Episode 345: David Yopp

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·23m 4s·analyzed·Jun 11, 2022

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

David Yopp on opening Flipside Memphis and creating Yopsicles LED products

Summary

Jeff Teolis interviews David Yopp, founder of Flipside Memphis, a new pinball bar and Latin-Caribbean fusion restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee. Yopp shares his journey from discovering pinball at age 12, becoming a competitive player, building a massive personal collection, and ultimately opening a venue designed specifically for competitive play with gallery monitors and comfortable amenities. The conversation also covers Yopp's Yopsicles product—custom LED bulb assemblies for restoring vintage pinball machines.

Key Claims

David discovered pinball at age 12 playing Royal Flush at a bowling alley, approximately 45 years before this interview
high confidence · Yopp states: 'I think you were 12. You first played Royal Flush, and that got the bug going some 45 years ago.'
Yopp did not own a commercial pinball machine until seven years ago, when he bought a Firepower
high confidence · Yopp: 'I mean, I never really owned a full commercial pinball machine until about seven years ago. And that was even kind of by accident... A Firepower.'
Flipside Memphis is the first pinball bar in Memphis, Tennessee
high confidence · Yopp: 'I believe we're the first... I don't know of any other pinball bars that have existed in Memphis.'
Flipside Memphis held its first tournament at the end of March 2024
high confidence · Teolis: 'you even had your first tournament just at the end of March there.'
Flipside Memphis has 16 pinball machines and features gallery monitors, rubber fatigue mats, and Latin-Caribbean fusion food
high confidence · Yopp: 'we really only have room for 16 machines... the place really is set up to cater to the player... monitors and the mats... Latin Caribbean fusion food.'
Yopsicles LED products took off after Yopp connected with an Australian PCB designer on Facebook who helped develop the circuit design
high confidence · Yopp: 'a guy from Australia of all places contacted me and said hey I a PCB designer I like to give it a go... and he is my Australian distributor.'
Flipside Memphis runs IFPA tournaments every Thursday night and larger regional tournaments once monthly on Saturdays at 2 PM
high confidence · Yopp: 'we do a tournament every Thursday... once a month currently, we're going to do a larger tournament so regional people can come. We'll start it Saturday at 2 o'clock. It'll be IFPA.'
Tony Westmoreland, Yopp's restaurateur partner, owns 11 bars and restaurants in Memphis including Flipside

Notable Quotes

“Royal Flush was the machine that hooked me, but Firepower was the machine that was my favorite, without a doubt. First machine that had kind of a mission-based multi-ball. First machine with lane change. That machine set a lot of standards, that one single machine.”
David Yopp @ ~11:30 — Explains formative influence of specific classic machines on his passion for pinball and design appreciation
“I started thinking there's got to be a way you could just solder an LED directly into the circuit and not deal with the flicker and just get the socket out of the machine altogether.”
David Yopp @ ~41:00 — Origin story of the Yopsicles product innovation addressing a common restoration problem
“If it was in the same city, it would be called stealing. When you go to another city, it's called research.”
Jeff Teolis @ ~57:30 — Humorous acknowledgment of inspiration drawn from No Quarter in Nashville for Flipside's design
“The place really is set up to cater to the player. Even... there's a comfort, one of the rubber fatigue mats that runs the entire length of the row of machines. And that's there for a couple of reasons. First, it's like a half-inch thick. It's really, really comfortable to stand on. But the cameras and the gallery monitors, there's a rule during competition. If you aren't up, if it's not your ball, you can't be on that mat.”
David Yopp @ ~33:00 — Details thoughtful competitive-play infrastructure and player experience priorities
“I have not played pinball in so long. By the end of the first day of qualifying, my wrists, you know, there are certain pinball muscles that you build up when you play every day. And my wrists were killing me by the end of the first day.”
David Yopp @ ~25:00 — Recounts first competitive tournament experience at PAPA after long hiatus from the game
“This is Memphis. And pinball alone I do not think is going to carry a bar. You've got to have good food.”
David Yopp @ ~43:00 — Articulates business philosophy balancing pinball venue with food/drink offerings for broader appeal

Entities

David YopppersonJeff TeolispersonFlipside MemphisvenueTony WestmorelandpersonJordan BeattypersonYopsiclesproductTexas Pinball FestivaleventScott WoodspersonNo Quartervenue

