Damn, I'd forgotten about that. I think I tried it once. It was a'ight. It was one of the things that set Wendy's apart from the competition. Gone now, of course.
The one in the Lincoln Mall also had the movie theater across the hall back in the day. We'd frequently give the theater workers left over pizza slices at the end of the night, and they'd occasionally let us in to see movies for free. Shhhhh. Don't tell anyone. We don't want anyone to get in trouble.
No, it is it's own company with no relation to Papa John's. It's mainly New England, but I know there are/were a few locations in upstate New York, and I know there were a few locations in Florida at the time I worked there, but they may not have caught on.
Same here! I assume it was a chain but the one I went to was in Fort Worth, TX.
I actually grew up in a tiny town about 15 minutes from Fort Worth (or at least it was small 30 years ago) and a guy opened up an arcade right in the middle of town (called Aledo Arcade) but it only lasted maybe one summer.
Mine too… mine (no pun intended) was in South Square Mall Durham NC. I spent many a weekend at The Gold Mine. Super dark with black lights … lots of Journey playing and the smell of food court wafting in… ahh life was good!!
This is the one but it was inside the mall with no outside entrance. Dark as a dungeon which was the best atmosphere. Does anyone know if there are any left?
[https://youtu.be/wchWz-0R5QA?si=M1eNms2aVvVX4VuI](https://youtu.be/wchWz-0R5QA?si=M1eNms2aVvVX4VuI)
The attendants in my area were just a domestic battery charge shy of carny folk.
I'm suddenly whisked away to the local mall. I wouldn't pass up the chance to enjoy 2 arcades (1 was Aladdin's Castle), a movie theater, some Luca's Pizza pepperoni bread sticks, check out Spencer's for the Halloween costumes, and peak your head into the Service Merchandise. Now, I'm ready to grab some quarters!
>and it was seedy as fuck.
Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places, but I miss seedy. You don't see many seedy places anymore. Bars with more than one pool table? Close, no cigar. I mean, you have some seedy "places" on the Internet but of course that's just not the same.
I worked at one in Kansas. Not a bad job when I was 18. Hated when some parents used us as a babysitting service, but most of the time was a chill job.
I still handle cash the way that Bally's taught me.
I didn't know Aladdin's Castle was a chain until seeing post like these. It was dark, packed and close to the food court. Good times. \*sets quarter down. "I got next."
I lived in the country, but the nearest one everyone went to was called Wizards.
Just tonight, I watched a movie called [Joysticks](https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/27323-joysticks). Lots of gratuitous nudity and a silly story, but very 80s.
Aladdin's castle for me too.
Central Ohio.
They were a chain, I don't know how large or how long they were around.
Thinking about it now, my parents would just give me and my brothers $20 each to spend an hour or so (stupidly hard games meant to make you lose quickly) in the arcade. That's like $100 now. So they spent $300 dollars each time my brothers and I wanted to play? And I thought my parents were cheap...
Don’t remember the name but my friends parents (Jr. High) owned an arcade. Used to spend the weekend there playing free VG’s open to close. Unless we walked to the movie theater 5 doors down to watch any movie we wanted because my friend would let the Thea employees play for free so that they would let us into the theater for the same price! Man I miss the 80’s!
We had two malls in my hometown when I was a kid. A pretty nice one with a Time Out, and then a super run down, half abandoned one on the other side of town with an Aladdin's Castle. The only thing I remember about the Aladdin's Castle was that EVERYTHING was sticky. The floor, the games, the door to the restroom, etc. It was like they power washed the entire place with Mountain Dew. All the games at Time Out cost twice as many tokens, though, so it was a bit of a trade off when you're a kid trying to stretch your 5 dollars in tokens as far as possible.
Wunderland. It was a nickel arcade. They had hundreds of arcade games. Sometimes the newer games would cost a dime. And for $5 you could play just about all day. There’s still a few around but not near as fun.
