October 2026: The Arcade Archivist
Player 5 has entered the game. AtariNights.com now covers Texas: 60 retro arcades, barcades, pinball lounges, and playable museums across 8 regions and 36 cities, from a 111-machine pinball collective in Austin to a coffee roaster in San Antonio with 50 pins in the back.
Everything is bigger in Texas, and that includes the lineups. 50 of the 60 venues we’re launching with have pinball on the floor, and the state is home to the largest pinball collection we’ve listed anywhere so far.
Texas by the Numbers
- 60 venues across 8 regions and 36 cities
- 50 with pinball
- 11 free-play venues where one admission covers every game
- 11 strictly 21+, and 6 that switch to adults-only at night
- The biggest single collection: 111 pinball machines under one roof in Austin
Dallas-Fort Worth (23 venues)
North Texas is the deepest arcade scene in the state. Push Start Play in Lewisville runs around 80 pinball machines, and Side Quest Arcade in Garland adds 25 more. The Cidercade crew pours house-made cider next to hundreds of free-play games at Bishop Cidercade Dallas, Cidercade Arlington, and Bishop Cidercade Fort Worth.
Free Play keeps it pure: original cabinets and real pinball, no emulators, one admission, at Free Play Dallas, Richardson, and the Denton Square location, Free Play Denton. On Henderson Avenue, Barcadia has been feeding quarters into Ms. Pac-Man and Mortal Kombat for years. Also worth the drive: Electric Starship Arcade in Haltom City, Arcade 92 in Flower Mound and McKinney, Tokyo Station in Arlington, and Duckie’s Revenge down in Joshua.
Austin and Central Texas (13 venues)
Austin is pinball country. Austin Pinball Collective holds the crown with more than 100 machines, the biggest collection on AtariNights. Pinballz Arcade, the original location on Research Boulevard, runs around 70 pins next to a full arcade floor, with sister locations at Pinballz Lake Creek and Pinballz Kingdom in Buda.
For a drink with your high score, try Pins Mechanical Co. on South Congress, Bishop Cidercade Austin on East Riverside, or Bender Bar & Grill. North of town, Pixel Palace Arcade & Bar in Round Rock mixes classics and pinball with a full kitchen.
Houston and the Gulf Coast (13 venues)
Houston spreads its pins across the metro. EinStein’s Pub in Katy runs around 39 machines, with a second location in Richmond. The Game Preserve in Spring and its sister Game Preserve NASA near Clear Lake are full arcades with deep pinball lineups. In town, Bishop Cidercade Houston anchors East Downtown, Eureka Heights pairs beer with about 25 pins in the Heights, and the dive bar classics Little Dipper and Poison Girl keep the back rooms flipping. Families should head to Time Loop Arcade in Kingwood for all-ages free play.
San Antonio, the Hill Country, and Beyond (11 venues)
In San Antonio, What’s Brewing? Coffee Roasters is the surprise of the state: a coffee shop with around 50 pinball machines. Out west, Lit Arcade Bar in Amarillo, Free Play Abilene, and Rad Retrocade West in El Paso carry the flag. Up by Lake Texoma, Glitch’s Arcade in Sherman runs 14 tables, RETRO brings an arcade bar to downtown Corpus Christi, and Electric Circus Arcade holds down Tyler in East Texas.
The Archivist’s Note: The Museum That Remembers the Crash
Key Take: One of the most important stops in Texas isn’t a bar at all. The National Videogame Museum opened in Frisco in 2016, built from the collections of three longtime collectors, John Hardie, Sean Kelly, and Joe Santulli, with more than 100,000 artifacts between them. You can play Pong on a cabinet 15 feet tall, then walk into a life-size recreation of a 1983 game store going out of business, “Everything Must Go” sign and all. That’s the video game crash, when a flooded market collapsed and took most of the industry down with it, Atari included. The museum’s Pixel Dreams arcade is the happy ending: rows of coin-op machines, still taking quarters.
Know Before You Go
- Check the clock at mixed-age venues. Some Cidercades and retro arcades go adults-only in the evening. Each listing says when.
- Leave the quarters at home at free-play spots. At the Cidercades and Free Play locations, one admission covers every game.
- Texas is big. Amarillo to Corpus Christi is more than 500 miles. Plan a region, not the whole state.
How We Built the Texas Directory
Every venue was researched and cross-checked against multiple sources, including venue websites and community pinball databases, before it went live. No venue pays to be included. If we got something wrong, or missed your favorite spot, submit a venue and we’ll review it.
What’s Next
Five states down, and the next one is already unlocked: Oregon. Or browse every Texas venue, pick a city from the dropdown, and go chase a high score.
The Arcade Archivist
AtariNights.com