Signals

$
market_signal: Yopsicles LED products expanding internationally with Australian distributor and multiple color options indicating viable market for restoration accessories
medium · Yopp partnered with Australian PCB designer who became distributor; original popsicle-stick prototypes still functioning at Flipside; new Spectrum line colors arriving; sold via Pinside
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business_signal: Pinball venue differentiation through dual focus: professional-grade competitive infrastructure + premium food/beverage service to attract diverse customer base
high · Yopp: 'pinball alone I do not think is going to carry a bar. You've got to have good food'; venue features both 16 competition-grade machines and executive chef-curated menu
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community_signal: David Yopp establishing Flipside Memphis as dedicated competitive pinball venue with infrastructure (gallery monitors, fatigue mats, IFPA tournaments) designed to support players and spectators
high · Yopp describes gallery monitors, rubber fatigue mats with no-standing rules, player bars, weekly Thursday IFPA tournaments, and monthly regional tournaments; explicit focus on catering to competitive player experience
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community_signal: Strong player community supporting Yopp's venues over multiple iterations (garage, Growlers music venue, Flipside), with players taking on organizational roles like tournament registration
high · Yopp thanks 'a group of a couple of dozen really dedicated players' who 'have been there to support me... through all the changes'; Scott Woods volunteering for IFPA registration
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Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.069

