Pinball And Pie Pair Up At Family-Friendly Arcade In Arlington

ARLINGTON, VA — Pie and pinball. It's sounds so good that you wonder why no one had ever thought of it before.

Thankfully, Fred Freimark and Jason Good, co-founders of the The Pinball Basement, did think of it and opened a pinball arcade inside the ACME Pie Company at 2803 Columbia Pike.

"He collects pinball machines and I've played competitively for like five years," Good told Patch recently. "We got the idea when he ran out of space in his house. That's why we call it The Pinball Basement, because he had 18 machines and ran out of space."

Friemark and Good reached out to Sol Schott, owner of ACME Pie, and pitched the idea of putting nine pinball machines along one wall in the front of his restaurant.

When the two entrepreneurs were putting together their business plan, one of their concerns was that every other place in Northern Virginia that had a pinball machine was in a bar.

"One of our hesitations of going in here was there's no alcohol," Good said. "We thought that would hurt us and it's actually been a strength. A lot of families come and say, 'Oh, it's so nice to come to an arcade that doesn't have alcohol, because you have to worry about drunk people being there.'"

Although Friemark played pinball when he was young, he didn't buy his first machine until about 20 years ago.

Good has a similar story. He played when he was a kid, but it wasn't until five years ago that he got serious and began competing in tournaments.

"When you play competitively, you learn all of the machines, the rule sets, the layouts and the quirks," he said. "You become very knowledgeable of the terminology, the parts and all that."

These days when people talk about children playing games its either a card game like Pokémon or something on a GameBoy, like Super Mario Land.

The pinball industry died in the late 1990s, which was followed by a 10-year period in which most of the pinball machine manufacturers went out of business, according to Good.

In recent years, there has been a resurgence in the release of new pinball machines, many of them based on popular properties like Jaws, Jurassic Park and Deadpool. But pinball's decade-long absence from the public's awareness did have an effect.

Many children grew up without ever haven't seen a pinball game before let alone knowing how to play one.

"They're immediately drawn in because it's cool, right?" Good said. "Then they're like, 'What is this?' And I'm like, 'It's just these two buttons.' Then they start playing and they realize it's deep, but it's very simple, which they're not used to. They're looking at it like there's got to be more to this than just pressing these two buttons."

One of the gratifying experiences Good and Freimark have witnessed are father-daughter or father-son bonding moments, when a parent brings their child to the arcade to introduce them to a game that was important to them when they were young.

"We've seen a lot of that, especially on the weekends," Freimark said. "Parents with their kids showing them pinball for the first time."

The Pinball Basement is open from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., on Wednesday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday, and 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday. Those interested in booking extended hours and parties are asked to email thepinballbasement@gmail.com.

Games are operated via cards rather than coins or tokens. A monthly subscription is available for $40 or a day pass is $10.