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Arcades Across America Part 5 - Pinball Hans and The Roanoke Pinball Museum - Episode 51

JBS Show·podcast_episode·53m 48s·held·Jan 17, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Operators discuss venue scaling, business models, and pinball scene expansion across US regions.

Summary

Part 5 of 'Arcades Across America' podcast featuring Jamie Burchell (Wormhole Pinball, Houston), Coe (Quarter Drop Arcade, Oregon—opening in 11 days), Hans/Pinball Hans (California operator with 93-94 machines across 8 locations), and Nick Schell (Roanoke Pinball Museum). Discussions cover venue operations, expansion plans, business models (tokens vs. card systems), pinball scene geography, and strategies for scaling pinball venues. Nick recently filed 501(c)(3) paperwork for the museum; Hans is opening Hyper Beer Co in Anaheim with 22 pinballs; Roanoke museum expanding from 65 to ~100 machines in ~12 months.

Key Claims

  • Hans operates 93-94 pinball machines across 8 locations in Southern California

    high confidence · Hans states: 'I'm up to 93 or 94 pinball machines, I think' and describes operating at a brewery with 9 pins, mini golf with 9 games, and random breweries with 2-3 games each.

  • Quarter Drop Arcade (Coe's venue) is opening in 11 days from recording

    high confidence · Coe states: 'I'm 11 days. 11 days as of recording this. Zero hours. Close.'

  • Nick Schell conducted a solo pinball tour across the USA in 2017, covering ~30,000 miles and visiting ~60 locations

    high confidence · Nick: 'I spent all of 2017 crossing the U.S. I think 30,000 miles and visited about 60 different people, businesses, locations.'

  • Roanoke Pinball Museum is expanding from 65 machines to ~100 machines within 12 months

    high confidence · Nick: 'there are some rumblings in the board meetings about how we'll be able to get probably go from about 65 machines to about 100... I think in the next, they're saying 12 months or less.'

  • Roanoke Pinball Museum filed 501(c)(3) non-profit paperwork and is awaiting IRS approval

    high confidence · Nick: 'I'm happy to announce that we have filed a 501C3 paperwork and just waiting for IRS approval.'

  • Hans is opening Hyper Beer Co in Anaheim, California (2 miles from Disneyland) with ~22 pinballs

    high confidence · Hans: 'we are opening Hyper Beer Co here in Anaheim, California. So it is two miles from Disneyland... My layout I'm looking at right now, 22 pinballs.'

  • Nick began his pinball tour after being laid off from his IT job in November 2016

    high confidence · Nick: 'I was actually let go the day Trump got elected in 2016' and 'So basically I asked the Internet... I'll come to you wherever you are in the United States. And if you've got an EM that's not working, I'll stay with you.'

  • Roanoke Pinball Museum oldest machine is a Toopy Hollandaise from the mid-1800s (predecessor to pinball)

Notable Quotes

  • “You got to outsource it, man. Yes. Yes. You got to outsource. We outsource a lot.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ ~mid-conversation — Reflects industry best practice that operators/owners cannot serve dual roles as both venue operators and tournament directors; delegation is essential.

  • “I want to put a token machine in there because tokens cost me about a dime or less, and a quarter costs me a quarter. So I'd rather put that money to work.”

    Hans @ ~token discussion segment — Demonstrates economic reasoning behind payment system choice; shows operator's cost-control prioritization. Hans later pivots to card-tap system for new venue to save time.

  • “Building the mothership... Hyper Beer Co. It's fortunately a little bit my professional background. So I have a degree in construction management from many years ago.”

    Hans @ ~expansion plans segment — Reveals Hans's professional construction/retail development background directly applies to his arcade expansion strategy; frames the Anaheim project as a major investment.

  • “Or you can stay forever. And I go, what do you mean forever? And then I realized my dad lived two hours away in Burlington... This has been the best decision of my entire life.”

    Nick Schell @ ~Roanoke Museum origin story — Pivotal moment where Nick's pinball tour intersects with serendipity (father living nearby, museum opportunity) leading to his decision to stay in Roanoke permanently.

  • “We don't have the beer money, and we're not squeezing people for the – we don't have crane games. Those are really profitable. We don't have that because for a boutique experience, you don't want to.”

    Nick Schell @ ~museum business model discussion — Articulates the museum's intentional positioning against high-margin monetization tactics (alcohol, crane games); frames Roanoke as boutique vs. commercial arcade model.

  • “I'm hoping this year will be the year I open it up... Pinball Palace up there... that's where I'm going to keep my personal collection of mostly EM's.”

    Nick Schell @ ~B&B segment — Reveals Nick's plan to convert his house into a pinball bed-and-breakfast with ~19 machines; part of his 'three-legged table' (B&B, breweries, museum).

Entities

Jamie BurchellpersonCoepersonHanspersonNick SchellpersonTim HoodpersonQuarter Drop ArcadeorganizationWormhole Pinballorganization

Signals

  • ?

    venue_signal: Multiple major pinball venue expansions announced/in progress: Quarter Drop (new opening), Wormhole (expansion in 2025-2026 with multiple locations), Roanoke Museum (65→100 machines in ~12 months), Hyper Beer Company (2,500 sq ft new venue in Anaheim). Indicates sustained market growth and operator confidence in venue profitability.

    high · Coe: '11 days' to opening; Jamie: 'expand in 2025 and 2026'; Nick: '12 months or less' for museum expansion; Hans: Hyper Beer Company construction underway.

  • ?

    operational_signal: Payment system preferences shifting: Hans moving from tokens (cost-effective at scale) to card-tap system at new Hyper Beer venue due to time savings. Reflects operator pain point around cash/token handling at larger venues.

    high · Hans: 'tokens cost me about a dime or less... I'm going to definitely go card tap... I spend way too much time moving tokens around.'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Strong consensus that venue operators cannot effectively serve as tournament directors simultaneously. Requires delegating TD duties to separate staff/volunteers. Both Hans and Nick emphasize this as essential to operational sustainability.

    high · Hans: 'I found a guy to run it... I keep the games running'; Nick: 'I cannot do [both], I have a one of my employees is a tournament director... you've got to keep it separate or your brain will explode.'

