Hey yo, welcome everyone to Today in the Scene by Indie Arcade Wave. I'm Joe, your host. And here on In the Scene, we dive into what's happening in the arcade space from arcade operators, arcade developers, pinball, and just news in the space in general. Now, I did partner up with Compulsive Pinball, but we'll jump into that later. I'm very excited to jump right into this episode and and talk to Zay. Zayn and I have been going back and forth for we were just joking about it like I feel like it's been well over a year maybe two um since he early on launched the YouTube channel kind of showing how he's opening up the arcade down in Round Rock, Texas. And now they're open. They've been around for a little while and I'm I'm I'm excited to to dive in and and learn more about Pixel Palace. So, how you doing Zayn? Hey Joe, pretty good. Pretty good. Hey Joe, pretty good. Pretty good. I'm glad to have you on. I'm I'm glad to I'm glad to have you on. I'm I'm glad to chat. Um, it's always cool to hear different arcade operator and owners stories just, you know, how they got there, why they chose to get there. Um, so let's just hear a little bit about you. Who's Zayn and and what made you want to, you know, open an arcade? It's a long story. Um, yeah, so It's a long story. Um, yeah, so essentially, you know, I've been in Texas now since 99. Um, almost right out of high school. Um, got a job pretty quickly in the tech industry. lived that life for about 17 18 years. Um and then uh was fortunately or unfortunately part of a layoff and decided I didn't want to do tech stuff anymore and decided I wanted to get into the arcade industry. Um and tried to open arcade here in my small town suburb outside of Austin. Um didn't really have much luck just because this local city didn't really see the vision or whatever at that time. This is back in 2017. Um, didn't happen um, unfortunately. And then, uh, had to get back to the real world and got another job in [music] the tech space and then got tired of that again. Um, because the arcade thing was kind of still calling calling to me a little bit. Um, I still had a bunch of games that I acquired during the the first time and made some connections and all that. So, still in the back of my head entire time I was working um, back in the real world. [music] Um, and then COVID hit. Um, or I should say prior to CO, um, uh, I was still working full-time and decided I want to try again, trying to get the arcade open. Um, shifted the model a little bit. Um, originally the model is going to be more of a traditional arcade. Um, just games, no alcohol, no food, just straight up old school arcade. Um, that doesn't really work very well in this economy, unfortunately. So, adding alcohol and food was kind of the route we had to go. um got some investors and then unfortunately COVID hit and those investors got spooked rightfully so. Again, went back to the grind again. Um got still had that real that real life job. Um and then co kind of lifted up a little bit and decided we're going to try a third time. Third time's a charm. Um found my current partner. Um maybe a bit of a luck. I was grinding a little bit but found my current partner together him and I kind of since [music] 200 I think 2021 20 around there we've been trying to open up the arcade. Um like I said we we shifted the model to more of a barcade model with food and alcohol. Um it's kind of hard to survive at least where I'm at with a traditional arcade. Um that worked out pretty well. Like I said, we started construction around 2020 or 21 around there. um had a couple different spots um that worked out then didn't work out and then we finally ended up in our spot in Round Rock which is another sub suburb outside of Austin. Um and we've been there since. Like I said, construction took a little longer than it probably should have um for a lot of various reasons. Um contractors, city and all that good stuff. The process is pretty lengthy. Uh we are one of the first barcades arcades in Round Rock. So, it was a little different for them as far as how they should um categorize [music] us and all that good stuff. City stuff, you know, bureaucracy, but they've been pretty good so far. Round Rock as a city that working with um and then like I said, we took about a year and a half or two years into construction, then opened up last year, October 2024 and been running full forward since that day with very little time off. It's been a bit of a journey. Lots of ups and downs. Lots of ups and downs for since 2017. Really? I [music] mean, I've been grinding this house out since 2017 trying to get this thing open. So, you're looking at eight years, give or take, trying to get this damn arcade open. Yeah. Well, it's open now. You've been Yeah. Well, it's open now. You've been out for over a year now. Uh, happy one year anniversary. I didn't realize it was that recently. