As DaveH and others have said, a trip to play pinball is as much about the trip, the people, the lunch and the overall experience as it is actually playing! This past Saturday I ventured to Pittsburgh, PA (about 75 minutes from my house) to hit Kickback Cafe in Lawrenceville, have dinner and then (supposedly) to go over to the Bradish Street Pinball Parlor afterward. Well, Ol' Scotty here forgot about it being St. Patrick's Day! The places around Lawrenceville were NUTS!
I did get in about an hour and half of playing time there, ate at a great Indian buffet in GreenTree (Tamarind) and then headed of to see Chris at Bradish Street, which is in the South Side/Carson Street area of Pittsburgh. I should have realized if Lawrenceville was like IT was, this was going to be like driving in to a war zone!!! And it was! Called Chris to make sure he was going to be open and he said he was not. Hmmm. That shoots down the second half of my Pittsburgh Pinball Excursion.
So, I just decide to drive back down I-79 to home...thinking I'll hit a couple of single machine places I knew of but had never been to on the way back. First place was a bowling alley in Washington, PA that had a broken Ripley's. At this point I told myself, "just take the old road back home and enjoy the evening drive"...which I did.
When I got to Waynesburg, PA I decided to get back on I-79, but as I drove through the town I saw a sign on a building that made me laugh out loud! Over to the right of the road in a smallish shopping center was a business called "Norge Village". I instantly remembered the old "Saturday Night Live" skits featuring Dan Akroyd as the Norge repair man. Anyway, in the midst of my laughter I noticed that they had a pinball machine in the very front of the laundromat up against the window!!! I immediately pulled in a played a 20-25 minute game of Pirates Of The Caribbean, so the trip was not completely a disaster after dinner...just something other than what was expected!
My point? ALWAYS make the trip. You'll never know what you might find!!!