In Rogers, nestled in an unincorporated part of town, there’s a place where flashing lights, ringing bells and the mechanical clatter of pinball machines create a bustling, nostalgic scene.
Tonight, we find ourselves at StationBreak. This is the game room for NWA Pinball, a nonprofit social club for pinball enthusiasts of all ages. At its helm is Brian Weissmann, a longtime collector and restorer of pinball machines, who has built a space that’s drawing players from across the region.
On a typical Friday night from 7:30-11:30, dozens of people fill the game room, competing in tournaments or just enjoying the classic machines. Weissmann says the magic for first-time visitors is in their reactions as they walk through the front doors.
“When people come here for the first time, the look on their face when they first walk in, they open that door, they go, ‘It's just amazing,’” Weissmann said. “Because they're seeing all the lights and the sounds, and it's– I don't see it anymore because I'm so used to it. But when, like, when you first walked in, that's probably how you felt, like, ‘Oh, wow.’ You didn't expect it.”
Perhaps the most surprising element of StationBreak is its location. The game room is in Weissmann’s backyard.
“So, being that we're unincorporated, not to deal with the city of Rogers, we have the freedom to do things like this,” he said. “And we checked everything. We did have problems with Stern Pinball.”
Stern Pinball Inc. is “the oldest and largest designer and manufacturer of arcade-quality pinball games on the planet,” according to their website. They’re still releasing new machines every year, and they’re a big part of NWA Pinball. In fact, Weissmann says his organization is part of the Stern Army, making them official brand ambassadors. However, membership came with stipulations.
“We had to be a real location to be on their program, to be on the Stern Army,” Weissmann said. “That big TV hanging up in the back corner when you walk in has all the scores on it. You can't get that if you're a home. And we had to prove that this and this, and they wanted a different address on that building. So, I had to go about to get that different address on that building, and then I had to call the state of Arkansas and change my business license, and everything reflects that address, other than my house address, it's a different address. So that was kind of a challenge.”
But because NWA Pinball is part of the Stern Army, Weissmann can host official launch parties for new games. Not that he necessarily needs anymore– His collection currently includes over two dozen machines, many of them special or premium editions– And that’s not even including machines from the club’s other founders who rotate their games in StationBreak.
Nevertheless…
“The next game coming out that's actually on the assembly line right now is Dungeon and Dragons,” Weissmann said. “And we have one coming. Corey– who's the tall guy who's walking around in there right now– he bought one. It will be– it's coming to be delivered here, brand new, in the box. We'll unbox it. We'll have a launch party. It’ll stay here for a little bit, and then eventually, I'll go back to Corey's house, cool. And then, over the next couple of months, I'll probably come back here for a while.”
Weissmann is originally from Chicago. You may not know this, but the Chicagoland area has a history of being the center of pinball manufacturing and a hub for pinball culture. And when Weissmann moved here, he found himself in a pinball desert.
“When I moved here, we had over 200 pinball machines,” he said. “I had pinball machines in storage at friends' houses, our basement in Chicago, and I sold a lot of them. And I brought 78 games with me when I moved to Arkansas on four different trucks. When I came to Arkansas, I discovered that Arkansas was a dead state to buy used pinball machines. And you can't really buy used pinball machines, and when you do find them, they sell for outrageous prices. In Chicago, they're more of a dime a dozen. You could get good deals on them, but not so much. In Arkansas, of all 50 states, Arkansas has probably won the least friendly to the pinball hobby.”
In Chicago, Weissmann witnessed the industry evolve from dying to a thriving niche market, with prices for new, high-end machines climbing as high as $13,000. Although, Weissmann’s love for pinball isn’t really about playing the games.
“It's actually fixing them,” Weissmann said. “I went to school Purdue, and I went to school for electrical engineering. So, I know the electronics, and I could fix some of even the newer stuff. But my expertise with pinball machines is really the Bailey Williams board sets of the 80s and 90s. I know the Stern stuff. I know the other games now, but I'm a real expert from, I would say, 1980 to 1998, you know, 18 years of generations with Bailey and Williams, and I could fix Capcom and Gottlieb. I don't like to, and I stock parts for all of them. I have probably about $20,000 of parts, extra boards, and flipper mechanisms, and lights, and coils and so on, just to fix games. And especially when people bring games over, I usually have the parts to fix them.”
