Play Pinball in Indianapolis, Indiana

I just discovered your blog. I’m a pinball and arcade lover in Bloomington. I think we may have exchanged e-mails a while back about Joust 2 bezel artwork. I passed it on to Mr. Do! Hopefully we’ll be able to get to it soon.

Your Atari Football sideart is incredible.

Keep up the great blog. I’m now a regular reader.

Thanks for the comment. In business they say you have to ‘toot your own horn’, which doesn’t come natural to me. I forget who I have or haven’t told about Rotheblog.com – arcade game blog, I forget sometimes that not everyone knows.

I am always looking for original content. I know you guys post updates on all Mame artwork on the Mame forums, but if you every had any piece of arcade artwork you would like to spotlight only on my arcade game blog, I would be grateful.

Thanks for the info about pinball in Indy! I wanted to add one I played last week, so I know it is still there. It’s the Elvira machine and is located at Mo and Johnny’s at 54th and College Ave. Way in the back hidden in a corner by the pool tables, but still in good shape and as much fun to play as I remembered. (Though, I seem to remember another Elvira game that had little plastic creatures that bounced up and down as Elvira said “Let’s Boogie.”) This is not that machine, but still pretty cool with a Spider Spinner on the glass and Terror from the Crate. Lots of cool Elvira “come ons” while you play!

@Kevin,

Thanks for dropping by and leaving a note, and sorry I didn’t reply sooner. Did you happen to take some digital photos of the Elvira pinball there in that Indianapolis location? It would help for when I add the listing…

My son and I played the Elvira at Mo and Johnny’s; it needs several repairs.

That is too bad, did you happen to take a look at the operator sticker to see who services the game?

UPDATE! Sharky’s Shootout at Post Road Rec is super busted. I went in to play last week and balls kept popping out (I played for free), like 3 at a time which can be too much weight for the plunger. Also, a ramp detached and was just floating around freely in there.
Hopefully they will fix it soon. If anyone is around there they can probably get a free game for practice only. But really, it sucks.
By the way, thanks for this website. I haven’t taken full advantage of it yet, but I will and if there’s anything else new at a location I’ll let you know.

That is too bad. I can’t imagine they have someone on staff that can service pinball machines…

I believe I had heard that the Elvira at Mo & Johnny’s is no longer there, as of just recently as well. One of the things with a list, especially with operators and machines on location, it doesn’t take long for it to have some decay.

I just made the rounds to a bunch of those locations today, and only a few of them still have their games.

I agree with you about the pinball location database, but there is another (and in my opinion) better database, the Pinball Locator at http://www.pinballrebel.com/locator/index.php. I’m pretty sure it’s being actively developed. One big advantage it has over the other site is the ability to do radius searches around ZIP codes, so you don’t have to search Indianapolis, Fishers, Carmel, etc, individually. It has a couple places you don’t have listed, like the Sawmill Saloon.

I have been jonesing some pinball for a few weeks and was quite excited to play the three tables at Great Times tonight.

Bubkiss. No pinball at Great Times or at Expo Bowl next door.

I’m hoping to hit Doc Pinball’s (docpinball.com) sometime over the next few weeks. I may just have to get one for myself.

If you’re desperate for pinball, drive an hour north to Main Street Amusements in Lafayette. They’ve got a great collection of 20+ machines ranging from EMs to new Stern titles, all very well maintained by the owner. I had a blast there. Here’s a review from Pinball News: http://www.pinballnews.com/sites/mainstreetamusements/index.html

Or better still, head two states to your right on April 11-14 for Pinburgh in Pittsburgh. The tournament is full but there are 250 other machines you can drop your tokens into. Plus you can see some awesome competitive pinball and top tier player finals on Thursday and Sunday.

Good news. I work for a bread company and one of my stops is Robbys Pub on Southport Rd near 37. I mentioned to them that there is hardly any place that has pinball machines anymore. With that said, their ears perked up and thought it was a great idea to get a table and asked if I had any ideas of what tables to get. Well I gave them a few titles and with that in the next week and a half they will have a machine in. Im not to sure what one but I was very high on them getting the Stern ACDC machine. I will keep you posted.

