Crazy Pinz Entertainment Center — Attraction in Fort Wayne

Arcade: 1 of 5 stars

Justification: largely a redemption arcade, very few games that are traditional arcade games. That's fine, until you zone in on the pricing on the machines added to ticket to prize value is insanely distorted compared to similar venues throughout the United States. Example, they have a half moon Elaut Wizard of Oz running with the newer Emerald City cards but all the old version badging. Meaning, you have no idea what cards to collect, what their values are in a set of individually. The redemption center staff also has no idea. It has the standard low level bonuses, ranging from 12:1 to 15:1 at 5 swipes. Fine, normal and expected pricing at the lowest level but not unusual. The absolute rage is that a single swipe is effectively $3.30. Even at the 100% prebuy bonus, that's $1.65 per swipe, which is the absolute most expensive of any place I've seen for an Elaut pusher. The floor space for the arcade was actually a very small percent of the whole, I'd suggest if this is a primary reason for your visit, you try someplace else.

Overall price to value: 2 of 5

Justification: you can use the website to prebuy arcade cards at 100% bonus. Arcade cards can be used to fund mini golf (110 tokens per player, so about $11 without prebuy discount, not sure if bonus tokens are permitted to be used for attractions or restricted only to arcade use)

The food and bar pricing seemed reasonable for an entertainment complex like this. Unsure if quality, but the overall appearance was good. GoKarts were fairly standard low speed kid level, but I didn't see the adult karts running to judge them. They weren't really overpriced. Bowling pricing was consistent with other venues such as this the lanes seemed clean and well kept.

Faculty was clean. Machines were mostly in good working order, a few were shut down, one was not dispensing tickets properly (right most water gun fun, winning from that station raise a visit to the redemption room to gain a ticket, ripe for abuse, definitely close the position or fix the dispenser).

Once we had quickly burned through $120 in tokens (technically $240 in virtual, card based tokens that is), we were left feeling unimpressed and unfulfilled. Frankly, cheated. The redemption center's best prizes were basically unachievable at 100,000 tickets or more. They included an Xbox OneX, a Nintendo switch, and maybe a PS5. There was also a selection of jerseys for local sports teams at about 40,000. The rest of the redemption center was primarily what you would see at any entertainment complex such as this.

I was warned by locals who had previously been to crazy pinz that the pricing was out of touch and that the center was nicely appointed but the pricing was punitive. I would have been better off at one of the local arcades if I was interested in the arcade experience; which was my primary reason for the visit (revised: went to a mini golf center on Speedway after this experience, spent 1/3 the money and had 5x the fun).

I have no qualms with the staff they were all friendly and mostly knowledgeable about the facility. They were able to guide me in the right direction they asked questions and seemed genuinely interested in my satisfaction as a customer. Our visit occurred on a Thursday afternoon during the beginning of the school year for the locals so the facility was lightly attended.

Overall recommendation: visit once and judge for yourself. We will not return. The facility is probably excellent for a kid's party, but not of a decent value otherwise. The arcade...

Last Saturday, I went out to Crazy Pinz because I heard they have an excellent tenderloin. It's obviously not the reason most people come here, but I'm definitely not most people.

I'll circle back to the food, but these guys are really known for their huge cosmic bowling area, air hockey, foosball, miniature golf, go karts, and a giant area for assorted different types of video games.

Unlike the old days of buying tokens to make the games work, then receiving paper tickets to trade in for your hard work, you receive a debit card to start games and hold rewards. It's definitely not as cool or nostalgic as having the big wad of tickets to count. Those times have passed.

If you want to bowl but also want to be away from the people, they have a four-lane private bowling area where you can choose your own music and have a little more of an intimate time.

For the food, I picked the tenderloin with tots and a hot pretzel with cheese. It was pretty excellent since I got to dress it the way I like: pickles, onions, and mustard. Those are the only toppings a tenderloin should ever have unless it's some sort of a specialty sandwich. It took me quite a while trimming around to be able to eventually pick up the sandwich. The tots were fully done and just the right color of golden brown. I don't use ketchup, but the cheese from the pretzel added a little extra excitement for the tots.

The pretzel with cheese was super affordable at just $3, but the texture on the pretzel was not for me. It was very dense and not fantastic. However, it would probably be great for kids. I just like a lot more fluff in my pretzels. Luckily, the tenderloin impressed me enough to not feel bad about the visit.

I was sitting right near the main bartending area. I did that for two reasons, to get away from all the kids that were having the time of their life, and to be able to see some of the drinks as they went out. In the photos, there is a strawberry Long Island, a drink called Blue lagoon (That's the one in the cool tiki glass), a grasshopper, which has chocolate and ice cream in it, a Bloody Mary, and a perfect margarita. The bartender knew I was going to make a post, so I was able to take pictures of some of these before they went to the guest that ordered them. I may have enjoyed a couple of them though. 😉

Crazy Pinz doesn't have a huge menu, but they do have pizza, fish, tacos, salads, wings, and of course the tenderloin in today's photos. They also have a kids section with hot dog, chicken tenders, grilled cheese, and peanut butter jelly. These are priced pretty affordably.

I wouldn't have ever thought to visit a place like this for a tenderloin, but it was definitely worth it.

Have you tried Crazy Pinz? They have so many different things you can do besides just bowling or buying...

I recently took my 2 young sons bowling at your establishment on a Friday early afternoon for our annual birthday Dad's Day and was extremely disappointed. First $25 for 1 hour of bowling (including shoes for both kids) is over twice what I normally pay at a normal bowling alley for 3 games. You should not have to pay for the lanes by the hour, you should be able to pay by the game like every other place in town. We were only able to get 1 and a half games bowled in the hour we paid $25 for. My son's first pair of shoes were too tight and falling apart in the rear so I had to track down someone to exchange them since nobody was at the counter. Another reason was that it took anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes for the ball return to send the ball back after each time it was rolled which was very frustrating. Another reason was my kids got thirsty after the first game so I thought we'd grab a quick slushy at the concession stand. There was nobody manning the counter so I had to wait for somebody for nearly 10 minutes. We got 5 more frames bowled in our second game and all of a sudden it all went black and our time was up. Then I had to find someone to have them turn it back on so that it would return my ball that I brought. From now on we'll stick to regular bowling alleys, it will be much cheaper and we'll get our money's worth and better service. For the prices you charge you'd think the service...