  • ?

    business_signal: Roanoke Pinball Museum filed 501(c)(3) non-profit paperwork with IRS approval pending. Signals shift toward museum-model pinball venues with educational/charitable positioning rather than pure commercial arcade model.

    high · Nick: 'we have filed a 501C3 paperwork and just waiting for IRS approval. So we're we're trying to do what you guys have done.'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.161

0:00
Welcome to Wormhole Pinball Presents and Part 5 of our podcast series called Arcades Across America. I'm your host, Jamie Birchall at the Wormhole. And let's start off by welcoming back to the podcast all the way from Cottage Grove, Oregon, my co-host once again from the Quarter Drop Arcade. Hello, Co. How are you, Jamie? Oh, I'm doing great. New location. It's a nice guest. I know. Look at this. My background is different. I'm at the Quarter Drop Arcade. I'm very close to opening. And you're 11 days. 11 days as of recording this. Zero hours. Close. Wow. That is fantastic. I've been following your progress online like all of us have. And I love the long form YouTube video that you made recently. I thought that was fantastic. The reception to that has been amazing. And the video is an hour and 20 minutes long. And I was just thinking, I'm going to do this for the community because the people that are really diehard will want to see every nook and cranny. And sure enough, the video is doing great and people are loving it. So I couldn't be happier with it. Let's say hello to Hans, a.k.a. Pinball Hans, all the way from California. First, how are you, Hans? And were you affected by the terrible wildfires in California? I am great, Jamie, thankfully, and great to see you again, Coe, and, of course, Nick.
1:41
Yes, I wasn't directly. I'm in Orange County, so most of the fires all happened up in L.A., but a clubhouse of an old hiking club that was built in the 1800s is burned to the ground. Two of dear friends' homes are completely burned. They had nothing but their dogs and pets. So it's just horrible. I mean, if you've lived here for any length of time at all, you know someone who lost their home. So it's that widespread. So keep sending those good thoughts. And there's been a great community outreach with donations and volunteering time and all that stuff. So it's always good to see that part of it. Yeah, that's awesome. And from Roanoke, Virginia, Nick Schell from the Roanoke Pinball Museum. Hi, Nick. Welcome to the podcast, sir. Thank you, Jamie. It's always fun to do a podcast every once in a while And Where are you located? Oh, you're in Houston I'm in Houston, yeah, the Wormhole's in Houston We've got Well, I'll give you a quick little We've got about 250 machines We only have room for 23 here But we have multiple locations that we're looking to grow In 2025 and 2026 That's awesome because pinball Is not exactly easy to scale So that's pretty awesome Yeah, it's not easy to scale especially when you have a benefactor like Tim and Christine that like to buy these rare ones, and he keeps buying them and buying them and buying them.

high confidence · Nick: 'our oldest machine really is a Toopy Hollandaise... It's from the Gilded Age... This would have been the pieces from the mid, you know, 1800s, maybe. Wow. It's from France.'

  • “So the scene's great, but it's kind of fractured... You've got to drive in traffic. So to create a scene in your town, Captain's showroom's really big here in Anaheim.”

    Hans @ ~California pinball scene segment — Identifies geographical/traffic fragmentation as challenge to pinball community cohesion in Southern California; notes Captain's showroom as major pinball hub.

  • “If you have a Guitar Hero, when you open until you close, people are going to be on it, playing it.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ ~Guitar Hero discussion — Operator consensus that Guitar Hero Arcade is now highly profitable due to nostalgia; reverses earlier 2008 flop due to home saturation at that time.

    • Roanoke Pinball Museum
    organization
    Hyper Beer Coorganization
    Captain's Arcade Showroomorganization
    Asheville Pinball Museumorganization
    Strong National Museum of Playorganization
    Pinsideorganization
    IFPAorganization
    [name withheld pending review]event
    Tim Hoodperson
    Christineperson
    Trumpperson
    ?

    operational_signal: Breweries emerging as preferred pinball venue locations over bars. Operators cite better space availability, less premium rent, natural customer draw. Nick describes 'brewery plus pin formula' as superior to bar placement.

    high · Nick: 'A brewery, usually further out, usually have way more space... It's just a natural fit for pinball to be the pull.' Hans: owns machines at breweries and mini-golf, not bars.

  • $

    market_signal: Guitar Hero Arcade experiencing resurgence in arcades after 2008 failure (too expensive, market saturation). Now profitable due to age cohort nostalgia; original home players now adults without home access. Cyclical demand pattern.

    high · Hans: 'Guitar Hero Arcade came out... nobody played it... everybody had it at home... all those kids who are playing at home now are older and don't have it at home anymore so they absolutely love it.'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Southern California pinball scene described as 'fractured' despite 10 million population due to traffic/sprawl. Creates dispersed community requiring travel; Captain's Showroom identified as major hub. Suggests geographic/infrastructure factors affect community cohesion.

    high · Hans: 'The scene's great, but it's kind of fractured. So, I mean, SoCal, in the greater Southern California, we have 10 million people, right? So we're all spread out pretty good, and you've got to drive in traffic.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Roanoke Pinball Museum intentionally positioning as educational 'Strong Museum of Play' model rather than profit-maximizing arcade. Avoiding high-margin tactics (claw machines, alcohol) to maintain boutique experience and non-profit mission.

    high · Nick: 'We don't have the beer money... we don't have crane games... for a boutique experience... we need to keep it simple and just kind of like a museum... angling to be more like the Strong Museum of Play.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Hans's 25-year career in retail development (Apple, Whole Foods, Williams-Sonoma) directly applicable to arcade venue design/construction. Positions him to execute Hyper Beer Company buildout in-house vs. outsourced.

    high · Hans: 'I have a degree in construction management... in-house for Apple building retail stores worldwide, in-house for Whole Foods... retail development, leasing, work letters, permitting... what it takes to open this arcade is in the sweet spot of my profession.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Nick Schell's 2017 solo pinball tour (30,000 miles, 60 locations) documented informally on Pinside forum thread (not YouTube/video). Represents grassroots community knowledge-sharing; hosts later expressed playful suspense about which state Nick would choose (narrowed to California vs. Virginia).

    high · Nick: 'There's a big Pinside thread. I documented all of this... It's just a big pin side thread.'; Jamie references state flag suspense game.

  • ?

    venue_signal: Nick Schell planning to convert his house into pinball B&B with ~19 meticulously restored EM machines in attic. Novel venue model combining hospitality with collector access/experience.

    medium · Nick: 'I'm hoping this year will be the year I open it up... that's where I'm going to keep my personal collection... perfect EMS... anyone's a museum are, you know, give them the love, too. But, you know, but to have all that for yourself for one stay is pretty awesome.'

  • ?

    historical_signal: Roanoke Pinball Museum houses Toopy Hollandaise from mid-1800s France (pre-pinball predecessor), representing cultural/gaming lineage from billiards→bagatelle→pinball. Positions museum as historical artifact repository, not just arcade.

    high · Nick: 'our oldest machine really is a Toopy Hollandaise... from the Gilded Age... This would have been the pieces from the mid, you know, 1800s, maybe. Wow. It's from France... predecessor of a game called Skittles... parallel to the whole billiard because billiards is the granddaddy of pinball.'

