Top 5 Gas Station Chains in the US!

Don's Pinball Podcast (patreon feed)·podcast_episode·31m 11s·analyzed·Oct 5, 2024

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.025

TL;DR

Don ranks US gas stations and briefly comments on ABBA game quality and Pinball Brothers meeting.

Summary

Don from Don's Pinball Podcast delivers a comedic tangent reviewing his top 5 favorite gas station chains in the US (Pilot #5, Casey's #4, Wawa #3, Sheetz #2, Buc-ee's #1), with honorable mentions and extensive personal anecdotes about regional food culture and road trip experiences. He briefly pivots to pinball content, discussing a listener's new ABBA machine delivery, expressing concerns about weak flippers, and mentioning an upcoming meeting with Pinball Brothers at an upcoming Expo.

Key Claims

ABBA machines for general population have not shipped yet or won't arrive in time for Expo
medium confidence · Don, based on feedback from a listener who received ABBA
ABBA has a better layout than Queen but weaker flippers
medium confidence · Don, reporting hearsay from listeners who've played ABBA
ABBA's limited edition was $1,000 more expensive with only cabinet decal changes
medium confidence · Don's observation about pricing
Pinball Brothers' media rep Rudy is no longer with the company
high confidence · Don, direct statement about personnel change
Pinball Brothers (Euro Pinball Corp) has a manufacturing facility near Milan, Italy at the foothills of the Alps
high confidence · Don, personal knowledge from visiting the area
Buc-ee's will be opening a location in central Wisconsin in the coming year
high confidence · Don, stating expansion plans for Buc-ee's

Notable Quotes

“I want to get a truck stop pinball machine and re-theme it to a Buc-ee's. That's how enthusiastic I am for it.”
Don @ ~47:00 — Shows crossover between Don's passion for gas stations and pinball; indicates his creative thinking about pinball themes
“Games need to have strong flippers that we have to tune down a little bit to our own personal tastes, right? But, you know, having flipper slop, man, we just got, it's 2025. We got to be beyond that by this point.”
Don @ ~52:30 — Critiques ABBA's flipper mechanics and expresses industry standards expectations for 2025
“The person that purchased this game, their family loves ABBA that much that they're happy with the purchase here.”
Don @ ~51:30 — Shows Don's acknowledgment that theme preference justifies purchase despite his personal lack of enthusiasm
“I went to a McDonald's there. It was fantastic. You got to go to European McDonald's, man. That's like a cut above.”
Don @ ~59:00 — Humorous aside revealing Don's road trip philosophy and international perspective
“They're sweeping the country. I love to see this.”
Don @ ~46:30 — Enthusiastic endorsement of Buc-ee's expansion strategy

Entities

DonpersonPilotcompanyCasey'scompanyWawacompanySheetzcompanyBuc-ee'scompanyQuick TripcompanyMaverick StationscompanyThorntonscompany

Signals

?
product_concern: ABBA machine reported to have weaker flippers compared to Queen; Don expresses concern that 2025-era games should have strong flipper mechanics as standard
medium · Listener feedback reported by Don; 'The flippers feel a little weaker than Queen... flipper slop, man, we just got, it's 2025. We got to be beyond that'
?
product_launch: ABBA machines for general population have not shipped yet and may not arrive in time for Expo
medium · Don states 'the ABBAs that are going to be available for the general population have not shipped yet or won't arrive in time to go to Expo'
?
product_strategy: ABBA limited edition priced $1,000 higher than standard model with only cosmetic cabinet decal differences
high · Don observes 'a little bit weird that their limited edition was $1,000 more and the only thing that was changed was decals on the cabinet'
?
personnel_signal: Pinball Brothers' former media representative Rudy has departed the company
high · Don states 'their media guy who is no longer with the company' and 'last year I talked to their media guy... German fellow, Rudy. Wish him well in his future endeavors'
?
event_signal: Pinball Brothers has requested to meet with Don at upcoming Expo; topic unconfirmed
high · Don received email from Pinball Brothers owners requesting Expo meeting; 'Didn't say what about, but it's not HR, so I've got to imagine it's got to be something at least kind of cool'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.094

