Logans Arcade, Emporium, Headquarters are all pretty solid.

Depends on where you're staying in the city. If you're at a hotel downtown, Headquarters just opened up a new location near Franklin and Chicago Ave that's got some top notch pins. They also have a food menu that's pretty excellent. Pay for the beers, but the pinball's free!

Logan's was great. I was there a while ago and did grub hub delivered to the place and then just dean one of the 30+ beers I think they had. Lots of good machines that played really well.

chris

Headquarters is great, but it will be tough to get on the pins on a Saturday night.

True, its hard to get on pins since they are mostly all free. Also most of the people visiting don't understand you hit the start button just once for one player. The good part is there is a MM and WOZ downstairs that are pay per play and those are usually open. If I am around tonight I will send you a pm as I can get you some beers on me.

Here's the site and game list for the new Headquarters location in River North:

http://hqbeercade.com/rivernorth/game-list/

Jayhawk is right, though - it gets busy on Friday/Saturday nights, just like the Lakeview location. Worth going earlier in the day if you can on Saturday, but it's not a bust if you're there at night. Always at least one machine open.

If you venture out from downtown, Logan Arcade is definitely the joint if you had to pick one outside of downtown. The new Emporium location in Logan Square is worth a stop-off though, if only for the B-tier mix of fun pins.

Headquarters if you want to play modern (1990+) stuff.

Logan Arcade if you want to play stuff from the 70s to present.

I prefer Logan slightly, but both are great.

How's the Galloping Ghost?

It's an arcade mecca, but they only open the neighboring space that includes pins at random times. Out of the handful of times I've been there, I have yet to play a single pin because the space is never open. They have an unbelievable arcade selection though. If you have any love for 80s to mid-90s video games, it's a must-see.

Brixies just down the road has 3 good games.

Logans is cool . good beer , lots of great games . Great selection of different eras .

Went to HQ river north tonight, awesome place.

MB, TF, POTC, MUSTANG, AFM, TZ, TAV, TSPP, LOTR, TRON, MET, ACDC, CV. All on free play and in decent shape...and I had them all to myself for a couple of hours. Everything was working, you can tell they take care of the pins. Got my name on MET and ACDC. Think I got 40k on MET (good?). And the beer and food are good too, very reasonable.

I didn't touch the video games.

Mustang is a terrible pin, really liked ACDC, MET and, to a lesser extent, TRON.

image-477.jpg
image-23.jpg

Glad you enjoyed yourself, did you get a chance to get downstairs for IM, MM, WOZ, ST, TAF, XMLE and I think another I can't remember? Its hard to keep them working, you would be shocked as to how many plays those machines get.

What? There's a downstairs??? Crap! I'll be back in Chicago in a few months and will definitely be back.