    • 2:57
    Need a place to store them, just let me know. I will. All right. So, Coe, I had the best time hanging out with Hans at Expo in October, and his stories are great, so I had to book him immediately for the podcast. So since there is a bunch of us today, our goal is not only pick your brain about your establishments and get to know your establishment, but also pick your brain as the quarter drop is about to open and wormhole is about to expand. So free consulting advice to both of us. I hope you guys don't mind. Of course. No problem. All right. Let's start with Hans. How long have you been involved in pinball? When did you start operating machines, sir? Oh, geez. Okay, so involved in pinball all the way back to the teenage years and playing with the local boy and all. I think we all – well, I shouldn't say we all. A lot of us started that way. A lot of us discovered it more recently. So it's been in my blood all my life. As far as operating goes, I've been operating on and off since about 2008. I had a mall, like a food court off the food court mall arcade in upstate New York for a while and a putt-putt golf course up there. And then, you know, marriage and moved back to the West Coast and everything. And, you know, pinball became a very tiny hobby. I think at one point I got down to one machine, clinging to one machine now and back up. What was that one you were clinging to? It was strange. It was a William Shangri-La of all games. So I don't have it anymore, but that's what it got down, an old WCM with two-inch flippers.
    4:23
    But I've been operating since then and then kind of on and off. But more recently, I've ramped it back up, and I've got eight locations throughout Southern California.
    4:32
    And I'm about to open my own pinball bar, so I'm super excited about it. Can you give us a little more, like, overview of what the breakdown is as far as, like, how many pins you have and how many locations and, like, what's some of the highlights maybe of that collection? Yeah, so if you go on Pinside, EM Dude, not Pinball Hans, I never changed it, so not to be confused, but EM Dude on Pinside, I'm up to 93 or 94 pinball machines, I think. Oh, wow. And in varying years, I've got too many EMs, lots of EMs, but I've got lots of new games, as you can see behind me. And I'm operating primarily, obviously, new games. So I've got a brewery with nine pins and a beer pong game and a couple cocktail video games. Then I've got an indoor mini golf course with another nine games. And then I've got random breweries with two or three here and two or three pins there. But mostly, you know, the bulk of my what I operate is pinball. So I'm in the, you know, probably 90% pinball. Then if they, hey, give me a vending machine, can you put a, you know, an old classic arcade cabinet in here? I'll do that as well. But primarily pinball. A little bit different for the arcade we're going to build. I'll explain that when we get to it. Awesome. Yeah. Absolutely. Beer and pinball just go. It's just incredible how – Yeah, they do. My top location just crushes it. It's so fun. I run a league there. And actually, I found a TD because TD, tournament director, being a tournament director and an operator is too much. So I'm so grateful I found a guy to run it. He's got a great following. He brings the people in, and I keep the games running. You've got to outsource it, man. Yes. You got to outsource. We outsource a lot. I'm sure Nick outsources a heck of a lot at the museum. You got to get as many volunteers as you can to help you out, because being an operator and a TD, it's brutal. And then every ball, you're all over it. I just lined up two IFPA tournaments, and I'm not going to be doing the rulings or running the – I have guys come in with the local leagues. They'll be doing all that. It's a different skill set, too. It's not anything like operating. You need to really know the rules of the games. You need to play referee. You need to play dad. You need to play so many roles.
    6:37
    There's just a lot of, it's like reading another language, and you're trying to get through, you know, match play, the website, and what this means, and this type of tournament. Like I said, I'm grateful to have someone do it. I love being involved in them, but running them is not my core strength. Real quick, Hans, do you prefer coin drop, tokens, credit cards, card systems, combination of all three? What do you do? Glad you asked. So tokens are what I use mostly now, but it's based on number of locations. So if I have three games or fewer in a location, I put a quarter and a bill acceptor in each coin door. Above that, I'll do maybe a change machine, but anything around the six, eight games, I want to put a token machine in there because tokens cost me about a dime or less, and a quarter costs me a quarter. So I'd rather put that money to work. I don't care if they walk out the door because it just made 15 cents. And so I love tokens. There's no reason to break into a game that's full of tokens either because they're worthless, basically. So I love tokens, but in my new location, and I'm going to pilot it in local bar, I'm going to definitely go card tap. I'm sick of going. I spend way too much time moving tokens around the arcade. I could be rebuilding flippers or doing something much more important than that, so we're going to go card tap at the new location.
    7:46
    Breaking news, quarter drop arcade is now token drop arcade. Good for you. Nick, I'm curious about your Nick's North American pinball tour. What gave you that idea? My God, it has been. I think eight years because it started at the March of 2017, so that would have been.
    8:11
    Eight years ago, good Lord, but basically I had quite quit my enterprise I.T. job. It's like, oh, I guess I shouldn't say that. But yeah, it was I was just put out. You do the minimum necessary to not get fired. And, you know, it's just just sick. I've been doing IT for 25 years. So, you know, eventually they're like, yeah, take your severance and go. And I'm like, yay. So then I had to figure out what to do. But this was in late 2016. I was actually let go the day Trump got elected in 2016. Weird. But anyway, so be it. New things. So I basically asked the Internet. There's a big Pinside thread. I documented all of this. But this is when, you know, phones, you have Google Maps, and then we had Pinside to kind of – and I just said, I'll come to you wherever you are in the United States. And if you've got an EM that's not working, I'll stay with you. You feed me, whatever, put me up a couple hundred bucks, and I'll be on my way like Johnny Appleseed. And I spent all of 2017 crossing the U.S. I think 30,000 miles and visited about 60 different people, businesses, locations. So it wound up being just an incredible experience. I have yet to document it. But what gave me the idea was just it was literally like I had this pinball hobby that was growing while my interest in tech and certifications and all that. And it just was like, well, why don't I see if I can just monetize this and meet some people and kind of bankroll a trip across the USA. And it all just came together the right way. Did you document it like a camera wise on YouTube?
    9:54
