Wayback's Arcade in Pineville continues success with fun, family environment

Evan Paul worked construction for 20 years, but he never lost his passion for the arcade games and pinball he played as a kid.

"I like arcades. I love pinball," said Paul.

Now, he's sharing that love with everyone through the Pineville business he co-owns, Wayback's Arcade. Although it's been open less than four years, the business already has had to move to a bigger location.

A second location is being considered, although nothing is definitive yet.

It all started with a chance meeting and a shared hobby.

'If we could have picked a worse time …'

Paul grew up, but he kept his arcade hobby. As he worked a full-time construction job, he would buy arcade cabinets and refurbish them, often selling them for a little profit. He jokes he would buy and then sell to keep his wife happy.

"You gotta do what you gotta do for a hobby to support it," he said.

One day, Jeremy Shepherd saw an ad Paul had placed on Facebook to sell one of the cabinets. He messaged Paul, telling him they should be friends because they both liked arcade games.

Paul said he ignored Shepherd for a bit, probably because he considers himself a "homebody." But another friend told him he should contact him, and he did.

Shepherd told him he'd recently returned from one of the world's largest arcades, The Galloping Ghost Arcade in the Chicago area, and the two men began talking. Paul mentioned how he'd love to open an arcade one day.

While Shepherd thought that was a great idea, Paul had some reservations since, as a married man with three young sons who spent his weeks working construction sites, both time and money were tight.

"So what Jeremy did is, he did all the paperwork, found a building and manned it at the beginning," said Paul. "When we began to have some success, we hired some employees."

Wayback's opens: Old school arcade among new businesses coming to Pineville

February 2020: Wayback's Arcade gets high score at soft opening

The arcade had a soft opening and then a grand opening on Feb. 14, 2020, in a 1,500-square-foot spot on the Shreveport Highway. The reception was enthusiastic.

"It blew us away," said Paul, crediting former Pineville Mayor Clarence Fields and current Mayor Rich Dupree for the city's support.

The tiny spot held 40 arcade games, four or five pinball machines and just candy bars for snacks. But it kept drawing people who wanted to play the games they remembered from their youth or to share with their kids.

Then, the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down.

"If we could have picked a worse time …" Paul says, trailing off.

Leveling up

"Thank God, we had a busy enough first two months that it sustained us through the next three months of closure," he said.

When casinos were allowed to reopen, they reached out to state Rep. Mike Johnson. "He really went to bat for us," said Paul, advocating for letting them reopen with Gov. John Bel Edwards.

They were granted special permission to reopen and did so with social distancing in place. The big crowds didn't come back immediately, but the business still made "just enough" to pay its bills and employees, he said.

Neither Paul nor Shepherd took a paycheck or any profits "until almost our third year in business," he said.

But when more businesses began reopening, the players returned.

"When everything opened back up, like I said about six months after, it did phenomenally well," said Paul. "It let us come get this place. It went from 1,500-square-feet to 15,000-square-feet."

Paul said they realized they needed more space when they began reaching capacity at the old location.

"We started hitting capacity on our Saturdays. The capacity in that little space, believe it or not, was 100 people," he said. "Having 100 people in that spot, you could barely walk. It was shoulder to shoulder. The community really, really took to us. We’re so grateful for that."

The current location, at 1305 Military Highway, has 150 arcade games and 19 pinball machines, along with different air hockey, Skee-Ball and Japanese console games and more. The business has 16 employees.

"We have so much more stuff now," he said.

Resurgence across America

Google video game arcades, and you'll see results from across the United States in cities big and small. It's nostalgia for many adults, and businesses often cater to them by combining the game experience with other offerings.

"Arcades have made a big comeback," said Paul.

But, because of the popularity of vintage games, it has become more difficult to find arcade cabinets and the parts to get them back in working order.

When he does find a cabinet, he first needs to figure out what the game originally was because that's what he wants to restore. It can be tricky because Paul said it was common for cabinets to swap between different games.

"Once a game stopped making money back in the day, you’d paint the cabinet, throw a different gameboard in there and hope that that one would make more money," said Paul.

Take, for instance, an old beat-up cabinet he recently acquired. Although it had a worn Sega sticker on its side, Paul recognized it as a Super Pac-Man cabinet.

He sanded and repaired all the wood damage, painted it blue, then found a Super-Pac Man monitor and repaired that. Once new vinyl artwork and markings were added, along with new lights, he and Andrew Quartemont worked to get the coin door and inserts repaired.

"It's back to the original," said Paul.

Quartemont is the manager at Wayback's. He's been with the business for three years. Paul has taught him a lot about how to restore arcade cabinets, and he said "he's really good at restoring now."

