Posted on 09/08/2025 4:29:39 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Step into an unassuming industrial building in Teltow, just outside Berlin, and a bright, clacking universe unfolds: around 50 pinball machines line 200 square metres, from classics like Wizard and The Addams Family to modern hits such as Game of Thrones. Welcome to Flipperhalle Berlin - proof that pinball is back in vogue.
The United States, the world's largest pinball market, has seen a dramatic revival since the mid-2000s, fuelled by the rise of arcade bars, or "barcades," that pair vintage games with food and drink.
The trend has spread far beyond the US: pinball machines now pop up in breweries, restaurants and dedicated pinball bars from Chicago to Sydney. Chicago's Logan Arcade, for example, has become a mecca for enthusiasts, with themed machines and regular tournaments.
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Ever since I was a young boy
I’ve played the silver ball
From Soho down to Brighton
I must’ve played ‘em all
But I ain’t seen nothing like him
In any amusement hall
That deaf, dumb and blind kid
Sure plays a mean pinball!
But how many “tilt” the pinball machine?
It part of the return of all things analog.
Kid engineer who works for me just showed me his dual tube monoblocks he built to go with his new turntable. Nice. All point to point bare silver rod wiring.
Sounds fantastic.
Pinball Paul, Glenn Miller Band. Better than that crap “opera” by the Who.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-e&q=Pinball+Paul%2C+Glenn+Miller+Band.#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:754eb003,vid:aLWfF8JkNJ4,st:0
I’m used to love plying pinball machines. I would still if I could find one nearby.
“Sleazy bars”? I never played ball in such places! I remember a couple of good games at the Dyn-o-Mite burned joint in Columbia, MO in 1969.
Pinball Machines were never just in bars. They were in fancy amusement parks, bowling alleys, and shared space with the video arcade game craze of the ‘80s. Heck, a high school pal had a $65 Pinball Champ machine. I was pretty good on “Harlem Globetrotters” and “Disco Fever”.
How does he do it?
My favorite pinball machine was Earth Shaker.
Burger joint. There’s that gremlin Otto Keerekt up to his old tricks.
I know a guy who restores them as a hobby, then sells them. He makes serious money.
Gen Z loves the analog stuff and has a deep sense of nostalgia. They’re going to be interesting to watch.
I’d love to have an accounting of the number of quarters I shoved into pinball machines between about 1974 and 1985. Would be a nice stack.
Sleazy bars? My brother and sister and I used to play the pinball machines at the Allied Cafeteria on the NATO base in Naples, Italy whenever we went there to eat. We spent lots of quarters doing that. Racked up a lot of free games, too.
Fond memories.
I was thinking the same thing. Sleazy? “Wow, she just hit High Score. I’m going home with that one”.
I only see one electro-mechanical machine in the pic. Too labor intensive to manufacture now; prob difficult to find parts for restoration. Electronic machines are just not as much fun.
Yeah, where did that hack get “sleazy” from?
Spent hours on end playing the pinball machine at the 7-11 in McLean, Va., with a friend on a single quarter for all the free balls and games we got by high-scoring. Silly, but good times! (It would “tilt”, but not for just the right little bump to save the ball.)
They ruined Vegas around 1970 when electronic beep beep boop boop games replaced the satisfying whirrrr-clunk of mechanical one-armed bandits.
Globetrotters was a GREAT game. Those drop-targets on the right leading up to the top hole were always the “target”. :)
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