    It's not on YouTube. I don't have a video of it. I probably should stitch one together, like maybe a 10th anniversary or something. there's a pin side thread where it's it's like i'm in you know um baines island seattle and i'm here with uh um um who's that football i mean a basketball player i forget his name wayne or warren anyway he's got like 121 games spent all his money on pinball and stuff so i took pictures of it and you know some of the mark ritchie some of those people were there and i'm like i'm playing this and this is what I fixed and this was burned up. So each page is kind of like another stop on the tour. But unfortunately, that's the only way you can read it. But I tried to make it interesting. It does have some of the fixes and some of the insights of where I was along the tour. But it's just a big pin side thread. That's awesome. How did you get involved in the Roanoke Pinball Museum? And can you talk about how the museum started? Well, okay, so it started in 2015 of June and it was by one of the existing board members of this downtown arts and cultural they have a they have like a like five-story historic building in the middle of downtown and they had like a history museum and you know a performance hall and like all these different museums in there like this pavilion and their history museum wasn't working out so one of the board members was about to get divorced if he didn't get all those pinball machines out of his living room, which I'm sure you know plenty of pinball widows out there, right? You are. Anyway, you know, but he visited the Asheville Pinball Museum and thought, maybe we could do this here. And they just kind of, he took all his games out of his house. They went and bought a bunch of stuff on Craigslist and just sort of, they didn't really have a plan, but they're like, we know we need to put a bunch of pinballs in here and just kind of, it will just happen. and that was in June of 2015 and then I didn't come around until I think it was Halloween of 2017 on one of my pinball tour legs wasn't originally scheduled to visit Roanoke but they had seen the CBS there was like a CBS news journey and they saw it and they're like we need to get this guy in here and of course I went in there and I'm like you got a lot of broken stuff I mean you're going to need I'll spend three days here, but you're going to need weeks. You know, your logo is wrong. Your pricing is wrong. You're not targeting the right audience. I took all this knowledge from all these barcades I visited across the USA. I'm like, this is just not going to work. And he said, well, you can stay a couple of weeks if you want. I go, yeah, but I got this tour thing. Or you can stay forever. And I go, what do you mean forever?
    12:46
    And then I realized my dad lived two hours away in Burlington. I like the green. It wasn't Dallas, Texas. I wanted something a little more easygoing, you know, and just thought, what the hell? This this is not like running an arcade. And, you know, I was kind of planning maybe to open my own barcade. But this is this gives me inputs to this arts and cultural center of this city. So I can do more than just pinball. I can also. Well, I mean, lots of creative business kind of stuff. So I just thought I'd take a chance on it. And it has been the best decision of my entire life. So it was just opportunity and serendipity coming together Let me interject one thing Nick was looking all around the country kept us all in suspense during this period He took state flags of all the states he might move to and he narrowed it down state by state to the final two. I think the final two were California and Virginia. I'm like, come on, California, come up with that. Yeah, right?
    13:44
    That's right. You've got to make it fun, right? So, yeah, I kind of was like, but it's going to be, some people guessed it right, But California would have been fun, too. My brother lives there, you know, but ultimately, yeah, it's it's Virginia.
    13:59
    Yeah. So that was that was March of 2018 when I came here and I'm coming up on my I guess it would be seventh anniversary here already. And it has is flown by. I mean, you know, whole world's different now anyway from before COVID and everything. So just crazy. I'm you know, I said before, I'm happy to announce that we have filed a 501C3 paperwork and just waiting for IRS approval. So we're we're trying to do what you guys have done. And a lot of the other museums are doing across the United States. So we're real excited here. So congratulations on your success. That's fantastic. Yeah, it's it's going to be I mean, I got lots of it. You know, there's there's. But, yeah, there's a lot we'll discuss. Yeah. Weather strategies, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, yeah, congratulations on that. That's definitely your first big step. Thank you. And, Nick, can you give us a little breakdown of your lineup, what it looks like? Is it mostly older, modern, all of it? You know, what's the kind of breakdown look like? You know, well, and I have some interesting news that's coming up about the museum. But, you know, because we're a museum kind of in name only. It's kind of like, you know, I want there to be exhibits that you can press a button and you see a pinball fly and there's an accelerometer and it shows the mass. And it's like a kind of half science museum and half pinball, you know, and gets more into the true educational STEM part of it. Right. Just kind of like, well, they're pinball and they're neat and look at them and I'll open them up. Like I want to show to a level that's never been done before. and that's just around the corner. But we have a lineup of, well, we have a, our oldest machine really is a Toopy Hollandaise. You've probably seen these things maybe on YouTube. You know what I'm talking about? It's a. I don't know. It's from the Gilded Age, and it's basically a table that's kind of a predecessor of a game called Skittles, Maybe you've heard of it or Beyblades. You know, you pull a string and this little spinner top flies around in these brass curves with these little figurines and so forth. And you try and knock down these little pins that are kind of hidden all in there and you can tilt the table. So it's a it's a predecessor pinball that's like maybe parallel to the whole billiard because billiards is the granddaddy of pinball. You know, it became bagatelle and then it became shrunk down and they put a spring in there and all that. But this is parallel to that. It's also a thing flying around, knocking things and kind of tilting the table. So that's probably the closest experience to pinball today that you could have. And this would have been the pieces from the mid, you know, 1800s, maybe. Wow. It's from France. I mean, Napoleon could have played it. This is it's something that really, really, really well to do. people you know people like us wouldn't even have known this thing existed you know but um really fabulous to have that's kind of the beginning and then we move on to you know i got a humpty dumpty 1947 the beginning of uh flippers got a couple of pre-wars next to it to kind of show the quaint kind of humble beginnings of pinball but then we've got ems from you know 60s 70s then we get into the 80s bally's wide bodies and we got your 90s and your alphanumeric space shuttle dmd and finally sterns and then we just got our first jersey jack elton john so we want to represent the whole kind of period you know of pinball uh the museum is daily fee right do you like that model that's the only way to go yeah i don't want to deal with like swiping or correct no come on in pay one price pay you know it's like all day come yeah i mean You could squeeze people for, you know, Dave and Buster's is really good at monetizing the kiddie casino that it is. You know, you can spend 50 bucks, 100 bucks in an hour. It goes like that. I mean, yeah, but if you're trying to create a museum that can stand the test of time, I have a little different situation. You know, I'm not selling alcohol. You know, I'm not a barcade. It is a museum. It's a boutique experience in a historic building in the middle of downtown. So it really is angling to be more like the Strong Museum of Play, like up in Rochester, as a boutique experience.
    18:30
    So we need to keep it simple and just kind of like a museum. You just walk in and you do whatever you want to do. Sure. Do you have any expansion plans?
    18:39
    Yes, we do. Well, let's talk about it because I want to talk about Han's expansion as well. So that's. Well, it's not official yet, but there are some there is some rumblings in the board meetings about how we'll be able to get probably go from about 65 machines to about 100. And that will allow us also room for, you know, extra bathroom, a bar area, some exhibits, kind of a welcoming area. So it's going to profoundly transform the business and it will feel much more of a complete museum that we say we are rather than kind of an arcade, if that makes sense. Do you have a time frame on this or is there? I think in the next, they're saying 12 months or less right around in that time period. So I'm doing all I can to prepare for. That's a lot of work. yeah because there's and there's other things you're doing you got raffles as a non-profit you can do raffles we just started doing that that's already we've already blown out like 15 of our ticket availability in the first like five days so we'll be doing that pretty soon and the rules are different in each state but in virginia it's it's permissive as long as you don't sell too many i think it's 40 000 you can gross within a 12 month period and you're kind of You don't have to deal with permits and stuff like that. It's a little different for every state. Fundraising is a challenge no matter where you are.
