It definitely seems like if you don't bring kids you'll be ok.

Maybe they should open up a separate arcade in the parking lot to stick your kids while parents head in for some pinball.

I feel like some people have only seen Vegas in movies or something.

For several decades Vegas has been a family destination. There's a plethora of family friendly events, shows and attractions. It's not all gambling and liquor, even though there's plenty of that.

Additionally, Vegas is a large metro area of 2 million plus. Lots of families obviously.

So yeah, it's 100% not weird to take kids to Vegas. It is weird to be a straight up jerk to them when you literally run a giant arcade that SHOULD be a place of fun, laughs and cheers.

Are you posting from 1999?

Best thing you can do with kids in Vegas is leave town and goto the lake

We ended our family vacation (with kids) in Las Vegas. Mostly because there are so many cheap flights. Kids had a great time, including a trip to the Pinball Hall of Fame. No issues, but we all know the place is what it is. Still wish they would have made the public space half it's current size and have a giant work area and storage area. Seems like that would be beneficial for staff and visitors.

PS: The worst thing about Vegas now is the smell of pot EVERYWHERE. I usually don't mind it, but whatever strain they sell is the most rancid stuff. You cannot escape it. LA has smog warnings, Vegas has a pot cloud warnings.

Woah! Those Google reviews are epic! It actually makes THIS thread of how bad PHOS is look like a love-fest for the place. It would appear that the old gray mare is equal to or even more of a problem than Tim. There are truly mental health issues at play.

Challenge accepted....

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Tim does plenty of running himself.

OK the google reviews are too much. It's like a train wreck, I can't stop reading them.

If they're telling patrons it's a museum that's even more reason for them to move the machines around and make a play area v.s a museum area, then that might actually make some sense.

Another review said they got accused of trespassing within 1 minute of entering the building lol!

More than one review says the staff yelled at their children which is interesting considering the no raising your voice rule. In the first 10 negative reviews half of them said the staff raised their voice.

And why is the staff micro managing how people use the machines? So what if a kid plays with the arm wrestle machine without putting in a quarter? No other arcade on the planet operates this way, it's not wonder the staff has no time to fix anything if they are watching everyone like a hawk.

Multiple reviews said that immediately upon entering they were lectured about not breaking rules and then followed around by the staff. It's no wonder the place is in disarray, the staff don't appear to do anything other than harass people.

Who are these people power tripping at this place? Why are they so miserable?

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Changed my mind.

My favorite google review was the one where Tim calls this guy's kid something like "cry baby bitch". After the child exits the building, the dad turns around and grabs Tim by his collar, who then cries for help. After the police arrive, they explain to the parent how many issues they have had with Tim and that he is a dick.

I assume for the same reason they take them to movies, restaurants, etc, because they have no choice. At some point you just want to do normal couple things so the kids must come along. Often it's fine, but other times everyone else pays the price when kids are left to just run amok. My wife and I don't have kids, it's something we were just never interested in and when we are at whatever venue and kids are going crazy we simply leave. But as a business owner that perhaps has to deal with this on an hourly basis I can see one developing an incredibly low tolerance to it.

I used to go to the Museum Of Pinball in Banning every year and would frequently see kids abusing machines, so if the owner of the Pinball Museum is as cantankerous as people say then maybe having an adults only policy is the way to go.

If Tim Operated a Hotel..

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Oh man...

"Later I had my baby (2y) on my shoulder so that he wouldn’t run away and cause problems when the same older man proceeded to walk up to me and rudely state that was my child “was not allowed” to be on MY shoulders (he stated that the child “could fall on the machines and break something” which made no sense to me as he was on my shoulders and I was no where near glass nor was I walking). Not two minutes later the man returned to YELL at me a paying customer stating that this location was not for kids and that I “should leave and take them to Chuck E Cheese”."

Plus another review says one of the rules state "children must be carried". But that doesn't include on the shoulder?