0:00

Hey, what's going on everybody? It's time to fuel up the family roadster for a little bit of a diversion from the main content stream of Don's Pinball Podcast. I got some lo-fi beats on and I figured I would run down my top five favorite gas station chains in the United States. Now, I say this because as a road tripper, predominantly, your boy gets around. And so part of that is enjoying what comes up across the road. You know, when you see that sign in the distance, should you be excited about what's coming up at the exit? Or do you want to try to hold it until you get to someplace better? Now, over the last 10 years, there's been some real pushes in this industry. And as a fan of themed entertainment and roadside attractions, the gas station experience is becoming an attraction in its own right. So I figured, why don't I do everybody a service, and I'll run down my top five in the U.S. And what to expect for y'all. So let's get into this.

1:10

Crack on, lo-fi beats. All right, so we'll start with number five. Okay, number five, I'm very enthusiastic. I should be like a gas station enthusiast at this point. Number five is Pilot. Pilot gas stations, we've all seen these no matter where you've been. Any kind of road trip in the middle of a rural patch of America, you'll see the sign for either a Pilot, a Loves, or God help you, a Flying J. Okay, now, it's number five because of its ubiquitousness. I had to put it in there because I do get a little sense of like, oh, yes, there's one coming up. And Love's is right behind it, but just missed the list because of Pilot and their Roller Grill Hot Dogs, which there was a period of time in my life where I was in Pennsylvania, and I didn't have a lot of money because I was in medical training, so I couldn't do a whole lot of road trips. But on the outskirts of the town I was living in, there was a Pilot station. And every now and then, I would stretch out late into the evening. I would go to the Pilot station, pretend I was on a road trip. I'd walk around and look at all the merchandise, the cool, you know, western purses, the Pennsylvania shot glasses, all of the trucker gear. There was a wooden mallets that are ostensibly sold to be able to thump your tires in the case of a low tire pressure. But really what it's for is to have a billy club underneath your seat that the police won't really gawk at too much. Like that whole vibe, right? There are showers there. It's gritty and urban. This one had like a church's chicken attached to it or something. You know, it was just funky. but like every now and then I'd go get one of those gas station hot dogs and like boom I was like back in a road trip middle of nowhere there's no food anywhere I guess I'll try to survive on this rolled meat that's been cooking for 8 to 12 probably business days all right so I included it there just because when I see it coming up I know what to expect I know there's going to be a lot of gas pumps I know it's going to be probably the cheapest gas in that area and I'm not going have to venture far from the interstate. So, Pilot, shout out to you. Spot a number five on the list. Moving down. Number four spot, I had to give to another one. This is a more recent discovery for me. I've recently become more aware of this chain. This is a chain that is headquartered in Iowa. You see them all throughout Minnesota. Parts of Wisconsin will have them. Parts of Illinois will have them. I'm talking about Casey's, okay? I first became aware of these. I'd see them in the distance. I didn't know much about them. I think they're in Missouri as well. The thing that Casey's is known for, and this is one of the things that really sets these places apart, is made-to-order food. Food that's hot and available and not just has been sitting around. They do pizza at Casey's. A lot of gas station chains do pizzas. Pilot does pizza. It's terrible. Generally, gas station pizza is absolutely obnoxiously bad. Pizza is a food That's probably the cheapest, lowest build of materials you can possibly get when it comes to food with a very high profit margin and can still be sold cheap enough. Everybody loves it. It's always a go-to. But some places manage to mess up even that in a race to the bottom to budget engineer crust as low as possible and increase those margins as much as you can with bland cheese, gross sauce, and nasty crust. Not