Pop's Pinball - Bow Market — Local services in Somerville

Awesome! It's an arcade, just pinball, no video games, no beers. Uses quarters, not tokens. There's a change machine for quarters, no attendant, but bring your own quarters if you have some.

The pinball games are amazingly well restored and maintained. This arcade is clearly a labor of love, beautiful woodland decor, and beautiful pinball machines with crisp flippers and perfectly restored playfields with all the pop ups and toys working!

What I was most impressed with is the choice in machines. The selection are truly rare pinball machines, beautiful beasts that usually live in collector's game rooms, and I am so happy to see that the owner trusted the public to play them rather than keep them locked up and hidden away.

Games available were amazing: Demolition Man, Popeye, The Shadow, Rocky and Bullwinkle, World Poker Tour, Stars, Bram Stroker's Dracula, Haunted House, Attack from Mars, Atlantis.

Dracula, and Haunted House, and Attack from Mars, Demolition Man, and Popeye Saves the Earth are truly amazing, complicated, funny and difficult pinball games, worth going back to try them over and over again.

My favorite is Demolition Man which has dual pistol grips mounted to either side of the cabinet with working triggers for the flippers. Haunted House has 8 flippers and 3 play fields (an upper playfield and a see through window to a below playfield), Attack from Mars has the best toys and lights, and Dracula has some truly cool and creepy animations and magnets moving the ball around.

There is no attendant at this arcade, please do not shake or slap the machines, no drinks on the glass tops.

Also, not just this arcade, but for all arcades... do NOT hit or hard slap on the flipper buttons! These buttons are electronic buttons, hitting the button harder does not make the flipper hit the ball harder! It's like a trigger on a gun, you don't pull the trigger harder to shoot harder. Slapping the buttons means you're just an idiot who doesn't know what you are doing, like children pretending to be an adult. It damages the button eventually, shakes the mechanisms inside, and these machines break and then no one gets to enjoy these games.

If you see someone slapping and hitting the games, be sure to ask them to stop, as it damages...

Drove two hours here just to find that the quarter machines were out of quarters because people use it for nearby laundry. Even though it was out, people were still coming in trying to get quarters for laundry. I had to go into the nearby bar for quarters and they gave me heck for doing so. So FYI if coming here, you probably won’t be able to get quarters to play. Too bad because I want to give the place my money, but I left without playing much...

Such a cute, throwback retro old-school vintage nostalgic [insert more synonyms] place! Reminds me of playing my grandfather’s old machine when I was little. The noises are awesome, the old change machine and photo booth are nice touches, and the guide to win the games and customized instructions on each machine make it feel even more personal. Felt like I was in a classic movie from decades ago. The machines cost between 50 cents and $1, which...