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's it's awesome that you finally Um, it's it's awesome that you finally got it. And, you know, I mean, the dream never died. You know, it was the dream never died. You know, it was always there. It kept coming back. It it failed. It operated. It failed. And then, you know, it finally came to fruition, right? third times a charm and you got it open. Um, what was it that kind of kept kept you pushing through that? Like what where in your in your past did you catch the bug for like arcade and video games that that really kept you moving forward towards opening this? Because I mean working on it for eight years to just get it open a year ago is that's that's a serious path. It is. It is. It's insanity actually. It is. It is. It's insanity actually. It's actually insanity. Um, I mean, obviously I'm I'm I'm kind of a Gen Xer, so I I grew up in arcades, right? I mean, maybe not the golden era. I was a little young, but you know, late 80s, early 90s. Um, I lived in arcades. We had a we had a couple local arcades in my area. I'm from Richmond, California, so we had our typical um mall arcade, which is Tilt, and we had some small local mom and pop arcades as well. um that we you know if we weren't doing baseball or playing or whatever else we're doing we we were at the arcade um playing games. So that's obviously part of my up, you know, upbringing. Um, that life and obviously nostalgia. Nostalgia a drug, man. I mean, I I I I yearn for those days of just a more of a simple fun, you know, life as a as a teenager and as a kid. Obviously, that kind of stuck with me, right? I mean, as a kid, um, a lot of our friends had, you know, gaming consoles. Um, [music] and then we had these parties all the time. we'd have whoever got a new game, we'd have go their house, have a party kind of so that that concept of kind of like entertainment and and games has always been with me. Um, so much that I had a couple of other businesses um as I got older that kind of revolved around that a little bit, the gaming space. Um, I had a a now defunct kind of podcast show around puppets and video games and food. Food's also a common denominator here as well. Um, so I had that. I also had a a I ran a tournament organization as well doing uh local fighting game tournaments like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat. Did that for a while. Um then I had a um a I guess a portable kind of video game um party thing that we we'd set up basically giant inflatables and giant screens and and we'd supply the games and consoles and people play games at the parties. [music] So, I've always been in that space a little bit. Um, as far as just video games and entertainment goes. Um, and this is kind of the natural progression. I also tried to start open a club, a dance club when I was a kid. I was like 18 years old. So, hospitality and and entertaining and games has kind of always been where I I've kind of wanted to go. Unfortunately, life doesn't agree with that all the time. So, you had to get a real job. Um, and I got into a lucrative, you know, tech industry. Paid well, supported my family, but it sucked. It's not fun. Tech tech stuff is not fun unless you have a real passion for it. I did not. I kind of landed into it because I was good at it. I smarted. I like computers as a kid. So, kind of the natural thing to do. Got offered a good job here in Texas straight out of high school. So, I couldn't turn it down and kind of live that life until opportunities presented themselves. So, I always trying to get out of it. um th those side businesses. This is the one that kind of was where it was all leading to whether I I knew it or not. Um and then once I decided I wanted arcade, I kind of couldn't let it go because I saw a need for it. At least my small town. We had nothing here in Hut. So there's Austin, Round Rock and Huddle. I'm in Huddles. We're kind of the furthest suburb. There's nothing here. Like no entertainment at all for kids, adults, or all that stuff. There is now, but when I first moved here, there's nothing. And so I was like, "This is a perfect place for that." Um, even in Round Rock, there wasn't much of that down either. Um, so I was like, "Hey, there's there's a need for it." Um, let's make it happen. Um, and that's kind of the track I was kind of going for a while. Um, Huddle didn't work out, unfortunately. Round Rock did, which is great because I'd rather be in Round Rock than Austin. Austin's kind of saturated right now. Round Rock is perfect for an arcade um, that we operate. Yeah. I mean, it seems like it uh, it Yeah. I mean, it seems like it uh, it kind of followed you. It it chased you until it it finally worked out and I'm glad it did. You guys have a cool spot. You got lots of games in there. I saw you had like some some classics, some moderns, some pinball. Um, speaking of that, I mentioned Um, speaking of that, I mentioned Compulsive Pinball. I'm going to just put something in about that right now. Hey guys, quick break. If you want to support the channel, one of the best ways to do that is purchasing your next pinball through Compulsive Pinball. They're helping bring some amazing Stern pinballs to players everywhere. And the next game that they're releasing, you're not going to want to miss. Whether you're looking to add a machine to your home collection or you're an arcade owner or operator, Compulsive Pinball has you covered. They offer special pricing for operators and can handle routing operations for businesses all over the East Coast as well as down in Orlando, Florida. Check out compulsivepinball.com for your next Stern and let them know that you heard about them from India Arcade now. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And so I I wanted I mean that was kind And so I I wanted I mean that was kind of how we reconnected, right, was we I reached out about pinball. We were talking and and then I was like, "Okay, well like let's see how it's going, right? It's been about a year now. Let's see. Let's see how the arcade's doing. And it's great to see you guys are are growing, succeeding, and you got a bunch of bunch of stuff going on. So, let's let's kind of walk through the arcade. Like, what kind of games you have in there? What's your theme? Like, what are you trying to focus on? And and where do you want to move the game selection in the future? Yeah. So, we're obviously heavily, you Yeah. So, we're obviously heavily, you know, more a retro arcade, heavily influenced by the 80s and 90s, right? Um, very curated to the very smallest detail. Um, we try to, you know, we, as cliche as it sounds, we don't call our gu customers guest, we call them guests, right? Kind of the Disney model, right? They're a guest. We try to give them experience, right? It's not just a bar. It's not as arcade. It's kind of an experience. So, every detail, the smallest thing, trying to recreate that kind of that nostalgia, right? That that feeling of being a kid and teenager. So we have, you know, a lot of neon, a lot of lot of we have a museum dedicated to kind of all the artifacts from the 80s and 90s. We have a good mixture. So we have a kind of a mantra. Nothing in the arcade is post 2000. I think it's very few exceptions. And then nothing preset 1970. There's not a lot of games pre 1970s, but 72000 is kind of where we sit in the the theme of of arcade. Um, so music-wise, we don't play anything new than 2000. So I'm pretty strict about that. Movies, same thing. We're not showing movies, TV, nothing is post 2000. We try to stay in our our bubble, retro, right? 90s is now retro, which is sad, but um 80s 90s kind of our sweet spot. 70s not so much, but 80s 90s. It's kind of more sort of our guests are around that from that area. We do have a lot of new kids as well. Um gamewise runs again, like I said, 1970 2000. Uh our newest game is we got two new games besides [music] pinball would be like Guitar Hero and Family Guy Bowling and then [music] Golden Tea. That's probably our newest games, right? Um and those are pretty those three games. The Golden T is [music] a must. Um Guitar Hill a must and then the kind of bowling is more of a um curiosity more than anything. I saw the game for auction. No one's bidden on it. seemed fun and it's one of our our our biggest our biggest sellers, our biggest players. So, that worked out. But everything else is like, yeah, mostly I say mid 80s, mid 90s, good range of, you know, single player, multiplayer. Um, we got most of the classics. Uh, we have a total in the arcade right now, we have about 60 games, give or take. Uh, we try to rotate as much as possible. Total we have probably 150 200 games in our warehouse. So, we got a a massive collection of games. I spent years acquiring, going through all Texas, some out of state, um lots of auctions, um acquiring those [music] games. So, the goal was kind of to rotate those games as much as possible. It doesn't happen all the time, but we we try to best we can. Um right now, it's a good mixture of single player and multiplayer games. Um we're we're in the future we're trying to going more towards multiplayer games, a two-player more. Um because we just figured based on feedback and and watching guests and how they interact, they tend to like the more two-player and plus games, right? So like Street Fighter, a lot of fighting games. I'm a fighting game guy, so we have a lot of fighting games in there. Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, got a couple candys. Um but then you got games like X-Men, Simpson, you know, the typical kind of four play games, but we got like Off-Road, I'm about to bring on the floor, got Blitz. So we're changing a little bit as far as the game section goes. um as far as how many people can play at once. We'll keep the classics like single player games like Pac-Man and Alec and all that good stuff, but we're going to try to keep the single player games down to a minimum um as much as possible because our guests are kind of that's the trend we're seeing with our guests um is more multiplayer games. Um pinball wise, again, we try we tried our best to stick within that 70 to 2000 range. Um, but it didn't work out because just a lot of the games we acquired were just great pinball, but needed a lot of work and we didn't have time or money to continuously pour money these older pens. So, we decided to get some newer pens. We got some new stern cabinets or stern pens, um, Jaws and Dress Park and, uh, Pulp Fiction. Um, we're probably going to get another one here soon. I might swap out one pin for a newer game. I can't decide which one I want to get yet, but there's a couple on my list. Um, pinball is kind of a weird thing right now because we get a lot of play on it, but the cost is, you know, crazy, right? I have it. So, I'm I'm the lead tech and then we have I have two other techs that work for me kind of part-time. And then I have a pinball tech just for pinball because pinball is not