Outside, it’s one of those cold and rainy days when you forget it was ever sunny in Vancouver.
But inside an old wedding hall at 1739 Venables St., next to Commercial Drive, it’s just rockin’.
On a recent Friday afternoon, a couple of dozen people have forked over $15 or more to play pinball and video games.
The interior of the old hall is dark, save for the light cast by dozens of brilliantly coloured machines, which flash as players flip away on 1970s pinball classics, like Gottlieb’s Incredible Hulk and Bally’s Flash Gordon.
The sound is raucous, the ding-ding-ding of the pinball machines blending with the pew-pew-pew and zzt-zzt-zzt of video game players battling to the death with alien invaders.
In the midst of all the electronic mayhem, Angelo Muro quietly buffs up the coat of wax he has applied to a vintage Evel Knievel game.
To get more light, he wears a headlamp as he makes sure the machine’s flippers, sling shots and saucer kickouts are working properly before he will re-insert the glass top on the game and open it up to the masses.
Machines at VanCity Pinball in Vancouver.
Back in his office, the energetic 42-year-old beams. The one-time electrical engineer at B.C. Hydro has been dreaming of opening his own arcade, and jumped at the chance at a two-year lease on the former wedding hall, which is slated to be demolished in a new development.
“It’s a great way for me to do a test pilot to see if this really works,” said Muro. “Not a huge commitment.”
Two weeks in, it seems to be working out just fine, although he has been working seven days a week to get VanCity Pinball And Arcade up and running.
“I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t love it,” he said. “It’s been very exciting.”
The current setup includes 65 pinball machines and about a dozen video or arcade games, almost all from his own collection of around 150 pinball machines. The oldest is from 1975, and the bulk are from the 1990s to 2010s.
Inside VanCity Pinball on Venables in Vancouver BC, March 6, 2026.
Many of his other games are installed at pubs. He has already been running a pinball machine business.
“The newest, latest and greatest are mostly at the American Bar And Pub (on Main Street),” he said. “And I’ve got a couple at Library Square (downtown). They’ve got 10 machines.”
Muro grew up in Coquitlam and now lives in Burnaby, but knows the old hall at Commercial and Venables well.
“I’ve been here for many weddings,” he said. “I talked to my Uncle Fernando, and he’s like, ‘Oh, I got married here.’ It’s really cool.”
Muro didn’t get into pinball until he was in his 20s.
“My friend got a machine, and that’s how I got addicted,” he explains. “We played for a bit, and it was fun, but nothing special. Then when something broke, we had to figure it out.”
They phoned “the pinball doctor guy,” who suggested they look at the boxes in back of the machine. The fix turned out to be simple — a fuse needed to be replaced.
But the electronically inclined Muro became fascinated with how the machine worked. He fixed the flashing lights on the machine, and “just really got addicted to making stuff better.”
Now he can tinker with the machines to his heart’s content.
“Having my own place here, it’s really fun, because it’s like I can spend the extra hour just to do (an extra) 10 per cent, a little bit more,” he said.
“I don’t mind, it’s really just fun to clean and tune the machines up to the way I like it.”
Sign inside VanCity Pinball on Venables in Vancouver BC.
His wife Alicia is involved in the business as well. She was the one who suggested players pay for time rather than constantly plug the machine with money, which is the traditional method.
“She likes the older machines, and they can be really tough,” he said.
“To keep plugging money in over and over is really frustrating. She wanted something that is more open to beginners, (where) you don’t have to worry about pumping money into a machine. So it’s just a flat rate, and people don’t have to worry once they pay. They just walk in and they enjoy everything.”
Alicia also helped with the decor. She did the giant “VanCity Pinball And Arcade” graffiti painting inside the hall.
“There’s an asterisk … she used AI to help her,” said Muro. “We had inspiration from (the game) Attack From Mars and (artist) Brian Allen.”
The exterior of VanCity Pinball at 1939 Venables in Vancouver.
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