End of an Era - Closing Down an Arcade.
As many of you know, I'm involved in doing repairs and work for several local arcades and also rent a few pinball machines out to these and other local establishments.
Well the time has finally come to hang up the big bunch of keys and call it a day at my personal favourite of these arcades. This is one of the ones I used to go to many years ago when I was still young (ok I'm not that old now, but you get what I mean!), and have many happy memories of this place back in the days when, for a teenager born in the early 70's at least, an amusement arcade was the place to be.
Around 10 years ago I returned there and got reacquainted with the family that ran the arcade, and when confronted with a few out of order games, I offered the benefit of the experience I gained of working in a TV repair shop while I was at college. Being involved in an arcade like this re-ignited my love of arcade machines, and was one of the turning points that turned me into the obsessive collector that you now see before you.
I spent many good years working there helping out on busy bank holiday weekends, and keeping up with the necessary machine maintenance and repairs, eventually turning this activity into a small part time business and branching out into machine rentals.
The last couple of years have taken their toll on all of the arcades in the local area, attendance has been down (even on what used to be the busy holiday weekends) and rents, energy and machine costs have spiralled up. But this arcade being furthest out from the main beach area (and on the 'wrong' side of the main pier), was the one that was hardest hit, and when negotiations to renew the lease failed to come up with a satisfactory result, it was decided to roll down the shutters for the last time closing down a seaside arcade that had been run by the same family for the last 40 years.
I've put some pictures up on my website that I took this afternoon in the hope of finding loving new homes for some of the machines. I will be taking home as much as I can find space for (probably even rescuing a few of the fruit machines, despite not being a big fan of them myself), which is not easy as I have quite a few machines of my own that are needing to return home at the same time.
If any UK members (or EU members who like to travel!) would like to adopt a fruit machine (in exchange for a few beer tokens) please get in contact via the link on the page below. But beware that everything has to be removed very quickly as we will incur a $10,000 rent payment if we overstay our welcome.
Anyway, pictures and details can be found at the link below...
Aladdins Amusements
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