my for I couldn't tell you. I don't have time to learn pinball. So, I have another girl come in works on pinballs just for pinball because they get so much beat the all every day. So she comes in once a week and kind of maintains the rest of the canvas. That's a cost [music] assoc bucket of just cost that uh suck a lot of my time and money up. So yeah, we a good selection I think of of games. We're always trying to find rare games that may not be popular but are rare and kind of throw games that people have don't know about. Um right now I'm working on a game called Shoes that no one's really played. I'm working on that one right now to get that on the floor. Like I like to add some really weird games in there every once in a while that may not get to play but kind of showcase some weird unique rare games that no one has really seen before outside of the you know the typical classic games. Um and then every once we get people that ask for games that we just won't get because they will get no play at all and they think they're popular. So, um, we're we're always listening to our guests as far as feedback goes as what kind of games they want, and we try to as best we can fill that request. Um, may not next day, but it's always on a list somewhere of games we probably should acquire if we can come across them. Yeah. I mean, I love kind of the idea Yeah. I mean, I love kind of the idea that you guys have in there in the theming with, you know, the 80s and or between like 70s and 90s. Um, I jumped in for uh Trash Movie Tuesday, which was it was kind of a cool thing. And there were some movies in there. I've got a I've got a suggestion. I don't know if you guys have played it. You may have. Um, but I'll I'll I'll call a bartender, so you don't know what's coming. Um, Um, but uh I I think that's really cool what but uh I I think that's really cool what you guys are doing in there. And Shoes is a it's a cool game. I think it's pretty underrated. It's very rare. Uh my partners that I've worked with Yeah. I've I've worked with the guys Yeah. I've I've worked with the guys over at Paradise Arcade Shop, Retro Arcade Remakes. Um, and they've got one in their arcade at Starcade. Um, super cool game, but you never never see it. I think it's right next to an Atari Tennis, so that's like another one you never see. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and that's that's cool. You got just Um, and that's that's cool. You got just a couple pins in there, but you're keeping it kind of like the theming has to still be in that ballpark, whether it's a new pin or not. I mean, I agree. Taking care of the new ones much easier. I'm I'm just getting into the pinball space and getting into the pinball space and starting to work on them myself. And those old ones are I don't want to chase those old ones are I don't want to chase wires for five hours. I just want to know, you know, which board is that or what, you know, do I got to rebuild the flippers? Like, you know, the the simple stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I'll dive into that stuff in a Maybe I'll dive into that stuff in a couple years once I've I've got enough experience in it. But, um, um, I really like what you guys are doing I really like what you guys are doing and I think that's really cool. Um, I've got lots of people that watch the show that are interested in opening an arcade or are in the process of opening an arcade. So, let's kind of step through that, right? We talked about what's in there now, but what was that process like? You said it was it was new for the area. They were kind of figuring out zoning and and how to do all that. So, what kind of permits did you need to get for like food and alcohol and and buildings and all that stuff? Like which ones were the hardest for you to deal with? Yeah. So, there's a lot of permits a Yeah. So, there's a lot of permits a lot. So, um obviously the acquiring the building was the hardest part, right? Because uh retail space here in Texas and and say central Texas is is hard to come across for a good price. So, we were searching for a long time. finally land a spot in Round Rock. Good square footage, little on the underside, but we could work with it. Um, that process was as far as once we found the location, signing paperwork, landlord, great process was pretty easy. Um, the biggest proc the biggest hurdles that we came across were kind of later on a towards the end of the build. So you have your typical kind of like you got electrical, mechanical, which is AC, um plumbing, um fire, kind of those are the big four, food. Um but those four are all the trades that you got to get have to get. Um all worked out fairly well as far as [music] the contractors I got. Um that was never an issue. Um the issues were around more of inspections. Um inspectors not necessarily agreeing with code which is strange. Um so towards the end once we were kind of ready to get our final inspections is where we ran a lot of our issues around mostly electrical and mechanical um to the point where we had to kind of fight with the city because the inspector I wouldn't say making up stuff but essentially making up stuff that weren't in the code books. So, um, we had to kind of pick our battles and to see if we wanted to challenge those