Casey's, though. So Casey's has what I would consider not just good pizza by gas station standards, but legitimately okay pizza, right? I'm talking about a level that I would prefer Casey's over Papa John's. And Papa John's is my watermark for if pizza is good, it's better than Papa John's. If pizza is bad, it's worse than Papa John's. Papa John's is absolutely mediocre. You know, I don't have terrible things to say about it. I don't have anything really positive to say about it. it's okay, and that's where the mark is. Casey's is above that, and for a gas station, that puts it in top tier. I had to include Casey's. Now, a lot of their newer stations are being redone, refreshed. They have a lot of cool items to pick up there. They've got a cold counter you can reach into. They've got some bakery items. They're really doing some cool things at the Casey's, but I know when I'm on a road trip, I'm going to have clean bathrooms, stop to grab some soda or some pop or some Coke or some dope, depending on which part of the country you're in. It's a regional dialect issue. But I know I can also grab a slice of pizza, and it's going to be decent. There's one just outside of Spooky headquarters, and when I'm leaving late at night from the Spooky factory heading home, I know I can always swing by Casey's and grab a couple slices for the road, and it's going to be decent. It's going to be good stuff, man. It's going to be good stuff. So Casey's, number four, check out their convenience stores. I dig it. Gas prices aren't terrible. Friendly places. Most of them are newer. Most of them are newer, and I appreciate that. Number three on the list. We're getting into it now, right? Those that know, there's a competition going on between these next few choices that are on here. I had to really pull out the Excel spreadsheet because we were getting razor-thin margins on who's going to take the number three spot, who's going to take the number two spot. There's parts of my life that I think I would have reversed these. And people that know are going to be passionate about this, and they're going to have their favorite over the other. Number three, I'm going to give to Philadelphia's own Wawa chain of gas stations. Now, if you're not from the northeast or Florida or parts of Virginia and maybe South Carolina, you're like, Wawa sounds like a baby word. What the hell are you even talking about? We're in the upper echelon of gas station chains here. Wawa, W-A-W-A, originated in the Philadelphia region. It's an eastern Pennsylvania gas station chain. And anybody that's familiar, like, intimately with Philadelphia knows, and people from the Philly area will tell you this, Philly is known, you know, globally for the cheesesteak. But the food of choice, the choice item that people argue over that actually know is the type of bread in a hoagie roll in the area around Philadelphia. And Wawa brings the heat. There is like one bakery in Philadelphia that is known for having the best hoagie rolls. This is a submarine sandwich. A hero, a poor boy. Again, a lot of terms for this. But it's a sandwich roll bread. And it's got everything is perfect with it. The outside consistency, it's like nice and hard and crunchy but not going to break your teeth. Soft on the inside. Pleasing to the palate. Doesn't taste like a yoga mat that you get from Subway. Like it's actually super decent. And I didn't even know anything about this culture. until I lived in Pennsylvania and heard people argue intimately over the quality of sub roll bread I was living in Lebanon Pennsylvania and there was a sandwich shop that would import daily bread from this factory in Philadelphia to sell with their sandwiches, and when they ran out for the day, like, that was it. And, like, you had to go there early to be able to get them. And this was a completely foreign concept to my brain. Wawa has done the best of anybody at replicating that bread texture and quality that you find in Philadelphia and bring it to the masses. They run a Hoagie Fest every August. It's super fun. This is one of the made-to-order food gas station chains. You go in there. Food is made-to-order, so it's fresh, hot. They have paninis. They have sub-roll sandwiches. They've got macaroni and cheese soups and things. They have breakfast items. They have bakery things that are delivered that are of high quality. They've got a good dairy