A New York City pinball arcade and showroom that RePlay featured in our May issue – Modern Pinball – closed up shop at the end of July.
Founder and co-owner Steve Zahler shared on Facebook: “Unfortunately, Covid in the big expensive city was much more than our niche place could handle. We’ve been closed since March, and add to that the financial impact of a high-rise building next door still under construction for almost two years with its scaffolding, continuous street closures, and re-routing of vehicles and pedestrian traffic. It was a business killer for the entire street. Fortunately, we lasted this long while at least 75% of the retail businesses around us either closed or changed hands since we opened in 2013. The power of pinball!”
But the power of pinball couldn’t magically bring back a business that had been forced to close since March. This latest bad news follows the news in June that Modern Pinball’s other owner, longtime pinball promoter Steve Epstein, passed away.