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The Spinner is Lit Pinball Podcast
The Spinner is Lit Pinball Podcast
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Episode 11: Smooth Operator

PodcastAnalysis updated 2d ago1 hr 38 min listen
From the creator

Spencer sits down and talks turkey with local operator Steven Borel!

Listen on The Spinner is Lit Pinball Podcast

Highlights

  • Addams Family is Burrell's best earner, performing particularly well at Shuffles on Fourth Street in Santa Rosa's Railroad Square, where it roughly doubles the earnings of other games in its lineup
  • A typical pinball machine takes approximately four years to break even on investment in terms of return on investment at good locations
  • Finding new locations for pinball machines in California is extremely difficult; Burrell estimates needing to contact 20-30 venues to secure one viable location
  • Most established route operators lack the skill set and motivation to properly maintain pinball machines, focusing only on coinup, flipper function, and display operation
  • Junkyard required approximately two years of restoration work and required parts sourced from Australia
  • Fanny Ann's has a business permit allowing up to 10 pinball machines and currently operates 9 pinballs plus 1 foosball game
  • Service calls in Sacramento consume 5+ hours of operator time (including travel), making preventive maintenance economically critical
  • The Junkyard game was previously operated by another operator who gave it heavy use before Burrell acquired it for restoration

Notable quotes

“I wanted to have games like I saw at a friend's house, or if I go to a show, I wanted to have games that were like that to where, you know, they would play, they'd play well, be clean... I wanted that game to be able to share with everybody else and have people have a good experience with pinball.”
Steve Burrell
“It's not just having skills, you know, on how to work on pinball, it's having the mentality of caring. And that's, especially with the older, bigger operators from what I've seen, that's just not there.”
Steve Burrell
“If I have a service call in Sacramento, that's five hours. That costs me five hours in time... It's better for me as a business person to make sure I'm doing all the maintenance and checking.”
Steve Burrell
“Pinball is the hardest thing to route. It takes the most... If you hire somebody at close to minimum wage, you're not going to get those skills with that kind of money. It's just not likely to happen.”
Steve Burrell
“I could spend a lot less time and go do something else but you know if I'm gonna spend the time rehabbing a game and spend all the time finding a game and putting it out there I want it to be nice... I'm a player first.”
Steve Burrell
“These are operators, yourself and then Joe, who we know in the community, are collectors. We're people that really love pinball. And if you're making money, that's awesome, but you guys are doing it a lot less about making money.”
Spencer Klingin

Entities

  • Addams Family· game
  • Elvis· game
  • Funhouse· game
  • Ghostbusters· game
  • Iron Man· game
  • Junkyard· game
  • Jurassic Park· game
  • Metallica· game
  • Roller Coaster Tycoon· game
  • Spider-Man· game
  • Star Trek· game
  • Transformers· game
  • The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast· organization
  • Blown Fuse Steve Sharlin· person
  • Joe Abate· person
  • Mark Scott· person
  • Seth Holder· person
  • Spencer Klingin· person
  • Steve Burrell· person
  • Buffalo Billiards· venue
  • Coin-Op· venue
  • Fanny Ann's· venue
  • Scandia in Roanoke Park· venue
  • Shuffles on Fourth Street· venue
  • Wicked West· venue

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