    20:15
    We've got to do everything we can because, again, we don't have the beer money, and we're not squeezing people for the – we don't have crane games. Those are really profitable. We don't have that because for a boutique experience, you don't want to – it's different. It's just a different business. Those cranes are like ATMs. They're just ATM machines. it's crazy it's so funny you you put something that people wouldn't buy for 50 cents on a table from like goodwill whatever put a bunch of stuffed animals and be like i don't want that you know but you just put it behind a piece of glass and and it just changes their psychology like well you're not gonna tell me i can't have anything i want i'm gonna put the dog i won't get that that's mine i live in a world where i get what i want it's like this weird there's a demand for them too I wasn't even really planning to have claw machines at the quarter drop but that's like one of the most common questions I get is will I have claw machines so I have three of them now because everyone wants them I know I mean maybe we should I mean if I could get one that is like the old digger machines with the little wheel and it looks classic and it's like a little steam shovel it comes up maybe I will do that There you go. You know, nothing with RGB neon.
    21:36
    Hans, talk about your expansion plans. This is now a good time to. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, let's hear about it. The operating in that is just to kind of get, you know, things rolling and test the market, really. But, unfortunately, my number one brewery location, he has a type of license that he can repeat his license in California to other locations. So he and I hit it off pretty fast. We have a great situation going. We are opening Hyper Beer Company here in Anaheim, California. So it is two miles from Disneyland. It's funny because Nick and I talked. Nick's been in the business longer than I have doing, you know, actually operating a museum and being involved in it. So I always appreciate his opinion. So he and I talked a while back. And, Nick, as much as you don't sell beer, you said, Hans, you need to get those at breweries, and that's the best thing. Breweries are great. But then I said, I want to do something more. And really, Nick, you and I talked and we kind of tossed it around. And I think together we agreed either do breweries and just be an operator or build the mothership. And so I got the operator. We're building the fucking mothership. So the mother is Hyper Beer Company. It's fortunately a little bit my professional background. So I have a degree in construction management from many years ago. But I've been an owner's rep in retail for the last 20 years of my 25 years or something in my career. So I work in-house for Apple building retail stores worldwide, in-house for Whole Foods, Williams-Sonoma. So retail development, leasing, work letters, permitting, conditional use, all that, that's right in my day job. So what it takes to open this arcade is in the sweet spot of my profession anyway. And so in Anaheim, we've had to do it all. It isn't just, oh, I'm just going to hire my friend Joda to build this out. So it's in a high-foot traffic area. It's about 2,500 square feet, class A retail. And what that means in the retail world is like an office building, a real nice retail, not a crummy strip mall with, you know, weird neighbors. And so this is a really nice ground floor retail space. Four floors of residential above and just hundreds or thousands of residential condos and rentals all around us. It's a historic area of Anaheim called the Packing District. There's an old, huge packing house where they used to pack all the lemons and oranges and citrus out of Anaheim to ship them all over the country. They've converted that into 30 restaurants and bars, and we're one block from there. Awesome.
    23:57
    So we're going to do a mix. I love pinball, so it's going to be more than half pinball. We've got about 22. My layout I'm looking at right now, 22 pinballs. I'm going to put three lanes of skee-ball in there. I love skee-ball. People, it's so approachable. I even want to do a skee-ball league at some point. Oh, that's awesome. My wife loves skee-ball. Because anybody can play us. So compared to pinball, especially today's pinball, everybody. My fiancé loves Ski ball but It's kind of iffy on the new pinball machine So a couple basketball Shooters and then A guitar hero, gotta have a guitar hero Got to And I just found Do you have the guitar hero? I bought a beat Project one and I got But it works so it's a good start It needs to be cleaned up They're hard to find So a quick aside So let me tell you a funny thing about Guitar Hero. So I told you I've been operating since 08, right? So in 08, Guitar Hero Arcade came out. It was the biggest thing in my distributor. You've got to buy one. And a friend of mine bought three. I bought one. It was like 10 grand back then. It was a lot of money. And by far the most expensive game. Because pins back then, my Shrek was my first new in-box turn. It was like $3,500 maybe. Not even that probably. They were around $3,000, somewhere in there. But that thing cost 10 grand. And I sent it in there. I was so excited. I put it right by the food court. everybody the high foot traffic area nobody played it oh man didn't earn shit people sold them the reason is everybody had it at home yeah so we thought bragging rights and all that nonsense bragging rights are online so total flop that game was so it kills me now to pay half that for a piece of shit project one nothing good from the shit and the reason it's so popular now is because all those kids who are playing at home now are older and don't have it at home anymore so they absolutely love it. So, you know, I guess it's a full circle and a happy ending. We'll see how it earns.
    25:51
    Yeah, I've heard from a lot of operators say, if you have a Guitar Hero, when you open until you close, people are going to be on it, playing it. It's going to be right across from the Dance Dance Revolution I'm trading for, too. Yeah. Well, I know you have a big pinball scene in Anaheim, but what about in Roanoke? What's that look like? Well, we are the pinball capital of Virginia now. Thank you very much. Okay. There you go.
    26:16
    I'll have to expand a little bit. Yeah, the museum has about 65 machines. We're going to go to 100 soon-ish. There are four breweries on my way to work, which is, again, small town, all of five minutes. So every one of them, I'm like, hey, you might want to have entertainment for your friend. So I personally have, we have pins and we used to have it in four, but one of them changed their floor plan. So a friend of mine who actually a friend of mine and one of my employees a part tech he has about seven at one of these breweries And at the other two I got four at one location and then three at the other with the fourth being another friend of mine So that's about seven machines I personally have on location on the way. But I'm basically blanketing the downtown area with, you know, the brewery plus pin formula. It's so much better because, you know, bars, they're kind of the middleman. So space is at a premium. They rent places that are close to population density, don't have a lot of floor space, that buy their merchandise. So it's much more difficult to get games in a bar because they're kind of in that middleman space. But a brewery, usually further out, usually have way more space and they need something cool to bring people in. So it's just a natural fit for pinball to be the pull. You drive a little further, you get to do something more fun. so I've got seven machines on locations in there I've got 65 at the museum my house I'm about to turn it into a pinball B&B I'm hoping this year will be the year I open it up that's where I'm going to keep my personal collection of mostly EM's some very very early solid states with chimes but I'll have about 19 machines in the attic that you I've totally retrofitted you walk up and it's like pinball palace up there and that's kind of the purpose Fantastic. Yeah. And they're going to be my cherry meticulously rebuilt, clear coated airbrushed, you know, perfect EMS. So anyone's a museum are, you know, give them the love, too. But, you know, but to have all that for yourself for one stay is pretty awesome. So between that, that's the three legged table, B&B, breweries, pinball, I guess, all