case. They have yogurts and juices and things, as well as a full line of snacks and everything you could want. And at the checkout, Super Pennsylvania, there's hot pretzels of varying varieties at the checkout register. So when you go there, you could even just go over and impulse buy yourself a pretzel, a stuffed pretzel, hash browns, chicken wings, breaded mushrooms, like all kinds of fun stuff is already ready waiting there for you. These giant sugar cookies coated with M&Ms, man, like how do you go to Wawa and not walk out with one of those? So it's fantastic. It's 24 hours. No matter what, if you see a Wawa, You know you can go in there and get some hot, good food really any time of the day or night. It's fantastic. And their foray into Florida has been so incredibly helpful to know that you can be at a high-priced theme park and know that you can just go out of your car, drive just off property, whether at Universal SeaWorld, Disney World, and you can hit up a Wawa. There's one right outside of the Animal Kingdom. So you can be having fun at Animal Kingdom, playing in the world of Avatar, right, and then just bounce right on over there and for $20 grab a couple of sandwiches, a bunch of other things, just kind of like gorge yourself on food that would have been prohibitively expensive in a theme park. So Wawa, I got to give it to you. I love you, man. The sandwiches are completely on point. The best sandwiches of any chain, of any chain, I'll give them that. But they take the number three spot because the number two spot is occupied by Sheetz. I never knew I was going to come down and say that Sheetz was better than Wawa, but on balance, I had to give them the points. Now, there's room in my heart for both of these and my arteries as well. Sheetz is a line of convenience stores also from Pennsylvania. In this case, they started out at Altoona, Pennsylvania, which is a western-ish city in PA. So PA's got this, like, east coast, west coast thing, but just within Pennsylvania, and it's among gas station chains. Okay, Sheetz also has the concept of made-to-order food, but has a much broader range of things that you can get. In addition to the same types of sandwiches that you can get at Wawa, you can also, there's a full coffee counter, but actually both of them have that. But you can get quesadillas, you can get pizza slices. They have a fryer, and Wawa doesn't have a fryer, typically. There's not a lot of fried order foods that you can get, like french fries and such. Occasionally they may put some out as a special thing, But like Sheetz really kind of goes there with it. Okay. Now, we talked about eastern Pennsylvania and Philadelphia. Western Pennsylvania has all kinds of idiosyncrasies. One of those things originating from Pittsburgh is taking French fries, right, fried potato strips, and putting them on sandwiches, and in some cases in Altoona, on salads as well. I went to Altoona, Pennsylvania for one of my first times where I was working out there, and people were like, you've got to go to this restaurant. You've got to try the chicken salad. And I'm thinking in my brain, you know, like a normal human, that a chicken salad is a bunch of mechanically rendered chicken mixed with mayonnaise and things and spread on a sandwich and looks fairly disgusting to me. But no, no, this was just a regular salad with leafy vegetables, grilled chicken, and then a handful of French fries and then a bunch of like French type dressing over it. And they didn't look at that like that was anything odd. Like, you know, the French fries to them were as pedestrian as a crouton on a salad. The fact that for the Altoona natives that you would order a salad somewhere and it would not come with french fries in the salad with the lettuce and everything was just absurd. Like they couldn't get their heads around that. The hospital I was working at, I went to the cafeteria and they were serving this one day. And I saw somebody I was working with that had a bunch of french fries in their salad. And my first thought was like maybe the guy was in a hurry and just kind of threw it all together. I won't harshly judge him or anything, but that's super weird. And then I found out that the hospital cafeteria was serving that. Like, that's how it was coming. All right? This is to say that, in addition to Permanee Brothers, which is amazing, but not a gas station,

