This weekend, I had a very fun opportunity to visit Arcadia: America’s Playable Arcade Museum in McLean, Illinois. Arcadia is located just off of Route 66 right outside of Bloomington. Started in 2009, the arcade is the passion project of owner John Yates and is home to loads of retro hard to find arcade cabinets and pinball machines. There is also an annex called Pinball Paradise that is just pinball across the street. And this year, the arcade plans to open an expansion called Arcadia Unlimited, which will initially have 275 games and eventually have three separated areas with over 500 games!
I had wanted to make a video for my YouTube channel about the arcade after reading about it some time last year. I make mostly gameplay videos, tutorials, and reviews, but I got an itch after visiting Midwest Gaming Classic last year, which had probably around 1,000 arcade cabinets and pinball machines on free to play.
Getting yourself to McLean, Illinois
So the arcade itself is in a very small town. And when I say small town I mean a very small town. It’s sustained by a McDonald’s and Truckstop on Route 66, but beyond the library there’s really not much else there. The arcade is housed in an old brick building of what used to be a drug store and possibly a barber shop–you can still see the painted signs on the building, which have been restored. The main building is at 107 S Hamilton St, McLean, IL 61754. It consists of two main areas, with a small back room and an area for birthday parties that can be reserved. There was actually a birthday party going on when we got there on a Saturday. The arcade is only open on the weekends, but is open pretty much every weekend. I called John a couple of weeks before we headed over there from my area in Eastern Iowa to ask if he would be closed for any reason, and he said, “Unless I die, we’ll be open every weekend.” Again, a passion project!
I setup my camera equipment for the walkthrough and did a quick survey of the town. A grain elevator, a park (which is nice if you want to have a picnic or something), and fairly decent parking. From what I understand the arcade never really gets super busy, so parking shouldn’t be a problem. I don’t know if this will change after Arcadia Unlimited opens, but on the day we went, we parked right out front.
Inside Arcadia: America’s Playable Arcade Museum
I opened the glass door to the front of the arcade and was greeted by a brick walled high ceiling room with old wood floors and a maze of easily navigable paths through the arcade. My first impression from walking in was that the machines in the arcade were in very good condition and well maintained. Almost all of them were running except for a few (which is to be expected at any arcade, honestly.)
The machines were of the popular yet hard to come across variety. An ATARI Star Wars cabinet, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Frogger, Gauntlet, BurgerTime, Tempest and various classics of this sort were prevalent. There were also classic pinball machines like The Addams Family, Doctor Who, Star Wars, and Terminator 2. There were several Terminator games throughout the arcade which was pretty exciting to me, because I’ve been pretty pumped for the Terminator 2D: No Fate arcade game coming out later this year. There were also some fantastic machines like the Super Mario Bros. Mushroom World pinball machine, the Japanese upright Touch de Uno! 2 machine, lots and lots of sit down racing games, various deluxe machines, light gun shooters, and just all kinds of stuff really. The arcade is home to many hard to find machines, many of which I’d never heard of but are apparently highly prized. The amazing thing is that you can play all of these!
Inside Pinball Paradise (Across the Street)
One cool thing about Arcadia is that it’s actually spread out around downtown McLean. Across the street is the Pinball Paradise annex, home to a couple of dozen or so machines ranging from super classic to novelty. We hung out in here for a bit because it was a little quieter away from the birthday kids. There were a lot of great machines in here like the Rocky & Bullwinkle machine and we also enjoyed the pinball machine Whirlwind which blows a fan on you when you hit certain areas of the game. There were plenty of ceiling fans and high ceilings in this building.
There are also a few arcade cabinets in here like Ms. Pac-Man and there are also old novelty machines like the Love Tester or El Toro in here. There is even an old horoscope machine in the bathroom.
Overall Review of The Arcade
Overall, this place is really, really cool. The fact that it’s in a small town makes it just so cozy, and the machines available here are really exceptional in terms of uniqueness and classic popularity. It’s a great place to go if you want to play some arcade machines or pinball that is a little harder to come by in your standard arcade. There was also a ShowBiz Pizza Billy Bob Musical Ferris Wheel which I haven’t seen since I was a little kid and definitely a very unique item.
If you’re ever in Illinois and love arcades, I really recommend checking out Arcadia. The owner, John, is a super cool dude, and it’s really a fantastic place to spend the day or bring your kids or have a birthday party. I do think a lot of the games appeal to adults as well. Some of these newer arcades like Dave & Busters are more like kiddy casinos than actual arcades. This is an arcade with some history and super classic games that defined the arcade era of the 70s and 80s.
Walkthrough & Tour Video
If you want to watch a walkthrough tour of the arcade and also see me play a few games at the arcade you can check out my video below on my YouTube channel (be sure to subscribe as I hope to cover the expansion for the arcade sometime after it opens, and I also do regular gaming content!)
If you want to learn more about Arcadia: America’s Playable Arcade Museum, you can always check out their website https://www.vintagevideogames.com/arcadia You can also check their Facebook page if you want to check their holiday hours. Also, it’s worth noting that owner runs an attached AirBnB apartment above the arcade that you can rent out with a personal arcade; very cool for special occasions if you want to play games all day and night! Details are on that website.
Anyway, that’s all for this adventure review. Hope you enjoyed it or found it informative. I’m Dave and you’ve been reading Mr. Dave Pizza. Thank you so much for reading, and enjoy your games!