Super Pac-Man came out in 1982, so finding monitors and other parts for games that old can be "pretty tricky," he said. He relies on his woodworking and electrical skills from his construction career, too.

More businesses are catering to arcades now. It's how he got the vinyl wrap for Super Pac-Man. But sometimes, he's on his own. He has a Defender cabinet that he stenciled and painted himself.

"It varies by what (cabinet) it is, how rare it is, what’s available, what kind of time we have," he said.

The time needed to refurbish a game can vary, but Paul said it can take "a solid week" for something like the Super Pac-Man cabinet — once all the materials are in hand.

"We have 150-something on the floor right now, so you can imagine how long it took to get all those ready," he said.

In the back room, monitors line shelves against one wall. Arcade cabinets in various states of disrepair line the walls.

"You just gotta find them where you can find them," Paul said, especially the tubes used in older monitors. They were phased out since newer LED, LCD and plasma lights are cheaper, safer and lighter.

"So when we find them, we snatch them up and try to fix them," he said.

The type of lights used don't make a difference in some games, but that's not always the case. Some games just look better with the older parts, said Paul.

"It’s crazy and you wouldn’t think it, but they literally designed these games around the flaws that were inherent in that technology," he said. "It’s pretty neat."

Paul said Wayback's tries to add games and change things often. He said having backups allows them to quickly replace something that breaks. He said one of his biggest gripes as a kid playing games was finding out the game didn't work properly once you popped your quarter into it.

"We try to avoid that as much as possible."

Not only are arcade cabinets getting harder to find, but prices also are going up, he said. He recalled hearing collectors complain at the Houston Pinball Festival last year because a Dallas-Fort Worth business snapped up so many cabinets for a fourth location they were opening.

He said he could buy an old Pac-Man cabinet for about $50 14 year ago. That same cabinet would cost $800 today, he said.

A refurbished one? Try $2,500.

The Tron cabinet at Wayback's was bought for $1,800, said Paul. It now sells for about $4,500. Some older pinball machines are being sold for more than new ones, too.

"Our 'Stranger Things', we bought for $7,000 brand new from the factory, out of the box," he said. "But if you want an 'Addams Family' from 1992, you’re gonna pay $14,000. It’s insane."

'Very different kind of life'

Paul retired from his construction job in May 2022, saying it was "very nice to be home, slip into my bed, seeing my kids every day. A very different kind of life."

Earlier that year, the new location opened. Paul said he probably had more fear about the bigger location than opening the business itself. In the beginning, he knew if they made enough money to pay the bills and put games on the floor, they'd be happy.

"But then when we started making a little profit and people were packed like sardines, now we have no choice," he said.

There's more pressure to be profitable. As a way to ensure that, Wayback's has themed rooms for different functions, like birthday parties. They've also hosted bachelor and bachelorette parties, team-building events and soldiers about to leave on deployment.

And Paul recalled one very special event for a Wayback's member who died. His family rented a room for his wake.

Wayback's hosts tournaments, too. A Ms. Pac-Man tournament featured one of the world's top players, David Parks from Kentucky. Paul said Parks drove to Pineville to participate and took home a cash prize.

"Great guy, very nice guy," he said.

Another world record-holder, Lonnie McDonald, attended a Joust tournament. In addition, there have been Street Fighter tournaments and a group of players gathers every few months for a Smash Brothers console tournament.

"We try to keep engaged," said Paul.

The biggest demographic he sees at Wayback's is around his age, 37.

"I was old enough to remember the arcades as a kid and, now that I have kids, they’ve never even heard of arcades until I brought my first one home and just blew their minds," he said. "Now, people of my age, we’re gonna show our kids what we did."

He remembers playing arcade games at the now-closed Kmart as his mom shopped, how arcade games were in stores everywhere and at an arcade called Yesterdays inside the Alexandria Mall, or at Buhlow Fun Park or a putt-putt golf course that once operated in Alexandria.

"So many cool places that just aren’t around anymore," he said.

It makes him feel good to bring some of that back, to hear people talking about their childhoods or tagging them on social media as they brag about how they're going to beat their kids at certain games.

"It’s fun. It’s a family environment."

People can get a day pass for $13 or pay $35 for a monthly membership with some benefits. They provide passes to schools for student who make the honor roll and also have military, first responder and senior citizen discounts.

"We try to be the cheapest fun in Cenla," said Paul.

But is there a game still out there that he hasn't added to Wayback's offerings? He says a friend, a fellow collector, asks them this all the time.

"I think, at this point, I’ve gotten pretty much everything I’ve ever wanted," he said.

This article originally appeared on Alexandria Town Talk: Leveling up: Wayback's Arcade keeps building on success in Pineville