Pinball sales wizards leaving the business
After 32 years as sellers of pinball machines, arcade-style video games, jukeboxes and other cool game room stuff, Paul and Ann Biechler are calling it quits.
At 67, they're ready for retirement and a chance to travel, but their Lisle business admittedly has been hurt by the Internet -- eBay and direct buying from manufacturers, especially -- home video games and a lousy housing market.
As fewer people buy big houses with huge family rooms, there's less of a market for, say, a 1993 Indiana Jones pinball machine, painstakingly restored by Paul and marked down to $5,999.
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The Biechlers are running their final close-out sale until the end of the month. About a dozen pinball machines, the same number of jukeboxes, some video games and slot machines and one "shuffle bowling" machine remain. There also are about 100 neon signs and other memorabilia available.
The better pinball machines range in price from $1,299 to $5,999, though some "as is" bargains exist for as little as $200.
All told, the Biechlers estimate they've sold as many as 5,000 coin-operated games.
But Paul can't completely tear himself away from the business, Home Arcade Corp., on Main Street near Ogden Avenue. He's pledging to stay in Lisle for at least a few years as a repair guy/consultant. So if anyone needs a machine serviced, he'll do it himself or get the right vendor to his former customers.
It was Biechler's penchant for tinkering that got him into this business in 1976. A chemist by trade for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he bought an old pinball machine -- a really old machine; it didn't have flippers -- fixed it up and sold it.
He did the same thing with a few other machines. Next thing he knew, he had purchased the inventory of a Wisconsin salesman, about 30 or 40 machines.
He and Anne rented or borrowed space wherever they could find it. Later, they rented a store on Front Street until buying and moving in 2001 into the current location on the north end of downtown.
Now that building is being sold, and for the Biechlers decades of good memories -- most of them with the people they've come to know.
Such as the expectant dad -- a pinball fanatic -- who bought a used pinball machine and turned it into a bassinet for the new baby.
Biechler's mechanical abilities were put to the test when a man came into the store and asked if a pinball machine could be modified so one button could be made to work both flippers at the same time. The man wanted such an arrangement for his son, who had only one arm.
Biechler did more than that -- he rigged the game so each flipper, with its two buttons now on one side of the machine, could be operated independently by the boy with two fingers.
And, when you've been in the business for 32 years, sometimes you hear from the children and even grandchildren of those early customers -- such as the baby who got the pinball bassinet, now pushing 30. Biechler heard from him just the other day.
Was he perhaps looking for a pinball bassinet for his own child?
No, Biechler said, "He was moving a slot machine and wanted to know how much it weighed."
Home Arcade
After 32 years, the Lisle game room business is closing. Here are some of particulars.
Closeout sale: Runs until the end of the month
What's left: Pinball machines from $1,299 to $5,999; some older games sold "as is" from $200 to $750. Jukeboxes run $100 to $1,299. One Tic Tac Strike shuffle bowling machine remains for $3,999. Slot machines, neon beer and soda signs, diner furniture, other memorabilia.
Where: 4611 Main St., Lisle, Info: (630) 964-2555, or www.homearcadecorp.com.