It’s a Wednesday night, and most of East Adams Street is quiet. It’s been that way much of the time here since the fire of June 19, 2024, that caused several businesses in the 400 block to either close or relocate.
There is one notable exception, however, at 409 E. Adams St. With doors thrust open on this warm October night, lights and sounds emanate to the sidewalk from the 16 pinball machines in one of Springfield’s newest businesses, Vault 66 Pinball.
Wednesdays are tournament nights at Vault 66, and inside a digital leaderboard updates, in real time, the latest scores and rankings of the roughly 30 or so competitors. One of them, Katherine Davis, has just put more than 100,000 points on her third and final ball on a Transformers “More Than Meets The Eye” machine, which is enough to vanquish her opponent in the single-game match of the round-robin tourney.
During that third ball, which lasts for about four minutes, Davis swivels her hips as if on a dance floor and tries to seemingly perform acts of telekinesis toward the metal sphere. Her wrists snap in vain when the ball finally drains through the middle.
“That was a good one,” says Davis, a native of Danville who is currently ranked seventh in central Illinois as a female player. “It feels like all is right with the world when you’re in the zone like that on a good ball. That’s the kind of feeling that keeps me playing pinball. I’ve just always played it, since I was 8 years old.”
Pinball, which dates to a mid-18th century French game called bagatelle, first became a mechanical game in the 1930s and, soon after, Chicago became the hub of electrified, pinball machine manufacturing. From the 1950s through the early ,80s, pinball was the dominant game of choice in arcades throughout the country. When other arcade games proliferated, such as Donkey Kong, Pac-Man and Super Mario Brothers, pinball machines began to be relegated to the back of the-store, often not working properly, or eliminated entirely. The home video game craze that began soon after seemed to be the death knell for pinball manufacturers.
But pinball got off the road to obsolescence and started, seemingly against all odds, to make a comeback around the early 2000s. Today, many arcades are back in business, with pinball as the main attraction, and Springfield is getting a reputation among the state’s many enthusiasts as a pinball epicenter.
Such was the hope of Vault 66 Pinball’s main proprietor, Chris Nickell, a downtown real estate investor and the CEO of Highland Renewables Inc., who bought a “Lord of the Rings” machine a couple years ago for his family to play in the basement. Soon, Nickell himself became hooked and started buying more machines. With his son, he participated in a pinball tournament at the Dumb Records store at 418 E. Monroe St. – which had seven machines and other games in the back.
Nickell got to talking with Dumb Records owners Jeff Black and Brian Galecki about an idea: How about a partnership with Dumb Records and the former Café Moxo building just around the block that had been vacant since the fire and add an arcade on the ground floor? Thus, Vault 66 Pinball was born, with Black and Galecki in partnership with Nickell.
“It has overshot our expectations,” said Nickell, who owns 11 business and residential properties in Springfield. “I’ve always had an interest in redeveloping old buildings, and once this one came up for sale, with interest rates still cheap, I bought it and also the one next door. This storefront sat empty and I said, ‘You know what, how about an arcade here, with help and expertise from the guys at Dumb?’”
While pinball’s demographic tilts heavily toward Baby Boomer or Gen X males, younger people, perhaps wanting to experience more of an analog life, are playing the machines again. Even new machines are being built, primarily by Elk Grove Village-based Stern Pinball, with most branded to either a movie franchise, music artist or other video games (there is a Pac-Man pinball machine, for instance). A new AC/DC machine, from Stern, debuted on Wednesday.
“Vinyl records started coming back during the pandemic, and I think there are some similarities with pinball,” Galecki said. “I think there is some nostalgia for both of them, but pinball never went away completely. During the pandemic, with everybody stuck at home, pinball became sort of a hobby for people – people with some money, obviously. But it’s been increasing in popularity to a lot of people in general again, I think.”
Customers at Vault 66 Pinball are charged a flat $10 for all-you-can-play on any of the pinball machines, along with the several arcade games such as Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. The back of the store has a “Stranger Things” pinball machine, inside a room with couches and a spooky neon alphabet sign similar to one in the popular Netflix series. Vault 66 customers can also get a wristband to play as much pinball and arcade games as they want at Dumb Records’ store, and vice-versa.
With lots of open space in the back of Vault 66, Nickell is thinking about getting a liquor license and converting it into a bar and lounge area, or perhaps just adding a lot more machines. At first, he was unsure how long he might operate a pinball parlor, but after the first four months or so, he sounded like a man who is in it for the long haul.
“These machines are like works of art. I think the saying is true, that once you get bit by the pinball bug, you’re bit for good,” Nickell said.
This article appears in October 15-21, 2026.
