For kids in the late 1970s and early 1980s, no trip to the mall was complete without hitting Space Port, the ubiquitous video arcade that dotted the fruited plain in those days.
Space Port, like the shopping malls that housed them, went bust as powerful home video game consoles hit the market. But memories of those afternoons playing Pac-Man, Frogger, Donkey Kong and all the rest, remained with Brian Nelson.
“Space Port, that was like a dream walking in there. Oxford Valley Mall. Neshaminy Mall. All the malls had a Space Port,” he said.
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Now, Nelson has opened a classic video arcade in Bristol brimming with all the faves of that time, which blink, flash and glow, playing the signature sounds of long ago.
He calls it “Players Only Arcade,” and it opened last month at 201 Radcliffe Street, in a former insurance sales office. Video game nostalgia is big now, and he’s capitalizing on it.
“I’m trying to recreate the whole vibe of that era,” said Nelson 53, who grew up in Bristol.
His first experience with arcade-style video games was at Gerome’s Deli in town.
“All the neighborhood kids would flock there,” he said. “They always had a couple of arcade games in there.”
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He was hooked. Six years ago, he became an Asteroids World Record Holder.
“But, now I’m down to fourth place. So, I have intentions of getting that record back when I find the time,” he said.
He was hit with nostalgia for the old games in his thirties, and began collecting them. He found them on Craigslist, eBay and Facebook Marketplace, and now is part of a group of fellow enthusiasts who tip each other when a game becomes available.
His place vibrates with the sounds of Donkey Kong, Space Invaders Track and Field, Q*bert, Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, Dragon’s Lair, Mortal Kombat, Defender, Centipede, Asteroids and many more, most bearing the name “Williams” the defunct game manufacturer.
He has Frogger, and over it is a small video screen that plays a scene from a 1998 episode of “Seinfeld” in which George Constanza unsuccessfully attempts to roll a Frogger machine across a busy city street to maintain his high score.
“It was never my intention to open an arcade, but it became a bit of an addiction and the next thing you know I had over 50 games, so, I decided to open an arcade,” he said.
Most of the machines in his shop were made between 1979 to 1983, the golden age of video game arcades.
“The graphics on games today, they blow this stuff away, but the newer games aren’t as fun …. Today, you can just continue where you left off. On these, when you died, 95 percent of the games you couldn’t continue, you had to start back over and try to go further each time. You’d keep spending your quarters,” he said, speaking over the din of the video game sounds.
One sound you won’t hear at Player’s Only Arcade is the metallic clank of quarters dropping into the machines to fire them up.
“We don’t operate on quarters,” Nelson said. “Obviously, a quarter isn’t worth what it was 40 years ago. So, everything is time-based. You pay by the amount of time you spend here.”
When you’re out of time, you’ll just have to go home and console yourself.
(Players Only Arcade is at 201 Radcliffe Street, Bristol. It’s open Wednesday and Friday 5-9 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.)
JD Mullane can be reached at [email protected].