0:00

It's time for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Teolis. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com, all your subscriptions, past episodes, and more. Join our Facebook group. We're also on Twitter and Instagram, at pinballprofile. You can email pinballprofile at gmail.com. So it was in Texas at Texas Pinball Festival. Fantastic. Lots of fun. Great show. I mean, 40,000 square feet, almost 400 games. The tournament, both, I guess, the classics, the Wizards, and the women's even as well, all the best they've ever been. And I congratulated people like Colin McAlpine and Phil Grimaldi and all the people there. Had fun streaming on Wormhole Pinball. That was a good experience. Even Steve Ritchie came on there. But all that aside, the most important thing. When I'm in Texas, I go to places I like to eat. I try at Heart 8. It's fine. It's no Hutchins. All right, if you want barbecue, you've got to go Hutchins. But that aside, barbecue's obvious. May I suggest Whataburger? And I know Carl D'Angelo's listening. He's whining right now saying, no, it's In-N-Out Burger. No, it's not. There were six people that went to Whataburger. Five out of six said it was great. And here's another reason Whataburger was great, because as I was leaving, Scott Woods, who I just met from Memphis, Tennessee, said, hey, thanks. I listened to your podcast. I appreciate what you do, and it was very nice. Hi, how are you doing, Scott? So what's the scene like in Memphis? and he said, well, you've got to check out this new place that just opened up. It's called Flipside in Memphis, and you should get on David Yopp. David does the Yopsicles you might have seen on Pinside. I said, that sounds like a great idea. So look who it is. It's David Yopp. Hi, David. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Wonderful to talk to you, and you've been a busy man. Yeah, I have, for the last six months especially. So we're going to go back. Flipside is now open. In fact, you even had your first tournament just at the end of March there. Congratulations on that. and I'm sure one of many to come. We're going to talk all about Flipside, but this is something that probably stemmed over the years of love of pinball because you're a young boy. I think you were 12. You first played Royal Flush, and that got the bug going some 45 years ago. You've amassed a huge collection, and now look what you're doing. So what really turned you into just being a passionate player, to buying machines, to thinking maybe operating, helping you and your partners open up Flipside? How did this all come about? Well, you know, it did start when I was 12 and discovered the Royal Flush machine at a bowling alley that I played at on Saturday mornings and fell in love with pinball. As a matter of fact, any time, you know, my family would go on vacation and we'd go to one of these small theme parks maybe that was in the area, I would always look for, you know, usually they would have like a little penny arcade and they would have some pinball machines. A lot of them were not well maintained, but you'd drop a dime and play pinball. And I just, you know, I played even up through the, you know, the early 80s before video games kind of took over and pinball took a backseat and didn't play for many, many years. And, I mean, I never really owned a full commercial pinball machine until about seven years ago. And that was even kind of by accident. What was the machine you bought? A Firepower. That's my all-time favorite machine. Royal Flush was the machine that hooked me, but Firepower was the machine that was my favorite, without a doubt. First machine that had kind of a mission-based multi-ball. First machine with lane change. That machine set a lot of standards, that one single machine. I feel like it did anyway. For sure, locking the balls, again, lighting the spinner, always a big thing. Very important. You saw some of that in the EM days, but no question, Steve Ritchie's Firepower is a great one. So, yeah, that's just one game. That's seven years ago. You've had a lot since then. Yeah, well, after I got that one, we were just having small get-togethers in my garage at that time. And friends would come over. They would post a picture on Facebook, hey, we're playing pinball. And then someone, a friend of that person that was posting a picture on Facebook said, hey, I've got a pinball machine in my garage. It doesn't work, but if you'll come get it by Sunday, you can have it. I need it out of my garage. and I picked it up, and that actually, that machine was Butterfly by Sonic, which they didn't make a lot of. I like it. Yeah, it really is a cool machine. I mean, I think the production run was something like 450 or something like that. It didn't work, and that was kind of when I had to learn how to work on them. So I got on Google, I got on YouTube, and started to found pinball resource. You know, you get on Google, you start looking for things, and it's all out there. You just have to take the time to look. got the schematics for it and started learning how to fix them. I fixed that one, brought it back. And then before you know it, I'm off and running. You know, I see a pinball machine here and there, mostly on Facebook Marketplace. And I was driving three hours, four hours, five hours to pick up pinball machines and bring them back just to kind of fill up my garage with pinball machines. You've done well, and it has led you to now flip side. And this is something that you and your partners were thinking about doing before the pandemic. So in a way, a blessing in disguise, because you could have opened this up right before everything shut down. So at least you had time to get all your ducks aligned, so to speak, and really present this once the world opened up again. We got extremely lucky