Elston Electric, Salt Shed’s new arcade bar, debuts | Eater Chicago
"Situated in the salt factory’s old boiler room which powered the entire building, the new venue will be open before and after concerts and is described by its backers as a family entertainment center with seating for about 100, including a patio. It will be an all-ages space by day and one that will focus on adults at night with jello shots and other hijinks; “The jello shots are special,” says Jim Zespy — not “the kind stuffed into a paper cup and served at a frat house” — and because of the space they’ll also serve boilermakers, with non-alcoholic beverages available as well. The food will come from a Pizza Friendly Pizza concept tied to Bruce Finkelman; “People will make a whole night out of it,” Zespy says. The library will be built to about 110 games, a mix of classics, some of the hottest new titles, and rare Japanese imports; Zespy will leverage connections he’s made at Logan Arcade to snag exclusives. It won’t just be video games and pinball: Zespy says he’s recently been immersed in a game called “Chicago Coin Championship Baseball,” an electromagnetic game released in the ’70s, and there may be room for the world’s largest pinball machine, an Atari game called “Hercules” that’s about seven feet long. Skee-Ball, Pop-A-Shot, and VR games will be available, and customers can earn tickets and trade them for music-themed prizes (for example, a fancy Lemmy action figure). The space will include a studio for live streaming, opening the venue to Esports, podcasting, and more; as Zespy puts it more broadly about the scene, “What Detroit was to cars, Chicago was to games — 100 percent.”" - Ashok Selvam
