Listen Live
BELLINGHAM, WA (MyBellinghamNow.com) – At an undisclosed location in the Lettered Streets neighborhood, a community has created its own haven. Their passion? Pinball.
Two of the organizers in Bellingham’s community, Spencer Holmes and Mike Wolff, started playing on machines like these in their teens.
“I had a really, really bad vacation at 15 where I was stuck at a KOA, and the only thing to do for four days was play pinball. They had a Theater of Magic, and that was a great machine to get started playing on,” Holmes said. “[It] just kind of clicked, and I liked the way it felt—kind of a rush.”
Wolff found that as soon as he could drive a car, he would go to arcades and other places to play pinball. Wolff and Holmes keep the world of pinball active in the community, with Holmes organizing “Pinball Cult” and Wolff running tournaments throughout the city.
“We’re not a cult,” said Holmes, when he introduced the space he rents to house Pinball Cult’s machines. The one main room holds just under a dozen well-maintained pinball machines; some rare, others widely loved by the greater pinball world. In all, nine people hold their machines in the main room, where group members can bring friends to the speakeasy of Bellingham’s pinball scene.
Pinball Cult moved into the space this spring and has since been a successful location for the community to gather with friends to play affordably.
“This is the first time we have a space that has the room to work on stuff, to have a good amount of games you can play, that everybody can come here,” Holmes said. “It’s available to anybody [as it is] not attached to a private residence.”
The space is not public, but it is not totally exclusive, as Wolff and Holmes explain. Anyone who pays the monthly donation can access the space and bring who they want. Still, it’s a small space, and Holmes hopes to one day expand into a larger, official space where people can pay for actual memberships.
Tired of paying money to use machines at arcades and bars, pinball enthusiasts will sometimes buy a pinball machine to save on cash over time. Wolff said buying machines is not for everyone but after a certain point, it makes sense to get a machine financially.
“I started doing the math. I’m like, ‘I think I could pay for this,’” Wolff said. “If I got a loan or something, I could just buy a pinball machine and [it would] probably cost about the same.”
But Holmes wouldn’t recommend buying a machine unless you’re willing to open up the machine and work on it yourself. He decided to buy his own as he became too picky with the ones he found in public spaces.
A second room in the pinball space houses machines that Holmes and others work to restore or build, such as a custom-made Futurama game. Wolff and Holmes are operators that run machines around town; Wolff for instance works on the machine at Doug’s Burgers on Meridian Street.
“Operating machines is kind of like having a bunch of babies that you’re babysitting all over like town. They have problems and you have to go fix them,” Holmes said. “It’s a labor of love, for sure. I mean, there’s a little bit of money in it, but it is enough that the hobby isn’t just a money hole entirely.”
Pinball enthusiasts can spend a lot of time analyzing techniques to get high scores on the machines, hoping to reach “wizard mode” on some. A television mounted to the wall of the Pinball Cult arcade is used by members to watch videos showing the complex techniques that garner high points on new machines.
“You can go down a pretty good rabbit hole, about these rule sets and stuff because the games can get pretty deep, especially the newer ones,” Wolff said. Some games have minigames within their computers, where players can collect items. An Oktoberfest-themed machine at the arcade asks players to collect ducks and choose beer steins, for example.
Tournaments are a common way for people to get involved with the pinball community. Wolff said that he hosts a tournament at the 1-Up Lounge in Fairhaven on the last Monday of every month.
“My goal is to get the league going and get it try to get a team league or a weekly league, and grow the tournament scene,” Wolff said. “I’d like to have an annual event where everybody comes up to Bellingham for the one event.” He adds that, before the COVID-19 pandemic, Bellingham had a pinball league, and they would host a yearly event like he describes at local pinball bar The Racket.
Wolff said he plans on getting the league started next year. For now, he and some other players in town travel to play in Seattle and other locations.
With regards to the Lettered Streets pinball workshop, Holmes encourages the curious to find their own way to the shop.
“You don’t have to be anybody special or fancy or wealthy or anything to be a part, basically just people who show up,” he said. “So, if you’re curious, I’d say go to a pinball tournament in town and ask people playing, and they’ll be able to get you here, for sure.”