12:29

at Sheetz, you can order food with French fries on your sandwich. Actually, they prompt you. When you buy a sandwich, they say, okay, before you commit to this order, would you like to put French fries on your sandwich? Would you like to put mozzarella sticks on your sandwich? Would you like to put onion petals on your sandwich? Like, you can put the fried foods that they have, macaroni and cheese bites, you can put them on a sandwich. For what reason? just because of Pennsylvania. That's the reason. Also available 24 hours a day. It's made to order touchscreen food. You touch it, you order, you wait, you get your stuff made right then. They do have pre-made sandwiches, a full grocery section, walk-in beer cooler, the whole bit. They're generally neck and neck with Wawa. It was the diversity of what you can order that put them just over the top. So how do these two places compete in Pennsylvania? The thing is they don't. They have almost a gentleman's agreement where they won't ever build themselves in the same region, right? So Sheetz tends to take over western Pennsylvania. Wawa takes over the eastern half of Pennsylvania. And then Sheetz is found in Ohio and West Virginia and Virginia and not in Wisconsin, but they are in Ohio, bordering states, but they need to go nationwide with this concept. I think it would work just about anywhere. Los Angeles, we will trade you Sheetz for Jack in the Box. Can we make that swap? and an In-N-Out burger. Let's say an In-N-Out burger and a Jack in the Box. We'll give you sheets, and maybe we can have an option for a Wawa or something. I think this brand would work nationwide, man. But I get enthusiastic whenever I'm driving around and I'm in this region of the eastern Midwest and I start to see a sheet sign. I'm like, perfect. Food is covered. We're going to have so much food, so many sandwiches. You can order your sandwiches on pretzel bread if you want. Everything's toasted. Like, I love it, man. I just gorged myself there for the last two days in Ohio because whenever I see sheets, It's like I got to go there. So got to give it up to Sheetz. Wawa's still in my heart, though, man. I don't have to choose. I can go to both. Where I lived in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, we had a Sheetz across the street from my house. It was bliss. And then 20 minutes away, there was a Wawa. I was living right on that border. I was on the frontier of the competing Pennsylvania gas stations where I could have access to both of them. It was good times, man. It was good times. Going down to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, there was a Wawa there. and then in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, there was a Sheetz. And both are Amish country, man. Cool place. Hershey Park's local. It was super fun. Pennsylvania has got it on lock. They know the sandwich game. They know the gas station game. And if you drive through and you see that, now you know. Now you know the game. So I want to go into some honorable mentions here for a moment because there were some that were close. They're good. I love them, but they didn't make the top five list. I got to give it up for Quick Trip, Wisconsin's own. Man, if you ask anybody from Wisconsin, Quick Trip, It is like they think it's the ends of the earth as far as the best, but it's because they don't have access to my top five list. They don't know what else is out there because we don't have sheets. We don't have wah-wah. We don't have pilot stations, of course, but Quick Trip, ubiquitous. Now this isn Quick Trip with a Q There a Quick Trip QT that available out as a chain in certain parts of the country I see them in the lower Midwest This is not that This is Quick Trip with a K and it its own thing right This is a Wisconsin thing. When I first moved up to Wisconsin, people were telling me, we have a new Quick Trip opening in town. You've got to check it out. It's the local grocery store, basically. They've got everything you need. They do have hot food. It's not made to order, though. It's pre-made and then put in a hot case, and they switch it out to their benefit several times a day. Their roller grills are on point. They've got these rolled taquito products. One of them has got pepper jack cheese in it. Love it. It looks like this rolled fried tortilla caked with this cheese stuff. It looks exactly what your arteries will look like after you eat this food, just completely blocked. But, yeah, delicious, and usually two for $3. And we've got them in town. If you just need a gallon of milk, you can run into there, and you don't have to go into the Walmart. When I first moved there, they had milk and soda. No, not soda, but milk and orange juice and things in bags, like in plastic bags. And you would put it in a pitcher. It's like a Canadian thing, so we'd have a little bit of that. In Iowa, for reasons, Quick Trip is called Quick Star. I think it's probably because there was some sort of – somebody had