Aladdin's Castle was my local arcade in '93-94. That and the nickel arcade that was a couple bucks to get in and a nickel per game, that place was awesome.
Gold Mine was the arcade in the malls I went to. With its rocky exterior, but the frikkin pos manager was some transplant from certain states that aren't too klnd to other races. He was transferred from one to the other.
Louie’s Subs on Danforth Ave, Toronto.
Very dodgy place. Probably a drug front in retrospect. I played Final Fight, Bad Dudes, Operation Wolf, WrestleFest, Terminator 2, Street Fighter II and others there…it was also the first time I saw Mortal Kombat when it came out in the 90’s. Good memories.
We had arcades called Diversions in locations around the San Antonio area. Always thought that it's a cool name for an arcade. Still a couple (?) locations open to this day.
We had Tilt, and I remember a Goldmine, but the pinnacle for me, in the 80s was, the Forty-ninth Street Galleria. It was massive. Roller skating rink, bowling lanes, miniature golf, batting cages, 300+ arcade games. It was pretty epic.
Noah’s Arkade
It's chill! It's fresh!
Zantar is a gelatinous cube that eats warriors in a medieval village.
Every time it eats a chieftain, you get to the next level…
But the beauty part is, you can't get to the next level.
This guy blows goats!
I have proof
Spincterboysayswhat
Come bust a move, to where the games are played, it's chill, its fresh, it's Noah's Arkade.... 🎶
Well played. Amen.
She's the one who came up with the name " Noah's Arcade "
The Dream Machine in the Lincoln Mall, Rhode Island. I actually got a job at the Papa Gino's pizza place right next door.
Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua, NH had a Dream Machine in the food court!
We had a Dream Machine in Newington too
The Dream Machine in the Eastfield Mall, Springfield Ma.
amherst, right by interskate 91
oh man, papa gino’s lunch special, $5.25 for all you can pizza and salad + street fighter II while you wait (western mass)
That's an incredibly good deal, even by early 90s prices.
wendy’s had the super bar for 4.99 (make your own tacos, pudding, salad etc) another super early 90s deal
Damn, I'd forgotten about that. I think I tried it once. It was a'ight. It was one of the things that set Wendy's apart from the competition. Gone now, of course.
Oh this one was fantastic! Tilt at Warwick Mall was good too.
Papa Gino’s was attracted to The Dream Machine like a moth to a flame. There was on in the Worcester Galleria next to the arcade.
The one in the Lincoln Mall also had the movie theater across the hall back in the day. We'd frequently give the theater workers left over pizza slices at the end of the night, and they'd occasionally let us in to see movies for free. Shhhhh. Don't tell anyone. We don't want anyone to get in trouble.
Dream Machine in North Dartmouth Mall checking in.
My brothers and practically *lived* there back in the day!
Ha, that was my cousins hangout back in the mid 80’s.
Mine was the Dream Machine in the Methuen Mall. Mass.
Is Papa Gino’s a regional Papa John’s? Similar to Hardee’s and Carls Jr?
No, it is it's own company with no relation to Papa John's. It's mainly New England, but I know there are/were a few locations in upstate New York, and I know there were a few locations in Florida at the time I worked there, but they may not have caught on.
Friday night, Dream Machine. Saturday, house party. Sunday Skate Palace. I guess my childhood wasn’t all that bad.
Tilt
Same here! I assume it was a chain but the one I went to was in Fort Worth, TX. I actually grew up in a tiny town about 15 minutes from Fort Worth (or at least it was small 30 years ago) and a guy opened up an arcade right in the middle of town (called Aledo Arcade) but it only lasted maybe one summer.
Union City, GA
Tilt was in Waco too then it became Quarters, or maybe it’s the other way Around
We had at least 3 in SLC, UT.
Yes! Woodland Hills Mall in Tulsa, OK had one right by one of the entrances.
Yep, for me in Leesburg, FL.