It’s interesting to me that in all of these negative google reviews they comment about the people that “work” there or “the employees”. So most people don’t understand that they are not employees they don’t work there, they are simply volunteers donating their time to keep the place open. If the volunteers wouldn’t show up then the place wouldn’t be open. (That gotta be a stressful situation) constantly being depended upon without compensation would make me a little bitter over time.

I bet that if the volunteers were paid an income, maybe some of them might be in a better mood through the day, or find employees that want to be there and enjoy their time there too.

You can’t make me believe that these people enjoy yelling at customers all day everyday

If they’re showing up every day for free at a place on the Vegas strip and yelling at people all day…you can absolutely make me believe they enjoy it.

Victory is turned off.

Instead of complaining about what a dark shithole PHOF is with fewer working machines than my personal game room, maybe we should embrace it as the time capsule of a bygone era it is - the seedy, dank Main Street arcade of the late 70’s early 80’s, run by the town’s social outcast autistic weirdo who donates to the homophobic hate group and hates kids but runs a business almost exclusively targeted at them. Every town had one - the dingy former retail space hastily converted, with sticky floors and sullen, greasy workers just one more day away from eating a bullet and ending their miserable lives whose only joy in life was yelling at people. The stale smell of smoke hung over everything, the older games relegated to the inexplicably darker back of the space where all the drug deals went down.

After Nintendo killed them all, a few decades went by and now we have barcades and family friendly venues with well maintained machines and happy staff who love what they do. They pass health and safety inspections and somehow manage to turn a profit.

So the PHOF is isn’t an arcade, it’s a living museum of what arcades used to be like in our youth! There’s no where else you can go to experience that fear and loathing like when you were a kid and were terrified to say a game ate your quarter. Maybe Tim should install a machine to spread the smell of cigarettes to really complete the ambiance.

Now I can’t wait to visit!

It doesn't matter if they're paid or not they are representing the company and their behavior is not acceptable. If showing up makes them so miserable they should be replaced. If the place can't be run without a bunch of miserable shit heads harassing the customers then shut it down.

For all the talk about how it's the highest grossing arcade in the world they should just pay the employees. Being a non-profit doesn't mean you can't hire anyone to keep it running.

You forgot the part about the old school arcade owner collecting coin drop, not paying employees and "donating" all that coin without audit. The charity just happens to now have a building worth millions...

How about this?

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It's a far different town than it use to be.

I was there in the early 90's and went back out 20 years later. While it's still sin city it has morphed into more than just gambling. Lots more.

First of all, that's not a game. That's a Mold-A-Rama "Disneyland Toy Factory". A machine that you put money into and it molds a plastic toy before your very eyes and dispenses it to you.

You're just looking for stuff to nit-pick regarding the PHoF. I thought both of you were better than that.

There's 22 pages showing how the PHOF isn't in a great state. It's not a secret. It's being discussed here, on facebook, and on reddit. You can't really sugar coat it, especially when people keep posting current photos and videos of the facility showing a lot of machines sitting there turned off.

Another pic with three "qualifying" pinball machines turned on. Will someone change the rules and say Thunderbirds is modern and shouldn't COuNt? Will someone say that the crane behind Thunderbirds is turned off?

I'm only counting three machines since there is a Stern PotC in the pic. It is 17 years old though. Is that still a "modern" machine?

jwilson and ForceFlow: what say you?

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I wouldn’t put my money into it I’m just saying.

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Thunderbirds is one pin that SHOULD be turned off

I simply accepted the challenge of taking a picture in the PHoF without capturing an out of service GAME in the shot.
I believe I qualify for the "Bonus Points" in the one I posted at 8:02pm MST yesterday.

To be fair, I played that Thunderbirds recently and gave up after ball 2 because the flippers were so weak I couldn't make any shots.

A fair amount of "working" pins there have issues. (trunk inoperable on TOM, etc)

Are you giving partial credit for the “one player only” sign on Thunderbirds? What happens if we hit start twice?

