Ted's Recreation or Ted's Liquors Bar (Roseville)

Yesterday, my friend BT and I embarked on a 12 bar, 4 hour tour of pinball machines in St. Paul. BT and I have been playing pinball together since high school, and I would consider him on the higher end of mediocre. Every trick I know, I learned from him.

Our first bar of the evening was Ted's Liquors. A cement building, with a great neon sign, it sits on a nice stretch of Larpenteur across from Key's Cafe and a quaint little Dairy Queen. Inside however is a different story. We were three steps through the door  when the whole bar stopped and looked at us. No sooner did I make half-a-turn towards the "No Good Golfers" machine in the corner when someone yelled out "Uh oh. Here comes the Pinball Wizards." Being two street smart guys we kept our goal in mind and payed them no heed.

To be honest though I don't remember to much about the game. It was $.50 per play with a fun little skill shot. I probably don't remember because I was worried about accidentally backing into the two guys standing about a foot behind me. It appeared that a key part of their rather aggressive video bowling game was cursing at each other.

After they finished their game and went back to watching football I overheard one say to the other in a threatening tone, "All I'm asking is what high school you went too."

"Why?" said the other.

"Why? Cuz I'm tying to figure out who you are rooting for. That's why."

As we turned and left I glanced over my shoulder to see one of the "video bowlers" glaring at me, and I couldn't help but think... "Am I about to be followed out?"

Replay 11.2 mil
BT's high score 550K
My high score: 2.1 mil

CC Club (Uptown Mpls)

Most everyone in Minneapolis is familiar with the CC Club. Personally I've never seen the attraction. I'm 15 years too young to have seen its heyday, and haven't lived i nMinneapolis ong enough to have even experienced a place with cheap drinks. Personally, it just seems like someone is capitalizing on its dumpy interior and punk rock past as a way to charge a buck more than everyone else for a crappy beer. However I will give them this. They are one of the few places in Uptown with pinball.

If you head to the very back of the bar, next to the door to the patio, you will find the newer Spiderman machine. Its wholly unspectacular and offers very little to remember it by. Cost is set at $1.00/1 $3.00/4, and $5.00/7 games.
My High Score: 3.1 mil
Replay 64.4 mil

Dulono's Pizza (Uptown)

On Lake Street in Uptown is a dark, dingy little pizza place called Dulono's. This is where Soozie and I made our second stop. I'm not sure how this restaurant stays in business, because nothing about the place, inside or out, is inviting. I ate there once about 6 years ago, and I can't remember the food. All I can figure is there must be some sort of history about it that has created a cult following.

Right away as you walk in the door from the parking lot there is an arcade to your left. The arcade is kind of separated off from the rest of the restaurant, like it was once some sort of coat room. This is perhaps part of the reason it is dark and smells bad. They have two machines. Lord Of the Rings and World Poker Tour.

LOTR is a pretty common game, and I have made my opinion known of it throughout this blog. This one in particular had all its display lights out, and a right flipper that wasn't very responsive.
The replay wasn't unreasonable and the price was nice at $.50/1 or $1.00/3 games.
My High Score: 11 mil
Soozie's High Score: 3 mil
Replay: 20 mil

The second game, World Poker Tour, had something going on with it causing it to shoot the ball for you most every time. The ball launches up into a pregame where you try and hit an opening on the back of the table. This was difficult because the right flipper only half-worked. That said, it isn't a very difficult game, the replay is very low, and I got the match. Pricing set at $.50/1, $3.00/4, and $5.00/7 games
My High Score: 4.5 mil
Replay: 5 mil

Rusty Quarters (Uptown Mpls)

This is a fun little place. A small little storefront with about 20 old video games and 3 pinball machines in the back. Apparently they rotate them in and out. My friend Soozie, who joined me, said that last time she was there they only had two. Its well lit, and would be a fun place to take your kid. Just make sure to not drop them off. That is strictly prohibited,  or so said the hand written sign on the door. Apparently it happened, or why go through the trouble. A great bonus was that they had the Terminator 2 arcade game with the machine guns. My brother and I spent so much money on that as a kid.

 The first game played was Indiana Jones and The Pinball Adventure  I hated this game. First off it has the pistol shooter that was so popular at that time. Secondly, I couldn't for the life of me stop that ball from going right down the middle. Oh and it tilts real easy. $.75 per play. Save your quarters.
My High Score 8 mil
Replay: 246 mil

Next in line is Medieval Madness. It comes complete with a castle that goes crazy when you hit it and a moat. I only played this one once. It was Soozie's favorite of the group, and I only played it once. $1 per play, and it uses a big electronic button as the shooter.