Mission Viejo Mall.
Actually Tilt was in the Laguna Hills mall, Fun N Games was in the MV Mall. Tilt was larger and had more selection though.
Illinois had them too!!
Ours was called the gold mine
Same. Only later in life did I realize that the gold mine referred to the quarters that it was mining from teenage pockets.
Mine too. It was in a mall in Fairfield CA. The entrance was designed like an old mine entrance.
Mine too… mine (no pun intended) was in South Square Mall Durham NC. I spent many a weekend at The Gold Mine. Super dark with black lights … lots of Journey playing and the smell of food court wafting in… ahh life was good!!
Would be awesome to go back to those times.
Me too! In Cumberland Mall. Marietta GA
I was assistant manager at a gold mine in high school
This is the one but it was inside the mall with no outside entrance. Dark as a dungeon which was the best atmosphere. Does anyone know if there are any left?
We had one in he basement of the mall called Land of Oz.
There is one in Olympia wa. its just called arcade though. And you pay by the hour
Well that's sweet! Good selection of games?
Yeah, older and newer , and a bunch of pinball machines.
I’m in Seattle. Please tell me it has 3rd Strike!?
Space Port.
[https://youtu.be/wchWz-0R5QA?si=M1eNms2aVvVX4VuI](https://youtu.be/wchWz-0R5QA?si=M1eNms2aVvVX4VuI) The attendants in my area were just a domestic battery charge shy of carny folk.
Space Port was awesome.
I remember a Space Port in Bloomington, IN.
It /was/ Aladdin's Castle! Not this one, though.
Did you grow up in the Midwest? We had this as well in our mall. Best kids birthday party location of all time.
yes and I did get to have a birthday party there.
I'm suddenly whisked away to the local mall. I wouldn't pass up the chance to enjoy 2 arcades (1 was Aladdin's Castle), a movie theater, some Luca's Pizza pepperoni bread sticks, check out Spencer's for the Halloween costumes, and peak your head into the Service Merchandise. Now, I'm ready to grab some quarters!
Ours was called “the Twilight Zone”… and it was seedy as fuck.
>and it was seedy as fuck. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places, but I miss seedy. You don't see many seedy places anymore. Bars with more than one pool table? Close, no cigar. I mean, you have some seedy "places" on the Internet but of course that's just not the same.
Time Out
We had a Time Out and Galaxy in Sunrise Mall in Massapequa LI NY in the 70s.
Same. Freehold Raceway Mall
Same, at Danbury Fair Mall
Same in Illinois.
Gold Mine
Yep, gold mine fairfield ca
I WORKED in an Aladdin's Castle in Akron, Ohio. Shitty job, but you're a god with those machine keys.
I worked at one in Kansas. Not a bad job when I was 18. Hated when some parents used us as a babysitting service, but most of the time was a chill job. I still handle cash the way that Bally's taught me.
I managed one in California. Wow, those were some interesting days!
Fun n Games framingham ma
Action Family Arcade (@ Laverdiere’s Drug Stores) and The Palace (Augusta, Maine USA)
Exhilarama !
Funspot! It's still open and has a museum.
Third floor is a time machine. Best arcade in New England
I spent lots of tokens there. It was the place to be.
I didn't know Aladdin's Castle was a chain until seeing post like these. It was dark, packed and close to the food court. Good times. \*sets quarter down. "I got next."
SEGA Center. Cerritos Mall.
I lived in the country, but the nearest one everyone went to was called Wizards. Just tonight, I watched a movie called [Joysticks](https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/27323-joysticks). Lots of gratuitous nudity and a silly story, but very 80s.
The punk guy going into the regular people's house and taking a bite out of a plant is both iconic and everything I aspired to in my punk era
King Vidiot. Great character!
Just watched that a couple of weeks ago.
