Location: 2222A Second Avenue, Belltown, Seattle, USA.

Story and pictures by Pinball News reader Richard Wade.

Beavis & Butthead once quoted that everybody in Seattle is cool, I discovered that this is not totally true, however many cool people do exist there and finding places like Shortys during my vacation there only helped to go towards proving Butthead's statement as true.

Being from England where pinball locations which stock more than one or two pins are pretty damn rare (especially in locations which serve food and alcohol) I was delighted to discover a bar called Shortys located on Second Avenue in the Belltown area of Seattle. Not only do they serve beer and hot dogs, but also have many classic original video games, plus all the tables made are out of pinball tables (in a classic American diner layout) and most importantly 12 well chosen and really well maintained pinball machines.

These were:

Big Hit,
Twilight Zone,
Centaur,
Attack from Mars,
Monopoly,
The Six Million Dollar Man,
Dr Who,
Roller Coaster Tycoon,
Scared Stiff,
Gilligan's Island,
Medieval Madness,
The Shadow.

Is that a peach of a collection or what?

One of the best draws to this location was the fact that the pins are kept in a dark room, thus no light glare from ceiling lighting at all. Well sweet!

The games were all working correctly - man was I feeling lucky to find this place?

The games were priced at 50 cents a go or 5 games for 2 dollars. Given that the games all had easily attainable replay scores, your money went even further!

The staff were friendly, courteous & had plenty of change which also helped. I was lucky enough to meet the owners who (Martha & Avout), who were delighted to explain how the establishment has grown & changed over the years and other areas of interest such as maintenance and machine purchasing.

To conclude, this establishment rules, they have clearly gone to great lengths to create a nigh on perfect establishment for pinheads. Plus they have managed to create a bar environment ideal for socialising and electronic game playing (both pinball & classic video games) and the diner style table layout where the tables are made out of lit pin playfields rules.

In conclusion, any pinhead visiting Seattle would be a sad idiot to miss out on such a class joint.

Since this article was first published, Shorty's has expanded both in physical size and the size of their pinball collection.

Update from Alex Chapman:

They recently moved some walls around to make room for four additional pins. So that's sixteen well-maintained machines now, which in this day and age is quite the bonanza.

The games currently in the line-up are:

• Monster Bash
• Medieval Madness
• The Addams Family
• Revenge From Mars
• Family Guy
• Junkyard
• Flash Gordon
• Hurricane
• The Champion Pub
• The Simpsons Pinball Party
• The Lord of the Rings
• Evel Knievel
• Speakeasy
• Surf Champ
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Pirates of the Caribbean

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