JT: How'd you how'd you find that out, that you liked fixing them so much?
“I like to tinker with electronics,” he said. “When I went to school for electrical engineering, when I got out, I was a retail store manager for a large company who's now out of business, but I always did the electronic part on the side. And I started to do pinball in 1998, and I had a buddy that ran a pinball store. And he kind of showed me the tricks of fixing a pinball machine. I said, ‘Gee, you know, this is the stuff I learned in college,’ and all the resistors and transistors and the TTL logic– that’s what they called it back then– I know. So I could just fix games. And over the years, I've become quite good at it.”
But keeping the game room running isn’t just about passion, as there’s not enough of a pinball market to maintain Weissmann’s pinball repair hobby. It’s more about sustainability and growing NWA Pinball’s community. As a nonprofit, funding for normal operations comes from membership fees and tournament entries, with a long-term goal of using proceeds to purchase one new machine a year.
“The object is, really, I want to grow to a point where, since I no longer buy, fix and sell machines like I used to in Chicago, I don't have the opportunity to buy broken games in Arkansas because I can't find them,” he said. “I'd like to take some of that money we make on Friday nights and buy one machine a year. So that's kind of my goal. You know, there's a maintenance cost, like I told you, that Guardians of the Galaxy, the one mechanism doesn't move correctly, and that board is like 60 bucks. So my club money will buy that part to fix it. But after tonight, there'll probably be one or two machines that have a miscellaneous something wrong with them. And sometimes the part is $5, and sometimes the part is $100, so you're always fixing and repairing stuff.”
JT: Once you kind of get out of that, maybe put some more away. Would you be able to buy a new machine?
“Yeah, right,” he said. “And right now, I think we have about $3,000 on the side, and that's our money to buy the next machine.”
Word about the pinball haven has spread, thanks in part to social media and platforms like Pinball Map, an app that helps traveling enthusiasts locate machines. Weissmann says he’s seen steady growth in membership, which now sits at around 150 members and continues to climb each week.
“I asked people who come here for their first time, how did they find us,” he said. “And some people will say Facebook, but a lot of people actually say Pinball Map. And Pinball Map is a free app that you can load on your phone, your smartphone. And what's nice about Pinball Map is, if you're a traveling person and you go to New York, you could take your free app, Pinball app, hit your locator, and say you're at the hotel, and it pops up a little map. And you say, ‘Oh, gee, a mile away is this machine,’ or a mile away is this arcade over here, or this bar that has five games. So it kind of tells you that. So once we got on the Pinball Map, which was another story in itself because you can't be on the pinball map if you're a house. So that was another obstacle we had to come over. People found us. Because mainly when Walmart or Tyson or JB Hunt has board meetings or outings where people come here from other states, they have nothing to do on Friday night, so they look at Pinball Map, they find us, and they come.”
NWA Pinball also hosts private events, corporate gatherings, and even wedding parties, offering a unique venue for celebrations. For Weissmann, though, the true reward is seeing people come together over a shared love of pinball in an area where they couldn’t before.
“I probably, in hindsight, I probably would have picked a different area if I knew this was so much of a pinball desert,” Weissmann said. “But, my collection here is really dwarfed compared to other buddies of mine in Chicago. But I'm a rock star here. In Chicago I'd be small potatoes. I would have buddies them over. It's like, ‘That's all you got?’ You know, you have 27 pinball machines, you know, they would laugh at me. They would have 100. And here I feel that I'm really bringing joy to people who come here for the first time.”
With continued growth and a new Dungeons and Dragons pinball machine on the horizon, the community at NWA Pinball shows no signs of slowing down. Weissmann says those interested in learning more should stay tuned to their Facebook page for updates and more information.