because we actually had a place picked out. We thought we had landed a decent spot to host machines and have a bar and some simple food. Of course, my partner at that time he a radiologist Michael Mueller Neither of us knew anything about running a bar or a restaurant but we were just kind of going blind into it But the guy that was going to give us the building or lease us the building he never actually got the place ready, and we finally just kind of gave up, and that was right at the beginning of the pandemic. So it was really a blessing that we didn't get the building because we would have opened and then we would have signed the lease and had to pay that lease through those two years. And we were just really lucky that that didn't happen. For sure you were lucky, but now you're lucky that it is open. I want you to go to FlipsideMemphis.com to see the gallery of, first of all, not only this restaurant, but the machines that you've got in there. And the first thing that comes to mind is all these huge LCD screens above the machines. So you've got this gallery of games, a great mix of old to new games, and it's like watching Indies tournament, for example, where you've got these big screens above. That's huge. Yeah, and that actually started. So to back up just a little bit, after we weren't able to open the bar before, it was probably about, I guess, a year before the pandemic. I wanted to put some machines out for play, and I just put on my Facebook page, Hey, if you know of any business owners that would like to have some pinball machines in their establishment, you know, have them reach out to me. And somebody contacted Tony Westmoreland, who is a local restaurateur, who now has, if you include Flipside, 11 bars and restaurants here in Memphis. So here's the great thing about that. He knows the business. He got in touch with me, and he said, hey, I would love to host some, you know, some pinball machines. And it was a music venue, so, you know, there would be loud thrash metal bands and country music the next night. and, you know, a rap show the next night and a DJ show. You never knew what was going to be on the music menu, but it was kind of a small room off to the side. And I've always wanted to cater to the competitive player because I enjoy competing myself. And the gallery monitor, the first ones I developed were just a simple, and actually it's the same now. It's just a high-depth security camera turned 90 degrees and then take a TV and mount it 90 degrees and just connect it for like a live feed. You did this in your garage? Well, I did. I did it a little differently in my garage. The very first iteration was I bought a security camera system at Sam's, and I could do like, because I didn't have a TV above every machine. I had one TV that you could do a four-on-one split on the screen, and then if somebody was playing on one particular machine we wanted to look at, I could make that full screen. But when we went to Growlers, I wanted to do a one-to-one so everybody could watch, or you could watch the person that you were playing against. And that just carried over to Flipside once we moved out of Growlers, which was the music venue, into Flipside. And it's heaven, too, especially in competition. You like competitions, and you don't have to be standing over someone's shoulder. You can watch it on the screen. You can sit back. You can enjoy your food, your drink, whatever, at Flipside. So this is very special to see something like that, again, go to FlipsideMemphis.com. You said you like to compete. It was almost 10 years ago, David, your first competition at the famed Papa facility. Yes. And that was part of my journey into buying pinball machines. And what got me to go to Papa, believe it or not, I didn't even know Papa existed. And when the movie Special Win Lit, and I'm sure you're familiar with it, came out, I watched that and I was blown away. I was like, wait a minute. So there's some world pinball competition that happens. I've got to go. And my dad had been retired for a few years. And I said, hey, dad, do you want to go up to Pittsburgh with me? And he knew how much I loved pinball. And so he rode with me. We went up and I got to, you know, meet several pinball people when we were there. And I got to compete. I didn't do very well. As a matter of fact, it's funny because I hadn't played pinball in so long. By the end of the first day of qualifying, my wrists, you know, there are certain pinball muscles that you build up when you play every day. And my wrists were killing me by the end of the first day. But, man, was it a blast. And I did become interested at that point in someday maybe owning some pinball machines. Not necessarily as many as I have now, but I did want to have, you know, I wanted to have a few at the house. This man suffers for his hobby, all right? He goes through the pain, goes through the pinjuries, and still wants more. But that is the fun about competing. When you are going through that, you don't really feel it because the adrenaline's there while you're playing. It's when you sit down or you stop playing and go, oh, my back's sore or my feet are sore, or in this case, your wrists or whatever the case may be. But, yeah, when you're in it, the blood's pumping. It's a lot of fun. It looks like there's going to be a lot of competitions at Flipside, too. It's something you really like. In fact, you reminded me of this. Before we started this interview, we were reminiscing about, okay, where have we crossed paths? And you brought up the Louisville Arcade Expo. I've only been there once. And you, myself, Chris Warren, William Prusa, and the late David Taylor, and some of your friends, we all kind of met after the show, maybe in the parking lot. Maybe somebody had a cooler. Maybe there was some fireball. Maybe.

