Pinball fans, this place — and machine — is for you

Full disclosure: This story was sparked by a new Willy Wonka pinball machine.

But can you blame us? Look at it.

It’s vintage childhood film meets classic arcade game meets modern era.

You can even tweet your game.

So when we paid our compliments to Jeremy Seefeldt, co-owner of The Pinball Room, we learned there was more going on here.

The pinball parlor is attached to his business, Boss’ Pizza & Chicken at 2111 S. Minnesota Ave. It opened last fall and already has outgrown the space.

When Seefeldt added machine No. 18, it had to go in the main dining room.

“I can’t believe how many people are really big into it in Sioux Falls,” he said. “There’s a couple thousand people probably who are real big fans of pinball. You think of it as old school, and that’s the thing. I think people my age — I’m 44 — think of it as growing up in a small town or even a big town. You go have a slice of pizza and play pinball.”

He works with people locally who buy the machines for home use but need to rotate them out or want to use them to make some extra money.

“They get a huge cut of the money, but it works,” Seefeldt said. “There’s no other way to really do pinball.”

The Pinball Room is offering “selfie leagues” which are starting to pick up.

“All you do is go in and take a picture of your score and send it in, and they figure it out,” Seefeldt said. “It’s like having a league you can play anytime you want. So we have prizes for that. You can tweet your score and all kind of stuff.”

There are Wednesday night leagues in person too, which he hopes will pick up once the pandemic is over.

In the meantime, the pinball room is open 17 hours a day and often has someone playing.

Other popular games include rock music-inspired themes, Wizard of Oz and Ghostbusters, he said.

“And we built a bar in there, so if it ever gets really busy, we could put a cooler for beer in there,” he added. “I think it’ll get crowded eventually.”