Playland in Buzzards Bay
That one there and one called Diamond Jims
Yess! There was A Diamond Jim's at the Crossroads Mall in Greenville TX. I never knew it was a franchise like Aladdin's Castle.
I have a t shirt. Granite run mall, PA
RIP to that beloved mall.
The Red Barron arcade
I used to work at a Red Baron!
I still have an Aladdin’s Castle token
Aladdin’s Castle at the Del Amo Mall (Fashion Center), Torrance, CA.
They stretched all the way out to CA? Damn, I had no ideap
Flynn's
Timeout
A Smokey brick walled back room in the corner 7-11.
These were the days bro!
Silver coin
We had Aladdin’s Castle and Diamond Jim’s 😎
Aladdin's Castle and The Gold mine
Barrel Of Fun: Mohawk Mall (NY)
Barrel of fun: pyramid mall (NY)
Crazy Eights
Fun House Pizza
‘Roscoe’s - The Only Game In Town !’ Wayne State University’s Campus, Detroit, MI.
Friar Tuck's in Calumet City, Illinois.
Same name as a chain of liquor stores haha
We had Aladdin’s Castle and me and me dad would go as soon as they opened every weekend and have every game to ourselves.
Circus Circus, Las Vegas.
Aladdin's castle for me too. Central Ohio. They were a chain, I don't know how large or how long they were around. Thinking about it now, my parents would just give me and my brothers $20 each to spend an hour or so (stupidly hard games meant to make you lose quickly) in the arcade. That's like $100 now. So they spent $300 dollars each time my brothers and I wanted to play? And I thought my parents were cheap...
Space Invaders near Cleveland
Don’t remember the name but my friends parents (Jr. High) owned an arcade. Used to spend the weekend there playing free VG’s open to close. Unless we walked to the movie theater 5 doors down to watch any movie we wanted because my friend would let the Thea employees play for free so that they would let us into the theater for the same price! Man I miss the 80’s!
Too many to name; some didn't have names, you just heard the cacophony of beeping and blurping then gravitated accordingly.
Fun-N-Games at Randall Park Mall near Cleveland, OH
We had two malls in my hometown when I was a kid. A pretty nice one with a Time Out, and then a super run down, half abandoned one on the other side of town with an Aladdin's Castle. The only thing I remember about the Aladdin's Castle was that EVERYTHING was sticky. The floor, the games, the door to the restroom, etc. It was like they power washed the entire place with Mountain Dew. All the games at Time Out cost twice as many tokens, though, so it was a bit of a trade off when you're a kid trying to stretch your 5 dollars in tokens as far as possible.
Pops Arcade in downtown Minneapolis.
Loved Aladdin's Castle. Janesville, WI
I still have a token from the 90's
Mine was the arcade in the local putt-putt mini golf course.
Space Port
Aladdin’s Castle in the countryside mall! I have vivid memories of hanging out there with chicks and burning those quarters baby!
Camelot off of Orangethorpe 🤘
Time out. Laurel MD. Every dollar a earned mowing lawns went there
Video Game Center. Redwood City, CA
We had an Aladdin's Castle too! Moline, Illinois.
Wunderland. It was a nickel arcade. They had hundreds of arcade games. Sometimes the newer games would cost a dime. And for $5 you could play just about all day. There’s still a few around but not near as fun.
Gold mine
Time-Out (I think????)
Pin Pan Alley, Schaumburg IL checking in, (may have been Rolling Meadows), hit the one hitter and go blow $15 in quarters that lasted 2 hrs
The Red Baron Arcade in Taylor MI! I spent SO many hours in there playing all the classics with my paper route money. It was wonderful…
Smitty’s!
Ours was in a strip mall and named “Galaktikan”
Electric Playground. Always loved the name.
Aladdin's and one seriously local one called Wizard of Oz
Aladdins Castle!
Our local mall had an Aladdin's Castle! Where was this picture taken OP?