11:12

And that was just such a fun time before things got a little out of hand. But that's another story. Anyway, so you like the shows. You like going to competitions. But now you can have competitions right there at Flipside. That's the nice thing about what you've got. And it looks like you set up for some big stuff too Yeah Unfortunately we really only have room for 16 machines so I can get too crazy with the size of a competition However, the place really is set up to cater to the player. Even, I don't know if you noticed in the pictures, but there's a comfort, one of the rubber fatigue mats that runs the entire length of the row of machines. And that's there for a couple of reasons. First, it's like a half-inch thick. It's really, really comfortable to stand on. But the cameras and the gallery monitors, there's a rule during competition. If you aren't up, if it's not your ball, you can't be on that mat. So you can never get in another player's peripheral, right? So you can stand back and watch on the gallery monitor. And another thing is it brings in the people that are just sitting at one of the player bars, which is kind of opposite the pinball machines, and just watch. They don't even have to play. They can just watch the other people that are competing. But, you know, I wanted to set it up to really cater to the competitive player, and I think we accomplished that through the different amenities of the, you know, the monitors and the mats and things like that. And another big thing for me is maintenance of the machine. I'm not going to leave a machine in that's not flipping well, you know, and I do have enough machines in the stable, you know, in the wings that I can swap something out, you know, week to week. And we can also rotate the lineup. So I'll be rotating a couple of machines per week probably every other week. You'll see new machines every time you come in. You're not going to play the same 16 machines every time. David, don't sell yourself short because I've been to Sturm Pro Circuit events where they had less than 16 machines. I've been to IFPA World Championships pre-events where they had less than 16, and they were all run very successful. So 16 well-working machines, a nice location, monitors, a place to eat and drink. Sounds like you're set for some big things. So I expect that with Flipside and your passion and your love of competitiveness too. Your partner, Tony Westmoreland, said it's a Chuck E. Cheese for adults. I have to agree. I don't know if that's the term I would have chosen. You've got Flipside tokens. I think that's pretty cool. Yes, yes. And, you know, I think we should also mention the food. And I want to mention that our executive chef, because he certainly deserves some recognition, his name is Jordan Beatty. And this is his first time being an executive chef. And he came in and he created our menu from scratch. And it is a Latin Caribbean fusion food. And people, while they love the pinball, they're absolutely raving about the food. And that's big because when I got with these guys and we talked about opening this place, I said, you know, this is Memphis. And pinball alone I do not think is going to carry a bar. You've got to have good food. And Tony did such a great job of finding Jordan. And Jordan just absolutely knocked it out of the park. The food is really incredible. Well, that's it, right? The fact that you have both makes common sense. If it was just pinball people, you're only going to have pinball people. If you've got a great menu like it seems like you have it at Flipside, you're going to have people that are there only for the food. They're going to go, oh, what's that machine over there? and then throw a few tokens in there and vice versa. People that are playing pinball all day are like, I've got to get something to eat. Wow, this menu is really good. So it's a bigger venture for sure, but you seem to like having a few different jobs. I mean, this isn't even your real job, for crying out loud, and you've got this on the go. And also, Yopsicles, which is huge. Explain Yopsicles. Yeah, that one kind of caught me off guard. You know, I was very frustrated with old Bally and Stern machines that I was restoring because all the machines that I have that are older that are in my lineup, you know, I'm restoring them myself. As a matter of fact, I've still got about 20 in storage that need to be restored. But when you buy all these LED bulbs and you put them in an old, you know, say a skate ball, one of those type machines. Flash Gordon. Yes, a Flash Gordon. Any of the Bally's from the 80s or the Sterns, same thing. and then the bulb, you know, gets dim or it flickers. It's very frustrating. And then when you go to, you know, swap out that socket, and it's that big, thick metal, it's hard to heat up. The sockets are expensive. They're $1.25 a piece. You know, I started thinking there's got to be a way you could just solder an LED directly into the circuit and not deal with the flicker and just get the socket out of the machine altogether. other. And I started on my first machine. The first machine I did was a $6 million man. And I used Popsicle sticks and LED strips that I cut, just cut them up and installed them, you know, drilled a hole in the Popsicle stick, stuck the little piece of the LED strip and soldered it right into the socket. And I actually did a video of how I did it on my YouTube channel to say you can actually see what the completed Yopsicle treatment. And that was kind of where the name, I jokingly He called it a yopsicle on that YouTube video. I put him in, and the funny thing, as we talked about earlier, is that $6 million man is at the bar right now, and not one of those has failed. And it's still, I didn't put yopsicles in it. It's still got the original popsicle sticks that are screwed into the bottom of the play field and just soldered in. But the same idea. Yeah, and that's, well, I took that idea. Actually, it took me two years because I kept asking online. I was like, you know, I need somebody. I don't know how to create a PCB, but I kept asking online several people, you know, hey, does anybody have any interest in trying to develop this further? And I never got a response. Well I got on a PCB page on Facebook and a guy from Australia of all places contacted me and said hey I a PCB designer I like to give it a go So he helped me design the circuit so it could be made and he is my Australian distributor So he sells them in Australia I sell them here, and they really, really took off. And I've been really, really proud of that stupid little LED bulb. And I'm glad that people are installing them and it's helping, you know, the restoration community because I'm a part of that. So as a hobbyist, it just gives me a lot of pride to be able to provide that to other people that are also in the hobby. You've got different colors, too. I know you've got the warm whites, the cool whites for the Omnis, but there's something new, isn't there? So, yeah, I just got our other colors in, and it's going to be the Omni line is the one that has two resistors, so you can use an original board instead of having to buy that $100 LED-specific non-flicker board. But this is going to be the Spectrum line and the colors that we're adding, and they will be going on my pin side shop. So red, green, orange, yellow, and blue have arrived at my house. Pretty impressive. But I am excited for you for Flipside, for your obstacles, for the community, for Memphis, really, because it's kind of the first pinball bar in Memphis, isn't it? Well, I think it is. I don't know of any other pinball bars that have existed in Memphis. There was at one time a brewery that had some pinball machines in it, but they closed at like 9 o'clock or whatever. We are open until midnight, so we truly are a pinball bar, but we're also a restaurant. I don't want people to think it's just a bar, but, yeah, I believe we're the first. Pretty exciting. And do you get around other places in Tennessee? Because I've been to Nashville, I want to get to Knoxville. The Tennessee scene is quite something and really spans west to east because there's pinball in all different pockets, aren't there? There are. I have not made it to play pinball all the way out in East Tennessee because there are several things in Knoxville and Chattanooga that I'm aware of. And in Nashville, I would say if we had a sister bar, pinball bar in Nashville or in Tennessee, it would have to be no quarter. And I have been there and spoken with the owners and everything. And not to say that I exactly copied their bar, but there were certain elements of it that I liked. So, you know, I borrowed. We'll call it that. Listen, if it was in the same city, it would be called stealing. When you go to another city, it's called research.