Born in '85 and living in a small rural town from age 4, I didn't grow up with arcades or many games in the wild. I remember some swimming pools and a few restaurants having pins when I was a kid/juvenile. While I did play some of them occasionally, especially the one in the open air pool next town where I spent most summer afternoons anyway - iirc it was a T2 followed by a one of the Star Wars pins, I really did not know that these games had rules and stuff to do besides randomly shooting things to see random stuff happening.. But that was enough to form a fond memory of these games.
Then the machines disappeared one after another and real life pinball was gone.
I've always liked pinball pc games since I was a kid and in my 20s I came across a really good simulation (Dream Pinball 3D) and became slightly hooked. Some time later in 2012 the German computer magazine c't brought a big article about virtual pinball cabinets and pinball in general. In this article there was a link to database for public pinball locations. I entered my zip code and was hit by a whopping 40 something results in a small town 10km away in a place called "for amusement only e.V.", that was apparently open once a month 
Told my buddy who also liked pinball about it, we went there the next open day, and I was totally overwhelmed by what I saw: 2 old rambling, connected shops, packed with pinball and arcade machines. Blinking lights, electrical and mechanical sounds, the smell of heated components and ozone everywhere. Knowing arcades only from movies I was in paradise. 
My buddy and I went there the next month too. The one after that we became members. Since then we've both stayed regulars, spent countless evenings there, became pinball techs and started a collection of machines each.
The club has since moved to a new much bigger location, gained lots of members (and lost some), expanded the collection greatly to the point where we are out of space again, and has become widely known and recognized, drawing up to 400 visitors each open day...