some similar business name in Iowa. So in Iowa, they're called Quick Star. In Illinois and parts of Minnesota and definitely in Wisconsin, it's Quick Trip. It's okay, but it doesn't have the made-to-order food It doesn't have the legacy of Sheetz Or the variety Or you find it at Wawa But they are ubiquitous So I did want to give them a shout-out Also a shout-out to Maverick Stations This is a western chain You find these in Colorado, Utah, Idaho In Nevada They have the unbridled spirit emblem To them with a horseback thing It's kind of like you're out In the western frontier for adventure Their stores are themed to be more outdoorsy, you know, murals of whitewater rafting on the walls, clean bathrooms, nothing special. Sometimes they have some made-to-order food options, but they're definitely decent. So if you see a Maverick station and you're in the western U.S., it's always like an okay time, you know. I always picture myself being in Wyoming or being, you know, in view of the Rocky Mountains or something or the Bitterroot Mountain Ridge when I see a Maverick. So it's kind of fun. It's kind of fun. So shout out and special mention to them. Also Thorntons I'm coming around to. This is a chain that I saw in Illinois, Thorntons, T-H-O-R-T-O-N-S. I'm not sure where else they are, but I do see them when I go into Chicago. And they do have a very large gas station with a lot of brand-new things and different options inside. Some okay options to pick up. Did they have a salad bar maybe? Kind of a cool concept for a gas station. But, yeah, not bad, not bad, not fantastically great, but not bad. So shout out to them. I know there's some other ones that have missed the list. Please let me know which one you hold near and dear, which one you see in the exit of the interstate and you want to go for. All right, it's time for number one. Number one, no contest. This was very simple to pick number one. Two and three, I had a problem with organizing them and where I wanted them to come, but that's where they needed to be. Number one has to be Texas' own Buc-ee's. Buc-ee's, man, Buc-ee's. Have you not been to Buc-ee's? If you've not been to Buc-ee's, you've heard about Buc-ee's. By now you've seen someone that's come back from Florida with a hoodie or a stuffed animal or a wife beater or a tank top with the Buc-ee's logo on it. Their logo and their mascot is a beaver because, of course, he is. These are the largest gas stations from the largest state that loves to boast that it's the largest of everything. So just about outside of every major city in the southern central U.S., you'll find that sign for a Buc-ee's. They almost advertise like Wall Drug does in South Dakota, where it's like 500 miles away from this place. You'll start seeing advertisements, clever little things, black billboards with yellow letters and that Bucky logo icon, saying that, you know, hold it. Restrooms are only three hours away. You'll be here soon. Bucky's is an event. It's not a truck stop, but it is as big as a truck stop. They actually don't allow tractor trailers to stop there. It's only for vehicles. There will be 80 gas station pumps. No exaggeration, man. And it's like if you took a gas station and you took a Costco and you took the biggest Walmart super center you've ever seen and just put them all in a mattress and just let them go at it. This is what they would come out with. Also with this awesome mascot, there's a bronze Bucky statue outside of the entrance of every one of these places. You can go to this gas station. You can pick up a cast iron fire pit. You can get fishing gear. You can get themed merchandise. You can get all kinds of food. They make brisket constantly throughout the day. they will holler out that when the fresh brisket sandwiches are coming out, they're sitting there chopping brisket all day long, putting it on bread, wrapping it, and giving it out to people. They had a Texas BLT sandwich, which was so great that they just discontinued. I hope they bring it back because it was just completely phenomenal. But you walk into this place, and it's like, seriously, it's the size of a Target. Maybe not quite that big, but in gas station terms, absolutely. It's a department store. There is a whole deli-sized counter that is nothing but different types of beef jerky that you can go through and you can sample and you purchase it by the pound. This is the greatest road stop gas station in the entire nation, in the entire nation, and not even exaggerating, like by a wide margin, by a Bucky Beaver-sized margin. When you see the sign coming up, everything else gets shut out. That's where our stop is going to be. We're going to take some time. We're going to go in there. Not only is food available. every type of snack is available too their own branded versions of them from sour balls to every kind of coated nut product you could want get clothing there man get swimsuits there get winter gear there get everything there everything is there if