together, that would be like 100. it's soon to be a soon to be 130 or whatever but yeah that puts us as the as the number one destination within about 250 miles in any direction to have this many pins under one roof fantastic do you have leagues there oh yeah and what you were saying earlier about don't be an operator in a league it's true like i cannot do i have a one of my employees is a tournament director he does the advertising runs match play does all that getting the payments that you need you know from people to get participate there's just so much to it it just you've got to keep it separate or your brain will explode it's just too much it is a lot uh same question hans how i've had a lot of californians on this podcast already we're only on the fifth one but uh how's the pinball scene in california it's fantastic in fact in two weeks we've got indisc out here happening right yeah i know oh so i'll be um i'll be volunteering as a tech out there um and probably a scorekeeper as well i'll play a couple cards i suck at pinball so i don't Do you have any high hopes? Throw a couple of cards out there. It's just fun to get out there, and I know friends will be there from across the country. So the scene's great, but it's kind of fractured. So, I mean, SoCal, in the greater Southern California, we have 10 million people, right? So we're all spread out pretty good, and you've got to drive in traffic. So to create a scene in your town, Captain's showroom's really big here in Anaheim, right? But it's a, you know, there's no food or drink. It's just pure pinball, incredible pinball, tons of games. But that brings a lot of people to town, which is actually good because I'm, you know, we're going to be a pinball bar. We're going to be open from noon till midnight, basically seven days a week. So we want to capture that scene. In fact, I don't know if now's the time or not, but trying to get through this. So this is this is advice for people wanting to open an arcade bar and thinking it's easy to I want, you know, hopefully there'll be some education in this. But to be able to open, we had to have a meeting with the planning commission. First, you have to lease the space. So find the space you want to lease and then negotiate that lease and get into those details a little bit, what to look out for, what to do and not to do. And then make sure the city allows your use, right? You can lease a space, commercial space, but if the city says you can't use it that way, you're out of luck. So we met with the city and the city said, hey, we want to activate that street more. There's already restaurants. We love your use, but you have to do a conditional use permit. We can't let you open just like this, which was a $10,000 deposit to get that, plus a lengthy process, a public hearing. The letters went out to thousands of neighbors, right, and the public could speak against it or for it, all that process. But we met with the city. The planning commission gave us an initial meeting. And in that meeting, which was really encouraging, they said, hey, we love the use. We want to activate this. We need a pinball bar. It's cool. So as soon as I heard that, I said, okay, we got the city behind us. Now, granted, we might not be successful in getting this, but at least they want it, right? If they didn't want it, it would be an uphill battle all the way. So that was a huge step in the right direction. So getting the city, you know, behind us was huge. And I'm happy to report we had our hearing early December. Not a single person from the community showed up against, and the Planning Commission of Anaheim voted seven votes to zero in favor of approving our unconditionally used permits. So we are – Amazing. Congrats. That's huge. I remember talking to Hans about this when he visited the quarter drop. And it's interesting because it's the opposite, you know, in a small town and where I'm at in Cottage Grove. It's like there's no permits or anything. I went to the city. I'm like, is there anything I need to be aware of? Permits? They're like, no, just open up.
    32:09
    There was like nothing to it. But I guess what I want to share is don't be intimidated. If you're in, there's a reason there's restrictions in a large area, but our foot traffic is going to be insane, right? I fully intend to advertise in the hundreds of motels that are around Disneyland about pinball bar nearby, you know. So, you know, millions and millions of tourists come here. So, of course, it's harder, but I think our upside is really big as well, right? So to me it's worth the pain. Granted, I've got experience in this in a profession.
    32:41
    But, Jamie, let me just read through just some highlights on lease things to look out for. Please. This is fantastic. I love it. anybody so and and what you to do a commercial lease you do is what you call a letter of intent so first of all i called the broker the phone number on the thing you know week goes by or something he finally calls me back and they're like you're a tire kicker who are you plus is it as a sole proprietor you've got no there's you know they might want a starbucks in there or something like that so you're competing against the big boys if they're after and this is chat bacon for a while so i i knew you know there's a good chance of the cooling was he was good he said hey instead of this space that's already going to be this i get another one over here and He showed me the space we ended up at, which ended up being much better for our use. So he was helpful in that. And then he drafts up what they call an LOI, letter of intent. And that's just to negotiate the major terms of the lease before you get into the big, fat, you know, 90-page document. So when you get the big chunks out of the way, then it's more likely the negotiation is going to go well. And that's where you really get your things down. So just a few highlights on that. I had to be a guarantor. Since I'm not a corporation, I have to sign on the dotted line. My assets are on the line here because they have to be. They're not going to, you know, they want to make sure someone guarantees a lease. Along those lines, though, I negotiated where it isn't the length of the lease, right? It's only for a portion. So if we pay our bills and do really well for a certain number of years, then it goes into a two-year rolling guarantee, right? So technically, I wouldn't be on the hook for the entire, you know, decade or more long lease. I'd only be less. So things like that are helpful. The term options. So what if your business is super successful? You got a term of five years and I'll send your terms up and you have a great business and they triple the rent. So we have a fixed term for a period of time and we have options. So at the end of the initial term, we can just sign the dotted line another five years. And after that sign another five years. So for a long period of time, you know, anticipating success,
    34:35
    uh, contingencies, one of the, the CUP was one of them. So if the city said no and denied us, we'd be, we'd be out. We wouldn't have to, we wouldn't be on the hook. Right. tenant improvement allowance i'm getting money back from the landlord to do work so i'm getting 50 grand back from the landlord to actually do our build out so drywall flooring all that stuff i get i get money back for that's a really big one and then renovatement getting some free rent is nice if you can get it and then being able to sublet is a huge one or sign the lease so let's just say everything goes bad nobody wants pinball and I'm out of a book, I can sublet to a Mexican restaurant or something. I have the ability to sublet the space. So anyway, those are some highlights, really important stuff. Don't just sign in the dotted line of the landlord. Negotiate. Every lease is negotiable.
    35:25
    Great. Very valuable information for anyone looking to do what you're doing. Yeah, but don't be afraid. I mean, just go eyes wide open. But you don't want to do it thinking it's easy. But on the other hand, if it's your dream and you've got good partners and you know how to turn a screwdriver and tech and machines, which Nick will sure agree that's the most important thing. And you too as well. Yeah, let's talk about tech and let's talk about tech. And I assume Hans fighting game from 1990. No. Yeah, that's your game.
    35:57
