A Pinballz Houston would be awesome! Joystix is crazy busy on the two Fridays per month they open up the arcade.

Seconded

Another vote for Houston

+1 ...make it happen!!

Article says it's self sufficient... that's news to me, but awesome if it's true. Not that long ago I heard they were still losing money on it.

Frankly, somewhere in D/FW would be a lot more lucrative market I would think. As stated, Houston at least has Joystix, but Dallas really has pretty much NOTHING except Nickelrama, which at best usually has 6 recent Sterns, half of them with stuff wrong enough with them you don't want to play them, unless you're lucky enough to get there right after they've had a tech out, which isn't often.

Cinemark is actually a better place to go play in Dallas than any dedicated arcade. That should tell you something about our market up here. That's completely due to the efforts of Matt, but the fact that he's been able to pull that off means to me there is a lot of room for expansion here.

San Antonio...let's go....

Frankly, somewhere in D/FW would be a lot more lucrative market I would think.

...And the Houston vs. Dallas war rages on!

j.j._watt.jpg

^^^^is that what JJ Watt weighs, 273? Guy is a freak of nature....serious vertical for a guy that big

That doesn't look biased or anything lol.

Besides, you can ask anyone, I'll be the first person to freely admit that I hate this city. And this state. Only thing keeping me here is money.

And not having to shovel snow

I view someone saying "I hate Texas" along the same line as someone saying "I hate beer."

Texas is a big, diverse place. Lots of different experiences to be had. Unfortunately, not all of them are going to be good.

I'm not going to get lured into a politics argument and crap on this thread. There's nowhere in a state that you can go to escape STATE political decisions being made by people you didn't elect. Nuff said.

yup. but those of us that are 7th gen just go along somehow

Let's just all agree Houston gets the second location and DFW gets the third....San Antonio is close enough to Austin that it doesn't require one. That settles it. Now just have to get the Spohns to agree.

Agreed. Houston wins.

If i had to make a wild guess......

I put money on a location on the south side of Austin off slaughter ln

--Jeff

Last I heard their expansion plans are on hold, anyone in the Austin area have the latest and greatest?

As much as I hate to hear it....I beleive you may be correct Jeff. They may want to keep them all in and around Austin......those of us not in Austin just hope we get out name called when the time for expansion comes.

They really think there's demand for 3 just in Austin? Doesn't really seem fathomable...

I believe I saw a flyer at their place that mentioned them running a program to have pins at your business, like they would be the operator. Maybe it could be like a satellite location like a bar that would have 6 or so pins.

How many cool things does Austin need? How many yachts can you guys water-ski behind? Save something for the rest of us!

I was at Pinballz a few weeks back. The game selection was awesome. My only gripe was the number of games with issues. Some had lots of GI lights out and others were just unplayable. I still spent $60 in the place but somebody needs to do more maintenance on the machines.

Having said that, I would love to see a location in Houston...

Little birdy told me one more Austin-ish and then later one abroad.

You must have stayed there all day if you spent $60 bucks...

They are coming to San Antonio!

Is this a fact or a positive affirmation?

I think south Austin is probably likely or maybe a smaller location near campus. It sounds crazy in this day and age, but when I was at UT there were several arcades near campus that seemed to do well. I think opening up on the drag where LE Fun used to be would do a ton of business. I used to stop in there all the time walking home from class or the library around 1997-2000. It might cannibalize their main location some, but I think limiting the size and games to the mini-Pinballz would still leave plenty of draw for the main location.

After that, who knows between Houston and Dallas. Houston has some competition with joystix, but that's only 2 nights a month. I remember them advertising at the Houston show right before they opened, and I'd love to think they have connections here that would bring one here, but Dallas seems to be just as good an option.

I know some good local commercial real estate guys here if they need some help though! Just sayin'.

I would LOVE to see Pinballz over in Southern California!!!! But that's unlikely.

Houston...or even better...Beaumont would rock! Joystix is almost criminally insane how busy they are on those two Friday nights. A second location would not be a problem in Houston.

+1 for DFW!!!!

I wonder why they haven't switched to every Friday night. At $15.00 a head with that large crowd, it's like they're printing money.

I wondered the same thing. Maybe Charlie doesn't want to spend every Friday in the bar...unlike me.

I think Charles feels it is better to have it as a special event that people plan for attending than a weekly event. Also, and not to speak for Charles, he has mentioned before that he is a distributor/dealer and not an arcade. Perhaps he just doesn't want to deal with all those drunk people banging on the games every week.

Also, there could be a legal reason why he wants it as a special and not regular event - perhaps some sort of city ordinance.

I guess he doesn't like making money hand over fist EVERY Friday.....would be pretty rough for him if Pinballz comes into town and takes a piece of the pie because he is only open twice a month. Don't think any of us would mind though

He has got to make a sick amount of money on those two nights he does the arcade style opening. $15 a bracelet and the place is wall to wall filled with people. My guess is he has a minimum of 400 people show up and buy bracelet's (and not just hang out in the bar) at some point during those six hours of being open . . . if so, that is $6,000 just in cover charges. Not bad at all.

I for one would like to see some friendly competition in Houston. Maybe bring some of those prices down so I can actually afford one