you've been to Bucky's you know if you haven't been to Bucky's yet you will find out because they are expanding they started in Texas they're in Tennessee they're in Ohio they're in Kentucky they may not be in Ohio yet but they are definitely in Kentucky. They're all over Florida now. We're getting our first one in central Wisconsin here pretty soon. They're about to break ground on it sometime in the next coming year. They've got to build a big off-ramp for it just to accommodate it. These things are massive. And so they're sweeping the country. I love to see this. I want to get a truck stop pinball machine and re-theme it to a Buc-ee's. That's how enthusiastic I am for it. So Buc-ee's, number one, top position. If you don't know, you're probably going to know soon at the rate that this company is expanding. If not, if you do road trip down in the southwestern or southeastern United States, you're going to run into a Buc-ee's at some point if you're on a major highway. And go check it out. One of the largest ones in the world just opened up in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, which is also a fantastic place that everybody should go to. But they're going to build one even bigger in Texas and then probably one even bigger somewhere else other than that. I love it, man. I love it. I love being on a road trip and not being too terribly aware of what's coming in the future. And then you see, hey, we're 200 miles away from a Buc-ee's. We'll be there in three hours. Boom. There's dinner taken care of. It's going to be quick. It's going to be fun. We're going to buy plush toys for the kids, man. It's the Stuckys of a new generation. All right. So I want to drop this extra content for somebody because, as you can tell, I'm a little bit enthusiastic about this. And it's only because I've been to all the 49 great states of the United States and most of the Canadian provinces. And so I've come to become aware of these places. And they all have their own little flavor. Like I know when I'm in the upper Midwest because I start running into sheets. I know when I'm in Florida, wah-wah, I'm going to hit that up, and I'm going to hit up Bucky's if I'm driving. Yeah, if I'm in Tennessee or Texas, Bucky's is it. If I'm at home, Quick Trip is the one I'll probably go to. And you know with nothing else available at least Pilot I can get a nasty hot dog and be nostalgic for my tube roller grill meats All right pinball content Let talk about ABBA for a little bit A new friend of mine in Indiana just got his ABBA delivered to him Now, I was going to wait and play this at Expo, but it sounds like from what I'm hearing, the ABBAs that are going to be available for the general population have not shipped yet or won't arrive in time to go to Expo. So it's going to be a big black hole at Expo if no ABBAs are there. So I'm thinking that on my road trip home from Ohio in the next few days, it may be worthwhile investing the two-hour side detour trip to actually get to go and put hands-on play with this game. From what I'm hearing, nothing great. I'm hearing the game is not great. The game is good. I've heard the layout is better than Queen, but the flippers feel a little weaker than Queen. Maybe that's an adjustment. Maybe that will come with code. Really, we need to get past the weak flippers in games. Games need to have strong flippers that we have to tune down a little bit to our own personal tastes, right? But, you know, having flop, flipper slop, man, we just got, it's 2025. We got to be beyond that by this point. So, you know, I want to go play ABBA. I don't want to own ABBA. I am not a, what you would call a fan of ABBA's music. I am a fan of them as far as like they're a Swedish entity. They were popular in the 70s, popular during disco. I unironically enjoy stuff from that era. I would play Bee Gees all day long. But ABBA is just so saccharine sweet, it's hard to unironically enjoy their music for me. But no accounting for personal taste. If this is what you're into, be totally happy with it. The person that purchased this game, their family loves ABBA that much that they're happy with the purchase here. And they've graciously invited me to come play. I definitely want to come play it. A little bit weird that their limited edition was $1,000 more and the only thing that was changed was decals on the cabinet. That's a weird, weird thing for me. I'll stay on Pinball Brothers here for a little bit because I just got an email from one of the owners of the Pinball Brothers out of the blue, wasn't expecting it, but they want to meet me at Expo. Didn't say what about, but it's not HR, so I've got to imagine it's got to be something at least kind of cool. So I'm excited to see what Pinball Brothers wants to meet with me about. Now, last year I talked to their media guy who is no longer with the company. He came up to the room and we recorded an interview. It was super fun. German fellow, Rudy. Wish him well in his future endeavors.