Josh » Come back and provide an update when you know more. AC/DC is an amazing pin, and I don’t say that too often being an arcade guy first. Hopefully that ‘perked’ up reaction materializes into a new location.

Dude! Thanks for the update. Hey, if you stop back, I can tell you where they can get one of those Stern AC/DCs — at least they could have last Saturday when I stopped by Doc Pinball’s in Greenfield for the very first time.

I suspect I’m preaching to the choir hear but, as a novice, Doc was SUPER friendly to me and had a crazy big spread of pins… and some jukeboxes… and some puck bowlers… and even a few PinMAMEs.

I just left Robbys on my delivery and they just got in the Star Wars Trilogy by Sega . I was told several people have already been playing and if it works out they will get one more. I know where I will be tonight!

Josh — thanks again for the heads-up. I checked up on Robby’s Pub on Friday, 5 April myself. There was a gentleman sitting at the machine, not playing, who warned me that the table didn’t work and that they would be getting another table in from Shaffer Distributing soon. Having made a special trip and having already gotten change for a $5 I decided I would waste a few quarters.

It works. It has some issues: the coin slot only seems to recognize coins most of the time (it still takes the coin, mind you) and the left-middle playfield feature X-Wing has a jacked up magnet that grabs your ball if you come too near it.

Coins: Use the left coin slot and feed the coins slowly. When following these two rules, I had no problems.

X-Wing Feature: If it grabs your ball, chill out for a few. The machine goes through its cycle two or three times and then shoots out another ball for you to play with.

Level: It is not. It dresses to the right so expect your balls to drain slightly towards the plunger-side if it’s rolling back slowly.

All-in-all, I was quite happy with the play of the machine, the friendliness of the patrons next to me playing a Silver Strikes Bowling game, and the cheap domestics Robby’s has cold and ready.

Okay, now my turn to share.

His and Hers Restaurant
2133 Shelby St
Indianapolis, IN 46203

Starship Troopers pinball in very playable condition. It could use a clean-up but, other than some slightly weak flippers (the two main flippers – the smaller aux flipper is strong), the game plays GREAT.

$0.50 per play. $1.00 for three plays. Generous on the ball saves and the multi-balls. I played on one credit nearly until my food was up.

Interesting crowd as well of what I suspect to be mostly regulars. My kind of place.

Do note they close at 4 PM everyday. This is a breakfast and lunch place.

Enjoy.

sWManIndy » His and Hers used to have an Addams Family. I believe it is operated by Boyd Music still…

As a side note, I wasn’t holding out on you with the His and Hers / Starship Troopers info. I JUST discovered it maybe three hours ago.

I was going to try to swing by this weekend to Robbys but had a slot car race to do. They told me that Shaffer is aware of the problems and is either going to come out and fix it or get another machine. In the mean time, I do believe they already are looking for another machine to add on to the Star Wars one.

There’s a slot car place now that Indy Slots has converted to RC?

yes its called Fast Tracks in Avon and they have the oval track.

I’m new to pinball.
Last summer I purchased a Six Million Dollar Man and have restored it.
Now I’m looking for pinball to play around town.

Emporium 31 South of Greenwood has a flea market with a booth that sells machines. They are set up to play too. .50 or .25
Last week there were 4 machines there.

Today I played Dale Jr. at Incredible Pizza near Greenwood Park Mall.

I heard about an arcade show in Louisville in about 4 weeks.
It sounds fun.

Jeffrey,
I went to check out Emporium 31 and found the 4 machines you were talking about. I played all 3 and found them in good condition. Rescue 911 was my favorite. You can stop the ball very easy to aim for shot and that helps because this game is tight and you can very easily drain the ball. All in all a good way to start off my vacation.

A few weeks ago, they had a Big Guns machine instead of the Rescue 911. It was very good. It must have sold.
I thought the other two older ones were a little slow compared to my Six Million Dollar Man.

Do you know of anywhere else to go to play pinball?

The Austin Powers machine is back at Tibbs Drive-in. I was there over the weekend. I didn’t have the opportunity to play it so I don’t know of it’s condition. I didn’t see the Simpsons machine.