    T.K.K. Oh, OK. Let's talk about Hans. Do you do all the tech work yourself? I do. Yep. And I'm going to find, so what I'm doing is I'm doing a war chest of games that right now, before we open, I'm fixing, getting bulletproofing games. So I've got huge redundancy. So 20 games will be in the Hyper Beer Company, right? But I've got another 15 or 20 that are perfect. So if something's really problematic and I can't fix it quickly, I'm just going to swap games. Well, you know when you move something, something breaks, right? Of course. The rule of pinball, right? Yep. So that's one thing I'm doing to kind of bolster. and then I'm going to start find someone to train at least to do, you know, cleanings and basic repairs and that sort of thing. And then I've already got a board guy who wants to help me out who can repair boards and things. So people are starting to come into the fold. But, yeah, you're looking at them. I'm the primary tech.
    36:47
    Nick, how do you hire all these techs? How do you maintain all these machines? So it's – Because it takes a village when you have 100. It does. Well, actually, having more means less work, ironically, because you will have the wear and tear spread out over more machines rather than filling your space to capacity, blasting them all down and then emptying them out, fixing them and then filling it back up again. you see you have more so it's actually better to have more um but uh i you know 65 is too much for one person to maintain with a free play model because free play games get played like yeah way more than pay to play yeah you know my games that have been on location they've been on location now for over two years i think i've replaced one flipper band that's it you know pretty much but the stuff at the museum it is like you gotta clean them all right gotta tighten them down all right got to fix this got to name the new plastic and it's like um but i have two part-time techs um and it's mostly me you know and then and no one else can do ems i'm really the em person because you know but then um it's its own thing kind of and then um i luckily there is a group of volunteers who are also collectors and they were already coming to the museum in the early days to help them dig out of their disaster, you know, that was happening. And I've just given them, I'm like, whatever you want, I'll give you, you're like, we'll go out every time we get together, I take them out to eat. If I sell a game, I give them the first right to buy it. You know, I just treat them like gold because one of them is a board tech and the other one can like do play field restoration and, and swap play fields and stuff like that. So they've done things like, yeah, swap play fields for me, rebuild, recap, boards, do board work, header pin, all that kind of stuff. I see them about once a month. Between the occasional, I call them the alpha squadron. Between these guys, there's about four guys we get together. My two part-time guys, one's mostly tournament work but can do cleaning and adjusting and some flipper repair and basic stuff. The other's a little more technical. Then me kind of showing up like a ghost. I'll be in it like sometimes two in the morning if I can't sleep, I'll go fix some pins. But this is all about throwing time at machines. And it just seems like for 65 machines,
    39:21
    one full-time, two part-time and some occasional help from the community can really keep this wide array of machines going. Whereas what Hans is doing, you're probably not routing any like old WPCs, are you? No, mostly new stuff. And if you will, I got a haunted house on location that's actually holding up extremely well. People love it, and I can't believe how well it's holding up. Nice, nice. But, yeah, you'll be able to do that. You can do that by yourself. You could. And having someone stand by if you have some catastrophic node board failure or whatever to swap in, you're just in a great position to handle that for sure. I consistently hear from arcade owners that say their number one challenge is, like, finding technicians that are qualified to work on these machines. And do you guys have that experience? Like, is it really difficult to keep a good tech around?
    40:15
    Nick? I don't. The same Jason who is he was there just he got hired like a few months before I did And so I've been working with him a lot and just teach him everything, whatever I know. And then Benjamin, he moved from upstate New York. And it's funny, he wasn't he was just he had a few pinball machines at home, but his wife is kind of the breadwinner and does a lot of the. she's like a nurse and a practitioner and all that and roanoke is its main industry is health care you know we have a giant for the region made like a gigantic hospital health care system and they were tired of the cold came by and was like there's a bunch of hospitals here maybe i could get a job here and then ben walks in and sees the pinball museum is like right this is pretty cool i'm like well you know if you decide to move here and you know i'll get you a gig I mean, they talked and it's like, I think we'll do that. So now he's part of the team and they've both been on. But I make sure that, you know, as much as I invest in my machines, I also invest in people because, you know, this is a small town. It's going to be easier for Hans to find qualified people than me. So I want to make sure that everyone is having a good time and happy and keeping things going. Our tech here, we have our lead tech, gets more juice, if you will, about fixing the machine than he does playing. And he just geeks, and he's geeking and geeking on these really rare ones, which is kind of like, as Co said earlier, our secret sauce here at the Wormhole, right? And so we're doing tech days. He's constantly recruiting new technicians because with 250 machines, we've got a lot of work.
    42:10
    Oh, yeah. Yeah, we've got a lot of work. All right. Am I missing anything before we play our wrap-up game called the Hurry Up? Am I missing anything that you guys wanted to talk about? Well, let's see. Hans is going to be selling beer and anything else, cocktails, or is it just – Yeah, thanks for mentioning that, Nick. So, yeah, it's the brewery. We're going to have our own beer there. So it's being brewed off-site at a different brewery, which I have games at. But it's all going to be, you know, recipes just to this location on, on, and off-sale beer. So people can buy in cans. We're going to do pinball-themed can labels, which will be really cool. Oh, that's going to be fun. All that, our logo, which I'll share with you, Jamie, so you can put it in the notes or whatever. Totally. I'll send it to you. But, yeah, so beer on-site, no cocktails. um food not day one we definitely want to add food uh at some point in the future but there's a lot of restaurants around we'll definitely allow food to come in the door and then one interesting thing that i forgot to mention during the the city meeting we had which had the building department the planning commission all these people and the police were there as well so the police have a lot to say so where alcohol served and how it served that sort of thing and one of their concerns was underage drinking which is their normal concern at a place because they view games pinball games as kids you know yeah nice of course and we will have a crane game or two um is um they said well what about that late hour so we actually um agreed to um do over 21 so um weeknights were over 21 from 8 to midnight and then or 8 to 11 and then weekends will be over 21 from 9 to midnight um and we didn't push back on that too much because i don't want a kiddie place i want a fucking bar that's what we're building so it's kids are welcome during the day but this thing's at night. I want Pulp Fiction turned up on the adult full blast playing, saying all the movie lines and all that shit. There you go. So at night, this place is a bar. We're proud of it. We're excited about that. It's going to definitely be themed to the grown-up crowd. Awesome. John Spates and Taylor Buckley are two. Well, John's one of the Wormhole Five, and he's on the board of directors, but he's an operator. I don't know if you've met him, Hans, but he was walking around Expo with me, and breweries are his secret sauce. Yeah. You know, in fact, his brewery that he goes, that we have 13, he has 13 pens and they're moving to 17. So little by little, he's got a league there tomorrow night and just doing a great job. Those breweries are just fantastic. You're right, because they got the space, right? And they need to bring in people. And we have gotten such growth from all these different locations. It used to be just two or three places in Houston. Now our calendar is full, and it's just amazing. We had 65 people come to the wormhole on a 4X on last Saturday. So it's insane, the growth of pinball, and I'm absolutely loving it. So all right, boys, we're going to play the hurry up. This is our rapid fire game. Coe's going to play. All right. Are you ready? Hans. Yes. Most played highest earning machine you currently have on location. Oh, good one.