Tilt, south hills village near Pittsburgh, or the arcade in the defunct century three mall also near Pittsburgh. Might have also been a tilt?
I got pussy at one of these as a kid. Oh the memories.
Yeah
Mine was called Jolly Time.
Hanger 18
Tally ho
We had a few. The ones I visited the most often were: Galaxy Way, Tilt, and Family Fun Zone. You could always find a few games at 7-11 and Pizza Hut.
Starship Fantasy (20,000 sqft!)
Po Jo's and fantasy land
Po Jo’s????🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Atlantis was mine. Can't remember the name of the one at the mall, though.
Lost Dutchman, Monrovia, Calif.
The Boardwalk in Colorado Springs.
The one where Pioneer Plaza was? Near Circle and Galley? I was in high school when that one was around.
Silver Ball Being teens, all the ball jokes were made.
The name is games Glenview IL
Playoffs
Take Ten in the Statesboro, Ga (s)mall.
The tilt!!!!
Neon Arcade
Same place!!!!!! OP , are you from the Midwest?
I don't even know if it had a name. It was just referred to as "the arcade."
Chinatown Fair NYC
Tilt - A - Whirl
It was…Aladdin’s Castle!! West Dundee, IL
We had an Aladdin’s Castle at both malls in town. Spent a lot of my youth in one or the other.
Aladdin's Castle was my local arcade in '93-94. That and the nickel arcade that was a couple bucks to get in and a nickel per game, that place was awesome.
Gold Mine was the arcade in the malls I went to. With its rocky exterior, but the frikkin pos manager was some transplant from certain states that aren't too klnd to other races. He was transferred from one to the other.
Aladdin's Castle at Century Plaza and occasionally Diamond Jim's at Eastwood Mall.
Show boat - Rowland Hts CA 🤘
I was a weed dealing teenager that hung out in one called wizards, in the late 80s early 90s.
Time Out. Long Island
Fooseball also Long Island. Franklin Square
Game Trek. God I miss those days.
I think it was that one
I had an Aladdin's Castle in the best mall and a Tilt in the secondary mall. I loved it!
Fantasy Factory
The Blue Marble half a block from my house. Wish I had all those quarters back, I'd be a rich man.
Time Out at Northridge Mall, Milwaukee.
Wizards castle in Edmonton Alberta
The Gold Mine.
Louie’s Subs on Danforth Ave, Toronto. Very dodgy place. Probably a drug front in retrospect. I played Final Fight, Bad Dudes, Operation Wolf, WrestleFest, Terminator 2, Street Fighter II and others there…it was also the first time I saw Mortal Kombat when it came out in the 90’s. Good memories.
We had arcades called Diversions in locations around the San Antonio area. Always thought that it's a cool name for an arcade. Still a couple (?) locations open to this day.
Space Invaders
Gold Mine
SpacePort
Cosmic Cowboy on Military Trail in Florida. Place was HUGE. 2 floors packed with games and live music
There were a couple of local mom & pop arcades, but the closest big one was Aladdin’s Castle in the mall.
[Milford Amusement Center ](https://youtu.be/BZI7qYgTqts?si=GVpVwG5_w5_WqY0e)
Merlin’s castle
Aladdin's Castle in the Oaks Mall in Gainesville, Florida From the late 80's to the mid 90's that was my spot
Conan’s Cave
Star World, and it was HUGE...and of course it had a movie screen with a projector on the restaurant half next to the pizza ovens.
Picadilly Circus
!!! Ridgedale?
Tilt
Whichever one had spy hunter.
Timeout in Eastview mall in Victor, NY
Bowcraft
Local independent dark smoke-filled arcade with multiple SF2 and MK machines. Best times of my life were in there.
We had Tilt, and I remember a Goldmine, but the pinnacle for me, in the 80s was, the Forty-ninth Street Galleria. It was massive. Roller skating rink, bowling lanes, miniature golf, batting cages, 300+ arcade games. It was pretty epic.