Eighty-Two just opened there and the one in LA has an excellent pinball selection. Here's Houston's list:
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In 2012 my wife and I moved from Boston to Nashua, NH largely to be a town over from The Pinball Wizard Arcade, which had about 120 pins. So by my standards, you're not crazy at all.

My how times have changed.....

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There is a vibrant pinball community in Houston. Covid has played into severely limiting public tournaments and so-forth. There are locations that allow BYOB and outside food to be freely brought in, as long as you just pay your normal entry fee.

Are there better / more numerous locations in other metro areas? Certainly. However, it is inaccurate to say Houston only has one location for pinball/ food/ beer. Just starting with Einstein's, they have places in both Katy and Richmond. The Game Preserve has locations in The Woodlands and Webster. There are other isolated pockets of machines throughout the city.

Space City Pinball League is a great group of players. Before CV-19, home tournaments were common. Tournaments were held monthly and weekly at some of the locations listed above. We regularly had the most regular events in Texas. I moved from Houston in APR of 2019, I miss the people of SCPL all of the time. I would argue the range of ages/ backgrounds/ diversity of members/ competition in Space City can hang with anyone.

There are nicer venues around the country, for sure. Almost everybody has been negatively impacted by Cv-19 across tournament play. I feel from your limited info in the OP, you might have only scratched the surface on what is available in H-town. There are definitely more than just one option.

#1, no you are not crazy. We all are.

Out of curiosity I grabbed the top 10 populated cities in the US, punched them into www.pinballmap.com and noted # of locations and # of machines for each.

While there are certainly other hot spots for pinball (i.e. Seattle), Houston stacks up pretty well with the rest of the top 10 populated citites. No city #5-#10 in population has more games than Houston.

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welcome back Mr kotter . oh oh oh !

Then google the city with the most barcades and move on. Good luck!

Stl, Minneapolis, and Portland aren't on the list, but all have many good locations.

Come to nashville. This is 1 location- music city pinball game terminal. 300 games - 2 bars

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Coincidentally, my Dad & I drove to New York City in 1975, When we crossed the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge into Brooklyn, we saw the sign.....

Cool looking place .Now if I can just talk my wife into stopping there on the way to Orlando in March .

place is unreal. nicest arcade I have ever been to. Stern and JJP have both been to town to see it and they all agree nicest arcade ever. it is almost like going to TPF without the vendors but every game plays perfect. I could not find one machine that did not work 100%.

Holy crap! When did that open?

Looks like a weekend getaway is my near future.

this is the amazing part, he got it all completed and open during the pandemic. They had their grand opening about a month ago. He also has a huge outdoor area with tables, another bar, cornhole boards and more. He has plans on adding lots more outdoor stuff like swimming pools. The kids and ladies can hang outside while the guys play pinball and stuff. I think he is trying to pull in some of the Nashville bachelorette party crowd with the outdoor stuff.

I just checked out their website, looks pretty amazing, even an on site pinball sales room, could be dangerous after a few cocktails.

Looks incredible, could it be a new major tournament location with PAPA/Pinburgh going away?

uhhh... https://www.pinballmap.com/houston

Nashville is getting flooded man. Amazon just dumped 3 billion into the area for housing because so many people are moving here.

pretty easy to tell how many games a location has. pretty sure all of them serve food and drinks or allow you to bring your own.

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If you base where you want to live on how many pinball machines there are there, you need to get a life.

Is put it close #3 behind the sweltering heat and hurricanes

kpc? You must play in different places than me, I've never seen those initials.

Hopefully the Free Play Arcade in Worcester, MA will open soon. I did a whole podcast on this new location. The Classic Pinball Podcast.

There is a great arcade to play pinball in Spring Texas. (Town on outskirts of Houston)

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Houston, Tx . . . Poison Girl. 1641 Westheimer...

Opens at 3, Mr. Flanagan, tell him hi.

Couldn’t think of name when I posted......The Game Preserve.

To all my Space City Pinball friends, one of the main reasons I love living in Houston is you!

That’s awesome

Now that looks awesome. Some friends of ours just moved to Nashville, we'll have to check that out when we go to visit!

of course they can. My wife and kids would rather swim unfortunately

Welcome Back, Kotter theme song just went off in my head.

I guess Brooklyn is no longer considered to be its own separate city (not sure when that happened) which is why it dropped off all the lists (2010 Census population was 2.5M which theoretically would rank it at #4 just above Houston at 2.3M).

Phoenix used to suck and then a bunch of people in the arcade and pinball community open great places like Electric Bat, Starfighters, Level One, Cobra, Stardust, and a few others. It was a risk, but they did it because of their passion.

You mean you haven't been to the new 2nd location? 17 pins at that Richmond location.

You mean you haven't been to the Game Preserve NASA location? 20 pins there

Why would you want to go to a bar to play? Sometimes it is about the people who you meet at these other places and get to know them and the owners that it makes it even more enjoyable.

That's the only reason to visit some places isn't it I used to ride my bike 5 miles one way as a kid to the pizza joint to play eight ball deluxe (To you old wise guys out there it wasn't up hill both ways in a foot of snow either)

Wait, so I’ll be able to flip then go outside and play bags and swim and then come back in and play more pinball all while drinking? I’m so in.

so Houston has more than 1 option, per your own admission? That derogatory thread title just sounds like a griping, whining post now doesn't it?

Of course not...

I am a newbie, but have had an awesome experience getting to know the people and machines around Houston. The Arcade Expo and then my first league experience in January were great introductions...but unfortunately Covid has put most things on pause. I have yet to go to either Einstein location, so there is still more to experience. Sure, we don't have anything like that place in Nashville, but certainly wouldn't say it sucks. I tried out that 82 place a few weeks ago, and it was really nice.

Also, FYI The Game Preserve did meet its goal.

One thing that might help you find new locations is an app called Pinball Map. You can scout out any place in the states as well as many global locations for active pinball bars and arcades. It’ll also give you a list of what games are available with reviews by pinball users as to the playing condition. Houston seems to have a decent number of locations. Joystix Classic Games and Pinball has 46 machines listed.

I’ve used it in my home town of Phoenix to find some great places to eat, drink and play! Hop Central Brewery, Electric Bat Arcade, Starfighters, Uncle Bears Brewery, ...... sorry don’t mean to rub it in, but pre-pandemic Phoenix was awesome.

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