Soozie's High Score: 5.7 mil
My High Score: 1.3 mil
Replay: 37 mil

Last was my favorite, Funhouse. At $.75 per game this old school game has a nice easy replay and a third flipper that can seriously help you dominate if you figure it out. I didn't until at the end of my first game, so I had to keep playing. I rocked past the replay, and was so excited when I finished I forgot to play it. I walked off to shoot Terminators, and when I turned around a girl, who looked incredibly bored, dumped in three quarters and played her game. Not realizing the credit was on there, she walked off and I got free my game.
Soozie's High Score: 800k
My High Score: 6 mil!!!
Reply: 3 mil

3 Squares (Maple Grove)

Maple Grove certainly was one of the last places I would look for a pinball machine. However, it's nice to be surprised. We went get dinner at 3 Squares before a movie.  Squares is notable for a few reasons. It is the only restaurant in "The Grove" that isn't a chain, their food and beer selection is the best in the city, and I, sometimes regrettably, run into people I went to high school with. Now the restaurant has a 4th distinction, awesome pinball machines. They said there was a 20 minute wait for a table, so we played pinball until we got a table. Then we placed our order and played until the food came. It was perfect.

The first game we played was the newer Batman. It has a fun addition where you have to hit the Scarecrow, which is like a crane hanging over the table, for extra points.
Vonny's High score: 12.8 mil
My High Score: 12.4 mil
Replay: 29.7 mil

Next we moved onto the classic Addams Family. Previous to us someone was playing tournament play and left the 4th player with a turn left and a full credit on the machine, so score one for us. I finished out the tourney play, and Vonny took the credit.
Vonny's High Score: 21.6 mil

Last we moved on to T3: Rise Of The Machines. Like T2 it also has the "pistol" shooter which I don't like. This game was our least favorite.We didn't catch right away that there is a way to trigger a second game on the scoreboard where you shoot a ping-pong ball at some lights.
My High Score: 13 mil (but I got the match)
Vonny's High Score: 11.7 mil
Replay: 33 mil

Flaherty's Arden Bowl (Roseville/Arden Hills)

Apparently this place is one of the oldest family run bowling alleys in the country. I expected it to be packed with college students from Bethel and Northwestern who are looking for vice-free fun on a friday night. I guess they all went home for the holidays, because it was pretty dead. I found three machines, however, right when you walk in the door. South Park, Family Guy, and High Roller Casino.

I started with South Park, and played two games. Its $.50/1 game or $2.00/5 games. Is it just me or is this a really boring game? The shooter was really sticky, so I cleaned it off with my coat sleeve and started. When it does multiball it launched 5 at me, which was a bit more that this mediocre wizard could handle. Eventually, on my last ball of the game, it got stuck under a flag. I couldn't get it loose without shaking the machine. First shake. Tilt. No good. Second shake. Tilt and game over. Ball still stuck. Finally the third time i shook it it came free. I guess I should've asked for my $.50 back
High Score: 56 Mil
Replay: 245 mil

Next was High Roller Casino. $.50 per game. This game is pretty fun. It really tripped me up though when it started yelling JACKPOT! and adding balls to the shooter alley. I didn't realize it was doing it until there were 4 stacked up. Let me tell you the spring is not made to push four balls. I ended up having to pull it back and hit it as hard as I could until I cleared them all. It's a clever way to do multiball, and I would play it again.
High Score: 73 mil
Replay 185 mil

As one of my new favorites I saved Family Guy for last. It was $.50/1 or $2.00/5 games. I probably shouldnt have waited to do this one last, as when I got to it, I really wasn't in the mood to play for some reason. I played on anyway. It wasn't pretty. I even sucked at Stewie Mini-Pinball.
High Score: 5.4 mil
Replay: 7.9 mil

Sportys (Como, Mpls)

I remembered that there were a couple of odd bars on Como just west of 280, and lord knows there is no better spot to find a pinball machine than an odd bar. My first stop was Station 280. My guess is this place used to serve to a lot of workers in the industrial days-gone-by. Now it seems to be a sports bar with a d-bag clientele from the U who are choosing  to not live in Dinkytown. They have a large game room, but no pinball, so I headed further west to Mannings and Sportys. Mannings seems like the kind of place that is owned by The Mob. At 10:30 on a Saturday night it had four employees and two customers, with a clean, quiet, old school atmosphere. Sadly they had no pinball machines, so I walked across the street to Sporty's.

 Sporty's is kind of strange. There was definitely nothing sports-related about it, and the clientele seemed college-hipster. Its an old bar that added a weird dining room by expanding into the space next door. Here I was excited to find Terminator 2 and Star Trek: The Next Generation machines.

I first played T2. The right side coin slot ate my quarter, but I looked up to see it had a free credit on it. It is only $.50 per play. Not a bad game, but I don't care for the "gun" shooter it has.
My High Score: 5.6 mil
Replay 36 mil

Moving over to Star Trek: The Next Generation I was disappointed to see that it also had the "gun" shooter, although it would probably be categorized as a phaser. However, don't let that get you down. This game is great. It had a ton of ramps to shoot over and over, and a reachable replay. Its priced at $.50/1, $.75/2, and $1.00/3 games. I got an extra ball and came so close to hitting the replay that I almost added another quarter to keep my game going. However, part of me feels like that is cheating, and it was getting late. I look forward to playing this machine again.
My High Score: 321 mil
Replay: 345 mil