Quoted from stashyboy:
Haven't seen Gloria in the shop in years. I pick up my orders in person since I live 45 minutes away. He is always helpful and willing to take the phone off the hook to help me personally! Recently, I needed a really hard to find stepper disc for four square. He had the part! I dread the day when he decides to hang up the phone for good.
It's kind of scary because I basically order everything from him. I do a few orders from Marco and I have ordered from a couple of other vendors but 95 percent of my money for parts goes to Steve.
I read an interview with him and basically what he said is that there's really nobody out there to pick up the ball when he decides to put it down. I'm hoping someone like Marco decides to buy up everything and take it over but I'm not sure that's in the cards. Marco's guys are great to deal with too and they're knowledgeable enough but they seem to be more oriented to the SS/DMD side. Maybe it will happen, maybe somebody steps up, but it's going to be a tough day for EM guys when Steve says enough.
I don't necessarily hoard parts but the uncertainty of how long he's going to continue this has made me order stuff from him and squirrel it away for the future. Hell, for all I know he may outlast me in this hobby but it's definitely a concern for all of us who restore these old games.
If we could only get him to repro the damned lockdown bars...