not that much to do where you're not just like you're either going to your music and you can't really talk and hang out or you're just sitting at the bar, right? and offer something in between and it it can give you kind of even a longer period like it lasts all the way into the evening because you're breaking it up between go get something to eat, go get something to drink, and then go play a game or you're waiting for that game to be free, you know, cuz you really play it. Um, yeah. And I I just I I'm excited that somehow I I I feel lucky or just grateful that somehow I think I'd kind of stumbled into this at the time when pinball's on the rise and this kind of desire is on the rise. I wish the economy was also on the rise, but we'll get back, you know. I just feel I feel like I'm on the wave at just the right time, though, is as far as Pinball is concerned. So, yeah. Yeah, I think you are. I think so, too. So, Amy, we really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story and what you're doing. And I think people are going to be really interested to hear about it. I really can't wait to, you know, 6 months from now, circle back and see where you're at and, you know, kind of follow along with with your progress as you go. It's really exciting. Keep you guys posted, too, along the way. Yeah. Tilted Orbit. Tilted. Tilted Orbit. Tilted Orbit. And where is Massachusetts? We're going to check back in, right? Oh, yeah. For sure. We're going to check back in with you, Amy. Yeah. This isn't a one and done. This is a We'll be around. Awesome. Yeah. I I just want to I want to know what happens cuz you you have so many plans and so many cool ideas. I'm very curious to see how all this stuff plays out. What works the best? What maybe doesn't work the best. Hopefully, it all works amazingly. I'm a big big big believer in transparency. Like there's no secret sauce here, right? Like I want other people to be successful. So I'm I'm absolutely willing to share everything and I I so much appreciate your guys' interest and this has been super fun. Cool. Thank you, Amy. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right, we'll be there at the grand opening. Byebye. All right. All right. Thanks, Amy. Bye. _(Acquisition: youtube_mirror_subs, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 70e35034-8234-4fc3-87a4-6f267b567ca6*