Pinball in Salt Lake City
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A lot of people visiting Salt Lake City ask us where the good places to play pinball are. There are few locations in Salt Lake City where you can find a few commercially-operated pinball machines to see and play, but sadly, like the rest of the world these days, most operators of pinball and other games here in Salt Lake don't maintain their games as well as they should, so your playing experience may vary depending on what you can find, and how well (or how poorly) the game has been maintained. If you're visiting and would like to see what's on location for pinball in Salt Lake, here is a list you can use. You can also log into MapQuest.com, or Yahoo! Yellow Pages and enter any addresses below to get a map of location and directions on how to get there.  Salt Lake City Airport:
There have never been any pinball or other amusement games on location at the Salt Lake City Airport. I'm sure many local operators have tried to put some out there, as competition between operators in the area has always been fierce, but to date, no games have ever been placed at the airport. Very sad. There are no pinball locations very near the Salt Lake Airport, other than possibly one or two games in surrounding hotels. Zeponie Pizza: (Centerville, UT- about 20 min north of Salt Lake)
Address: 1097 S Main St, Centerville, UT 84014 Phone: 296-8888 Time/Distance from Airport: 20 minutes. About 15 miles. Aside from having arguably the best pizza in Utah, this great small "mom & pop" pizza joint has several games always on hand, including a few vintage favorites. Also a coin-op pool table, TV's to watch sports on, and nostalgic decor all over the walls (owner's LP album collection from 60's/70's/80's). Really a great spot- if you're up north of Salt Lake for any reason, spend a few extra minutes and drive up Main Street through Bountiful and into the south end of Centerville to visit Zeponie. At last count, they were running a Bally 'Flash Gordon' in good working shape, as well as an old Atari 'Asteroids'- both 5 balls/lives per game- 25¢ play. Also a couple of newer vids like NFL Blitz, etc. A great spot for pizza and fun! Port O' Call Pub:
Address: Downtown. 300 South, West Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah 84102 Time/Distance from Airport: 10 to 15 minutes. About 6 miles. The Port is a private club for members, meaning you must buy a membership in order to go in (interesting Utah law). Cost for membership is cheap, however- probably $5 or so. No big deal. The pub owners are pretty good at finding the best way to adhere to the strange laws and still accomodate their customers well. This location usually has the latest pinball games available, and is a "test" location for our largest distributor/operator in town. Expect to find the latest games here, but condition will vary depending on how long the games have been on location. Even our biggest pinball operator in town who puts the games here does not maintain them very well, so condition/playability will vary. Tilt! Arcade:
Address: Downtown- Gateway Plaza. 400 West, 100 South, Downtown Salt Lake City. Time/Distance from Airport: 10 to 15 minutes. About 6 miles. The Gateway Plaza is a newer mall type venue in the northwest area of downtown Salt Lake and has a lot of familliar stores as well as a "Tilt" arcade. At last check (November, 2006) this arcade had only 1 pinball machine- a Stern Terminator 3, but management said they were going to try to bring in some more pinballs. Tilt arcades generally have the best maintained pinball machines, but typically only about 2 or 3 games per location. I remember the days of 20 or more pins lined up down the walls in these places.... Update: All of the previous three locations of Tilt arcades in Salt Lake recently closed their doors (Crossroads, Fashion Place, and Cottonwood Malls). Most of the games from these locations made their way to the new Tilt arcade in the Gateway plaza, so you can see most of them there. The closure of the Tilt arcade in the Fashion Place mall was probably the saddest of all- that location had been there since about the early 1970's. Closure of the Tilt arcade in the Cottonwood Mall marked the first time in that mall's history (since about 1965) that it had been without an arcade. Tilt had been there since the mid 1980's. In the early 1980's this mall actually had two arcades, as did the Crossroads Mall in downtown Salt Lake. The Cottonwood Mall was the largest and first mall of its type to be built west of the Mississippi in the 1960's. It has been taken over by a new management company in recent years that has had a difficult time keeping merchants in the mall- raising lease rates, squeezing out merchantes, and causing the mall to have its greatest number of vacancies in it's history- truly a sad time. Hopefully it will somehow survive. Century Theatres:
