26 Western Plaza
Fenton 63026
314-808-6611
Fenton 63026
314-808-6611
Admission is based on time in museum and ranges from $9 for an hour to $30 for the day.
Parking is free and easily available.
Thelazaruspinballmuseum@gmail.com
Established in February 2024
This museum was started by a husband and wife team after they visited a pinball museum in another city and saw a need in St. Louis. You not only can learn about pinball machines but you definitely can play any and all of them!
Yes, they have leagues and tournaments!
In case you are wondering where the name came from you, the answer is written on the wall when you enter the museum.
If you can pull yourself away from the games and take the time to read the walls you actually will learn quite a bit about pinball machines!
One sign tells us that The Adams Family above is the best selling pinball machine of all time, selling more than 20,000 units. It came out in 1992.
This is their oldest machine, Tropicana, which was built in 1948.
Slick Chick came out in 1963 when they were still having smaller flippers.
One of the rooms has a wall of machines placed in the order in which they were built.
Others are just mixed up in other rooms. The one in the middle, Hot Line was built in 1966 while the other two - Liberty Bell (1977) and Charlie's Angels (1978) - were built in the next decade.
Moving to the next decade we have Black Hole (1981) and Haunted House (1982).
John Wick is the newest one on display. It came out last year.
Movies are a popular theme. This Jurassic Park was built in 1993 and this Star Wars was built in 2017. Needless to say, different versions have been made for each of these music themes.
This 1979 machine obviously has a rock band theme!
Who doesn't love the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!?! And look how fun and complicated this game is!
This 1995 Apollo 13 machine is very special. It is the only pinball machine that can put you in the position of controlling 13 balls at once.
If you can shoot the ball up that metal trough into the rocket, 8 balls come out from the back plus 5 from the bottom.
This machine has three levels.
This top level (back corner) has its own set of flippers.
Unfortunately the glare from the glass makes the bottom level hard to see in this picture but that rectangular area is definitely down a level.
You never know what you are going to see inside a machine!
The glare blurs the images some but you get the idea!
The number of ramps in some machines can create quite a challenge but lots of fun.
Each machine has its own set of sometimes confusing instructions!
I checked out all the ball launchers for variety. There were mostly the simple spring ones but occasionally a fun one!
There is one entire room dedicated to arcade games.
I believe that there is an extra fee to play these.
There is also a grabber in this room.
No museum is complete without a gift shop. They mostly have t-shirts, snacks, and drinks. They also have special prizes for children age ten and under that do well.
We went to the popular Twisted Tree Steakhouse in Sunset Hills for lunch and I forgot to take photos!
COMMENTS:
We were hunting for a fun museum day and we sure had one! Playing these machines brought back a lot of great memories for several of us.
The owner was present and very nice. He took the time to talk to me about some of the machines as there were not a lot of signs up explaining them. They hope to add more signs, he said. My hunch is that most visitors that come there come to play the machines more than learn about them. But he was full of information and more than willing to answer questions from all of us.
They have only been open 20 months and are hoping that they will be able to expand some day.
There were a few machines not working on the day we were there but on a Friday mid-afternoon it was not crowded at all so there were plenty of choices on which to play. If we had any problems the owner was right there to assist us.
We all agreed that our grandchildren would love this museum!