    45:24
    It's between Godzilla and Scooby-Doo. Really? I would have lost money on Scooby. It's doing good. Nick, give me your Holy Grail pinball machine to add to the museum. That I want to add? Yes, sir. I mean, and that I can or that I would just want to? I mean, so, okay, I'll tell you one thing. this is one we're getting. Have you heard of a game called Critical Mass?
    45:56
    No. Gottlieb developed Critical Mass at the same time as Black Hole. He was going to choose one or the other. They built one Critical Mass white wood as this lower area with pinballs flying around like a reactor and all this stuff. Then it got thrown into a barn and completely disassembled and the ROMs were all... Anyway, there was a guy, Eric, who restored it with the approval of Robert Feistian. He's the keeper of the Gottlieb trademarks and LLCs, all that stuff. Anyway, not LLCs, but the trademarks of the brand. And gave his blessing to recreate and bring Critical Mass back to life. So it's now clear-coated, whitewood. Artwork has been created for it. The ROM has been restored and everything has been put together. And I played this at Allentown, or no, the York show this past October. And it just so happens they've been looking for a nonprofit museum that they want to give it to, to carry it on. And we will be getting that. Congratulations. One of one. One of one in the world. Those are fantastic. I guess Critical Mass would be it. I went to Stern Pinball last week, ladies and gentlemen. I was very honored to be invited to go check out their new Dungeons & Dragons with a bunch of content creators. So each of you, give me your first impression. Is this a hit? Ko, Dungeons & Dragons. Yes, I think so. The animatronic dragon, incredible. Looks amazing. Artwork is awesome.
    47:36
    And I think it's a good, strong theme. Hans, what do you think about Dungeons & Dragons? Absolutely. Yeah, I wasn't crazy about the theme, but after seeing gameplay and finally a really good Mac in it, I'm almost getting convinced to buy a premium, too. The Pro looks great, too. The premium's pretty B.A. I'm not going to lie to you. It spits out those balls from his mouth, and the dungeon comes up. It's pretty cool. So I'd say yes, it's a hit. Nick, what do you think? I'm trying to buy one right now. I haven't even seen it. I mean, I haven't played it, but I haven't seen it in person. I've only seen a few little videos of it. But what they're doing is gamifying pinball because apparently you create a character, you come back and continue and you can level up and stuff. This is something that's happening across our entire culture, the gamification of everything from your Starbucks points to your. And I'm actually doing this with the museum. I'm creating LED displays with your high score and you can earn certain things. And so so this is this is moving with the trend. I think it's going to be really hot and I can't wait to put it on location. It'll be a pro, though, because the moving parts and the wear and tear, you know, that. Yeah, I think the pro is going to do very well. Eureka Heights is getting a pro. The pro is going to do really well. It's six balls. Still awesome. Yes. Awesome. Nick, you can only visit one of the locations again on your North American tour. Where are you going back? Of the whole of America? Your North American tour. And you decided you booked a flight, but you can only go to one of those locations. Let's upset some people. Boy, that's really hard. There's just so much diversity. Nick's doing really well with the hurry up. Yeah, I know. I can't. Real quick. I mean, it would probably, I mean, just off the cuff, I think Pacific Northwest because I enjoyed my time there so much. And that was the choice where I was going to move before I picked Roanoke, which is kind of the Pacific Northwest of the mid-Atlantic because it's also very green, very nice seasons and, you know, all that kind of stuff. But, yeah, I just need to spend more time. I've got to go see – Coe, I've got to see you up in Quarter Drop. And also I've got to visit Next Level, you know.
    49:44
    That's a great place. Yeah, I guess maybe another trip up there. All right, Coe, give me the arcade, museum, or establishment that you'd really like to visit when you aren't so busy with the Quarter Drop in 2025. Well, Wormhole, obviously.
    49:59
    I can't wait. Yeah, we've got to get you here. that's just you have to stay we're going to get you here same question to you hans where are you going uh the one i've been to before i've not been to before yeah to you well i'm from the bay area originally so i got to give it to mike sheese and um the um um pacific pinball museum and over the bridge to san francisco to um free gold watch as well so both of your former guests love yeah they're great locations so in the flipper room in concord as well so lots lots to do in the Bay Area. You can only buy one of these rumored pins in 2025. Which one are you buying? King Kong, Harry Potter, or Pokemon for the quarter drop?
    50:42
    Harry Potter and Pokemon, theme-wise, don't do anything for me. King Kong. Hopefully Keith Owen. Hans, what are you making money off of in 2025? Which one of those machines?
    50:54
    Pokemon, for sure. I think real quick, if they do with Pokemon what they're doing with Dungeons and Dragons with the leveling up forget about it if I'm buying it as an operator Pokemon would be my answer or probably Harry Potter both of those would be great but just like personally those don't do anything for me what do you think Nick which one of those titles would you like to see Pokemon makes sense but for the kind of museum that I've got and I try to concentrate on like franchises that have a lot of cultural pull it's Harry Potter just gotta be well I almost called you ladies and gentlemen thank you so much this is a great fifth edition of the podcast we call arcades across America Nick thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us about the museum and all the great things you're doing please visit roanokepinball.org for more information and hours of operation anything you want to plug as well hey buy a raffle ticket where our odds are 1 in 665 we pay the tax and we'll ship it to you as long as you're in the continental usa so 20 bucks a ticket buy 10 get one free not a bad way how do you beat that hans thank you as well i had a great time uh chatting with you at expo and and always chatting with you here that's fantastic anything you'd like to plug sir yeah so it's hyper beer co so hyperbeerco.com it is hyperbeerco on facebook and instagram and all that it is very young the socials i gotta warn you we're just getting started um the the holy grail there is Ko, this incredible social media presence on Instagram and elsewhere. He's the best. The bar is set high, but look for some fun videos. I've been kind of inspired by Ko and his work on that. So anyway, Hyper Beer Ko in Anaheim, California. Congrats. Ko, where can people follow you and your progress on the quarter drop? 11 days left on this Tuesday.
    52:48
    Oh, it's amazing. Quarter drop arcade, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Opening day, January 25th. I can't wait. Very exciting. And of course, you can find all the information on warmhopinball.com or warmhopinball on all the socials. We're trying to keep up with code, right? I mean, we're trying.
    53:06
    We're trying. Before I sign out, I want to ask our audience if anyone is seen for sale or if anyone is interested in selling any pinball machines by a French company called Raleigh Play Company. They make games from 61 to 69, and we want one pretty badly.
    53:23
    So be on the lookout, ladies and gentlemen, for one of those. And email us at wormholepinball at gmail.com. Everyone, thank you so much this evening. I really appreciate it. This was a blast. For Wormhole Pinball and Arcades Across America, I'm Jamie Birchall. Please visit your local arcades. They're owned and run by great people like Coe, Hans, and Nick. Thank you.