Address: South Salt Lake, 3300 S. State St. Time/Distance from Airport: 10-15 minutes. About 10 miles. Fairly new theatre with game room. They typically have the latest model pinball machines at this location. Valley Fair Mall Arcade:
Address: West Valley. 2700 West 3500 South, West Valley City, Utah 84119 Time/Distance from Airport: 10 minutes. About 5 miles. This location may not be worth your time/trouble. Two game locations in this mall, but each having only one pin at the last time this page was updated:
The Black Bull: (formerly Plaza Billiards)
Address: West Valley. 1754 West 3500 South, West Valley City, Utah 84119 Time/Distance from Airport: 10 minutes. About 5 miles. Grill and bar with pool tables and video/arcade games. This location has had up to 6 pinballs at any given time, but recently was bought out by a new owner, so not sure what may be there now. Games here are placed by a local operator who also has low/poor maintenance of their equipment, so condition/playability will vary. West Valley Billiards:
Address: West Valley. 4669 West 3500 South, West Valley City, Utah 84119 Time/Distance from Airport: 10-15 minutes. About 5 miles. Recently purchased by a local operator and converted into a private club- a membership fee is required for admission. Good quality location- pool tables, dart games, foosball, and countertop games. Two pins on location as of last report: "Cactus Canyon" and "South Park". Both in reasonably good shape. Really good food here, so if you're hungry, this is a good stop. Jordan Commons:
Address: Sandy (south end of Salt Lake valley). 9400 South State Street, Sandy, Utah Time/Distance from Airport: 25-30 minutes. About 15 miles. "Mall" sort of venue with restaurants and theatres, other attractions. As of October 2002, two pinballs on location here- Roller Coaster Tycoon and Star Wars: Episode 1, both reported to be in good condition and maintained well. This is a popular business venue so you are likely to find the latest model pinball games here. University of Utah - Union Building:
Address: North-East corner of the Salt Lake valley- about 1500 E. 500 S. Time/Distance from Airport: 20-30 minutes. About 10 miles. The Union Building is located pretty much in the heart of the campus- easiest to drive to from the north entrance to the campus (going up 100 South from downtown SLC), or take the Trax commuter train from the downtown area up 400/500 South street to campus. The Union Building also has a great vintage bowling alley, and pool/billiards hall, as well as a cafeteria- great place to kill a few hours if you have the time- especially during semesters when it's quieter on campus. Quality and quantity of games in the Union Building has varied over the years depending on what local operator wins the bid for placing/operating games in this location. In the late 1970's and early 1980's the games area was nearly 100% all-pinball- games like Williams Space Mission, Stern's Hot Hand, Bally Playboy, and for what seemed like years, there was a Bally Paragon stuffed in a dark ominous corner of the pinball room. And other great titles came/went over the years like Firepower, Blackout, Xenon, as well as Comet, Earthshaker, and High Speed just to name a few. The Union Building now typically has only about 2 or 3 pinball machines, and condition/quality may vary quite a bit depending on the game or operator placing them. There are a lot of video games as might be expected, but if you're in the area, couldn't hurt to drop in and check it out. Rocky Mountain Pizza Co.:
Address: Olympus Cove- Olympus Hills Mall 3951 South Wasatch Blvd, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84124 Time/Distance from Airport: 20 minutes. About 15 miles. Updated 3/28/2006: This pizza parlor, while under the same management, has recenetly had a bit of a face-lift and seems to be doing better than in previous years when they had some problems with cleanliness, the place falling into disrepair, and lackluster customer service. But things seem to be doing better currently- the place is much brighter inside, repainted, cleaner, and staff seem to be more professional. Great pizza, too, as it has always had. However, there are currently no pinball machines at this location, although the operator that supplies it's gameroom does still have some video games and such in operation there. Last pin at this location was a Road Show but it suffered from bad neglect and was rarely if ever in good working order. Rocky Mountain Pizza has been around since the early 1980's (originally a "Round Table Pizza") and changed hands/names a few times but always great food and beer. Game room has had it's high and low points over the years, depending on who's operating/placing the games there. Best Distributing (local operator) took over this location (and dozens of other local spots) in about 2003, but not much has changed with the selection or quality of games there. If you have any other Salt Lake City pinball locations to add to this list, let us know. Thanks! |