26:10

But I was like, hey, guys. I emailed them, and I'm like, guys, I'm going to be in the area. Like, is there a way I could swing by, you know? I want to do a little factory tour, kind of take a look at the production, you know? That was at a time when, you know, we weren't sure what was going on really with Haggis. Are people making games? Are they in boxes? Are they coming out, you know? So I thought it would be good to put hands on, eyes on ground floor and see, like, are actually machines being assembled here? How much staff is here? Like, is this really a company that's, you know, making what they say they're making? Or is it someone who's a little cagey and maybe, you know, whatever? And so the reply I got back was kind of like, you know, Don, thank you for the email. We don't really understand what you're asking us. And so I tried to explain, like, look, I'm driving through. I'm on a trip. You know, I'm going to Gardaland. I'm going to be near Lago di Garda in Italy. I know your production facility is right near there in the suburbs of Milan. I just wanted to kind of come by, say hi with the folks, take a couple pictures, maybe peek at some games going in boxes and tell everybody what I saw. And, yeah, they just didn't seem either interested or didn't get the idea of what I was trying to convey to them. I also mentioned that I had plans on going to Central Sweden, where they have their headquarters. I was going to go out to Kolmården, which is a zoo, which has a brand-new wooden coaster that goes upside down. It's from Rocky Mountain Construction. It's one of my favorite wooden coaster manufacturers. and this wildfire coasters. Everybody raves about it. And so there's another great little park in Stockholm, and there's one in Gothenburg. So I was going to take a little road trip across Sweden and hit these three places, which would take me right through the town where Pinball Brothers has their corporate headquarter offices. And I was like, hey, man, wouldn't it be cool to stop by and just, like, you know, shoot a selfie out in front of there and say, hey, I got to visit the Pinball Brothers headquarters today. And maybe, you know, get invited in and, you know, walk around a little bit and meet the staff and everybody, grab a group picture and, you know, maybe a T-shirt with exchange T-shirts and then, you know, 10, 15 minutes. That's all I wanted. They just didn't seem to understand the concept of what I was trying to ask. And maybe it's just something that they're not able to, you know, accommodate. You know, maybe they've got secret information everywhere and they don't want anybody that's not involved with the product or under NDA over there, which is fine. But, you know, at least it's good that they're reaching out and I want to see what they've got. My favorite pinball brothers game is alien uh for sure queen i have finally had some good games on queen um but it was at someone's home that had the game set up uh properly um and wasn't just beat to crap at the shows i have not had a good experience on a queen at an actual show um or on a location for that matter uh except wizard's world wizard's world had a queen that was running fairly decently so i'll give them that uh but when queen is running adequately it's not a terrible game It's still not a great game though And if ABBA is not even as good as that I'm just disheartened But I don't want to bash the game having not played it And I really want to play it I still play Queen on location when I see it When I see it at shows I want to go play it I just haven't had the best experiences on it That's just me being honest So we'll see what Pinball Brothers has to bring In the future And you know Pedretti by extension I think it's hard not to conflate these two entities Now they are under the Euro Pinball Corp umbrella Or is it even an umbrella Is that just the manufacturing? Tell you what, I'll ask the Pinball Brothers when I get to talk to them, you know, to exactly what here is going on. It would be easier for me if it was all just one company. It's probably easier for everybody else, too. But we'll wait, and we'll see what happens. Well, thanks for joining me here on this road trip across the United States and Chex Notes gas stations. We'll bring back in those lo-fi beats here for the outro. We will be, we, meaning me and the people inside my head, we will be on-site at Chicago's Pinball Expo, starting on Thursday. My friends from Spooky Pinball will be there as well. Game number 13 has got to be around the corner, man. I can't wait for everybody to see that. But more to come as I hear it. I'm sure we're going to get more lead-ups in there. I'm going to stop and I'm going to record the podcast episode to compliment this one. But I'm going to put this out for you guys earlier. Thanks so much for being a Patreon member. And thanks to the two new members we got this week, man. Stick around, guys. I'll keep creating more content as it strikes into my brain and if there's anything that you guys want to see especially I've got to get caught back up on the Translight giveaways, I've got to give two away now to get caught up, we'll be doing that soon as soon as I get home, I'm working every day until Expo and then we're going to party, it's going to be so incredibly awesome, be sure to come by the Media Mixer event that will be happening in Interium, where'd my beats go that Kineticis is throwing, be sure to come by that, I'll be there if you've managed to grab a ticket. And if not, I don't know, maybe show up and just see if we can hang out. I'm sure they've got to have a public open site anyway. I'll be bouncing around, man. Just come out. If you can't get a ticket, just come out anyway. Hang out at the arcade. I'll wander over. Text me or something. All right, guys, be good, and go get yourself something off the roller grill.