New club brings competitive pinball to Santa Cruz County pinheads

There's a room in Harry Franklin's house, deep in the wooded hills near Aptos, that feels like a dream a teenage boy might have in an 1980s movie. It is full of jingling bells, colored lights and fantastic images. It's a private pinball paradise.

For anyone who grew up in or near Santa Cruz and has easy access to the arcade on the Beach Boardwalk, the aesthetics of pinball are probably very familiar, perhaps even a part of everyday life. But for most people, pinball exists in some nostalgic haze of teenage free time, or young adults at the bar, or a few quarters to spend and skills to master.

Would you then believe that pinball is a thriving subculture, something that adults invest vast amounts of money and time in, and pursue with passion and curiosity?

On Soquel Drive, between 41st Avenue and Rodeo Gulch Road, next to The Treehouse cannabis dispensary, two pinball fans will open a new membership club sometime this month called Nine and Three Quarters (or 9), designed to cater to those who made pinball a lifestyle . The club is named after the intermediate platform used to take students to Hogwarts in the Harry Potter universe for example, will include other indoor gaming activities such as table tennis and a golf simulator, but pinball in all its loud and flashy glory will be the star.

Harry Franklin, for example, will probably be a regular. Franklin, 51, is not part of the 9 company, but the club owners call him a friend and an inspiration. Franklin, 51, has six full-size pinball machines in his home, five of which he owns and another he is holding for a friend. The machines range from a 1969 classic to modern and popular mainstream games such as Medieval Madness, as well as Godzilla and Deadpool. He is excited at the prospect of a new place for pinball locally.

“It's taking a long time,” he said. “If I was more motivated, I would have started it myself.”

Franklin has always loved pinball and has been playing regularly since his teenage years. But a few years ago he slid deeper into the pinball hole after a divorce when he bought his first machine for my sanity. Subsequently, not only did he indulge his love for pinball by purchasing more machines, he also began to embrace the art of becoming a pinball reference. famous rock song from over 50 years ago a pinball wizard.

“I actually describe pinball in three phases,” he said. First, it keeps the ball from going through the hole. And I have done that forever. But once you realize that the machines are very precise and well designed, you can predict how the ball will move at a certain speed or angle. So once you've made that connection, you can start shooting. Once you've reached that point, you can move on to the next phase: strategy. You begin to see that there is a puzzle to be solved, and that there are different ways to complete a mission, if you wish.

But despite all the time and energy (and money) he spends pursuing the Zen of pinball, Franklin still doesn't consider himself a great player.

“I would call myself functionally illiterate at pinball,” he said. I mean, I would call myself a good player. But I have not yet transcended to really knowing the strategies and skills. I realized not too long ago that that was a thing. So I can barely catch up on the jargon now.

He knows his place in the pinball universe because he interacts with others who are even deeper down the rabbit hole. Franklin is a regular visitor to Lynns Arcade in Seaside, about 30 miles south of Aptos. Lynns attracts pinball enthusiasts from throughout Monterey Bay and the greater Bay Area to participate in various tournaments hosted and conducted by the Monterey Pinball Pinball Competition.

Lynns is essentially a model for 9 on Soquel Drive, opening in late April. Partners Dean Roblee and Will Bernardi hope to convert a multi-story industrial space of less than 2,000 square feet into a members-only arcade. We would start as a kind of private club, speakeasy style, Bernardi said in the reception room of the new club, three brand new pinball machines behind him, still hidden. The club will open with just five machines, but hopes to expand to 12 by the end of the year. Monthly memberships, Bernardi said, will top out at around $60, with day passes also available.

Pinball machines come in hundreds, if not thousands, of themes, many of which are drawn from popular culture. The new machines opening at Bernardi's new club include machines with themes from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, famed illusionist Harry Houdini and The Godfather. When I visited the not-yet-opened club, the owners were expecting the delivery of a new Baywatch-themed machine.

Pinball is one of the few totems of American pop culture that transcends generational nostalgia. Machines are much more advanced than they used to be, with more bells and whistles (often literally), more skill levels, more technological advancements, more complex architecture, and more intricate and state-of-the-art graphics. But the basic principles, the plunger that launches the ball into play, the angled table and the dual flippers have remained consistent over the years, from the old electromechanical models to the more recent computer-animated models, allowing boomers to play a game that millenials love are. and vice versa. And despite tremendous advances in computer graphics, pinball machines still rely on analog effects, like balls hitting rubber bumpers and gravity that video games can't match.

As for those looking to bring the arcade into the living room, a full-size pinball machine can run anywhere from $7,000 to north of $10,000, while collectible, rare or restored vintage machines can run as high as $30,000. I sold a few games, said Harry Franklin, and I always made money from it. They are a better investment than my Bitcoin.

Franklin developed his love of pinball as a high school student at the now-defunct Attic Arcade in Soquel. Nowadays he has an app on his phone called Pinball card that indicates where he can find an available pinball machine.

Pinball even has an origin story that puts it in the realm of legitimate contraband. When pinball was first developed in the 1940s was illegal in many states with the justification that it was a game of chance and therefore subject to a gambling ban. It wasn't until the 1970s that that justification was challenged in court when an avid player demonstrated at a hearing in New York City that pinball was in fact a game of skill. That story has been converted to 2022 comedy drama Pinball: the man who saved the game.

Pinball designers long ago discovered a form and aesthetic feel that makes pinball something that can keep a player busy for hours. One of Santa Cruz County's most dedicated pinheads believes that a game dismissed by many as a symbol of wasted youth has the potential to attract competitors seeking ever-evolving levels of complexity. And that pinball machine can still provide some good old-fashioned fun, as always.

They're a lot of fun, Franklin said. You have a lot of dopamine when you're playing and it's exciting, even if you're just hitting a ball. It's really that expectation and the satisfaction of it. It's equally frustrating and disturbing at times. You just know you can hit that shot. And every time you see it coming through the hole it can be very frustrating. It's an emotional game.

The plan at 9 on Soquel Drive is to develop a number of tournaments after the opening (perhaps also in table tennis and virtual golf) and a pinball competition. Food and beverage will evolve, Will Bernardi said, but in the short term they will bring in some food trucks. The adjacent Treehouse pharmacy has started participating in the monthly First Friday eventand the pinball club would like to join in the First Friday fun.

The Boardwalk is a different dynamic, Bernardi said. It feels more like an amusement park. Where this will become more of a private club for the serious gamer. And have fun too.

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