Tough crowd. It's a working game.

I take full credit for taking a picture in the PHoF without capturing an out of service game.

LOL!

And I think MrBally deserves some points, he has produced some good pictures.

We need to update the rules so you get more points for having more machines in the frame because, as people have shown, if you crop it down to one machine that's no fun.

And probably a lot more credit than he gets for working on stuff there.

What game is that?

Not tough, just different definitions of “working” I guess. If I go to buy a game advertised as working, I’m assuming I’m able to play the game with the maximum number of players. Maybe changing the name to the “Games that boot and you can technically play them” hall of fame would help us set our expectations?

I don't know but I played it and it was more fun than Thunderbirds

Shootin' Out the Lights

All this actually makes me want to revisit the PHOF now more than ever before its gone.

Watch some toddlers get escorted out. Tempt fate by nudging a game a little too hard or walking a little too fast. Look for the long haired guy, the grey haired lady, the cat(s). Check out the bathroom, maybe get some pics. Buy a tshirt with the quarters saved from not playing pinball circus.

This could really work as the next big Vegas show (or reality TV show). And it's currently a free spectacle.

Seems like it's only a matter of time before someone gets some video of them yelling at kids and it blows up. That will be fun.

See Blaze Cochise's google review. I don't think the matter was over kids, maybe it was, but it was as the family were being escorted out of the building.

I wonder if things are that out of control, how long until a customer is grabbed or hit or something and files a lawsuit ?

LTG : (

Too late. This just keeps getting better.

As a kid in the 70's-80's, rarely if ever played a pinball machine. I hated dropping a quarter in a poorly maintained machine.

Looks like nothing has changed

I don't think PHOF staff are the physically violent type. Seems way more likely to me they yell at the wrong customer on the wrong day and a mad dad lays hands on them. Hopefully not, of course. I'm not rooting for that, more like dreading it.

I love how people take google reviews as gospel of a blow by blow retellings. Like Karens never existed... and everyone is always so level, objective and truthful in their retellings when leaving negative reviews.

Can cue up Jackbar's owner please

Oh yeah I forgot about that. Definitely not as bad as some of the stories in the reviews but look at her body language, why is she getting so worked up? You have to stay professional if you're representing a business.

This is definitely true but the sheer quantity and consistency of the reviews makes me think there is more to it than just entitled karens. It's the same story over and over again almost verbatim, including pre-empetively going after people who bring kids in and hounding them before anything has even happened.

Correct. Would be nice to see things head in a positive direction. It's fun to get some laughs over a light bulb that's out in the ceiling but you never know who is walking through the doors with their family. Most are probably like us working folks looking for fun on an affordable budget. The next could be a family that owns a casino on the strip, family of a diplomat from another country or anything in between. I mean who doesn't like fun?

What's the common theme in all these confrontations... customers pushing back vs just doing what they were told. If you are at the point of being told to leave... why would you even fight to stay? Like that experience is going be good from that point onward?

People just want to resist...

I think the PHOF's limits are over the top... but it takes two to tango. Something the reviews and interviews always seem to omit..

Wow, that interview on the News report is very telling. Pretty poor response to a delicate situation.

Oh, and FYI a charity/public museum is not a "private club". Someone is not too bright over there.

I mean.. do you really believe Tim called a small child a 'cry baby bitch' to the child themself? Or that's what he lead with?

I've already said I think their limits are over the top and really futile in some areas... but what you don't find in most of those stories is "I wasn't doing anything" -- it's almost all "I didn't like how I was treated".

Yes, customer service is important and the PHOF has almost universally never had any... but the majority of these complaints you read are people resisting being corrected.

Whomever said before 'well they are volunteers' - that's irrelevant. They are the staff the place is putting out there and they are working on behalf of the PHOF. They didn't just wander in and decide to self-regulate the place.