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Saturday Open Play events are from 12-8pm. Arrive at your convenience at/after 12pm, plan to finish your last game by 8:00pm. You are welcome to step out between those times for food/ drink etc. We offer a limited selection of sign ups during the week and additional Open Play events for kids. Please see our sign up/ hours page for available dates.
All registered attendees will receive a code to enter. We cannot accept walk-in attendees. Our doors are locked 24/7 the following reasons: We need to be fair to those who have signed up in advance. Additionally, our location has a capacity limit. Some events are reserved by families or corporate specific and their reservation deserves exclusivity.
This message posted here on our FAQ on 8/26/2025.
Our address is posted on our sign up page (top of website) and included with your registration e mail. This helps eliminate any misunderstanding that signing up in advance is required. We are in downtown Farmington Minnesota
Saturday open play is $30 per person for 8 hours. Limited weeknight offerings are $20 for 5 hours. This is for the person that just wants to hang out and play pinball, no tournament play, no pressure. A minimum of 54 machines will be on free play; you can expect closer to 70. A select few will be on coin play with 100% coin drop contributing to Julie's Mission. Participating in coin play machines is OPTIONAL!
If you are unfamiliar, "Free Play" means you can walk up to the machine and start a game with no coin/money/card interaction necessary. You can play it as many times as you want. We do ask you be on the lookout in case someone else may be wanting to play the same machine. Invite them for a 2 player game perhaps?
Playing pinball! For coin play machines, 100% of revenue will be donated to causes that were important to Julie. A portion of machine sales are also added. Proceeds of merch sales (shirts, hats, hoodies etc) also contributes. If you are not local or wish to contribute more to Julie's mission, you may click here to donate. (please note we are currently NOT a 501 (c) Therefore we cannot provide a tax deductible receipt at this time)
We have a soda/snack machine on site. We try to offer a mixture of sweet, salty, and healthy options for you at a competitive price. Within a one minute walk there are several restaurants available that serve alcohol. Please note we do not serve alcohol nor can alcohol be consumed at Julie's yet. Reasons behind this we discuss in a YouTube video here.
Yes! While a few machines throughout pinballs' history have some suggestive themes or artwork, we've stayed conscious for Julie's to be family friendly. Oddly enough our South Park machine doesn't have the harsh language you'd expect. The Hugh Hefner game has PG artwork that is presentable. Titles like these we have lined up in the back hallway if you choose to avoid this area....or head directly to.
Kids discount: In September we will start offering a Family/ Kids afternoon for discounted rates for those 12 and under.
John Ross has a lifelong history in coin op. He and his sister Julie had planned to open a location for pinball 10-15 years ago. Unfortunately due to her health and passing away, plans changed. So, John's former employee turned family friend, Eric, decided to join in John's original plan of opening a location. However this time the focus would be a memorial for Julie and her lifelong dedication to her research. John and Eric have brought their pinball machine collections together at Julie's Pinball.
Yes! We encourage folks who are new to pinball to join us for an Open Play session. We'd be happy to show you the basics when you arrive. The rules/strategy of older games are sometimes simple as three or four sentences. Newer machines have rules that look like a book! The pinball community is generally very inviting and happy to share knowledge with beginners. What's unique is pinball can be enjoyed by those who are social creatures AND those who want to step into their own world for a little while.
We own the small lot behind the building in the southeast corner accessible from the alley. Since it is not finished with designated parking spaces yet, we recommend street parking for now. If you are more comfortable parking in our lot, please be conscious about other vehicles as to not double park. Do not park in the small lot to the north. This is for the apartment next to us and they have signs hanging up so there shouldn't be any confusion. Julie's guests who park at the apartment lot may be subject to tow. (and we don't have any special powers to intervene)
A few reasons. It may be beyond 40 days and is not offered yet. There are limited number of sign ups allowed per day. Once full, the option will disappear from our calendar. We may take a Saturday off the calendar from time to time.
From time to time the embedding code from Acuity might act weird in some browsers when it tries to load inside our website. For a direct external link to the sign up page you may click here for a better experience.
Some of the finer details about Julie's may be found here
We welcome beginners and competitive play. We provide a good balance for the novice and expert player. Adjusting difficulty back and forth per machine is a time consuming process. We consider difficulty settings on a game-by-game basis. A general rule of thumb is as follows:
Some Free play machines will be set at a higher difficulty.
Coin play machines will observe settings somewhat easier than those on free play. These machines will offer an opportunity for a replay based on score. Most coin play machines will offer extra balls.
Match feature for coin play will be 0%. The philosophy behind matching, dates back to days when game times were extremely short. Rewarding players with free games based on randomness was warranted. With much longer game times with newer machines and with coin play supporting Julie’s mission, we are comfortable turning off the match feature.
Night Moves. We have also found Bone Busters, Heavy Metal Meltdown, Dirty Harry and NASCAR to be popular among our attendees.
Occasionally. Most of the machines at Julies are on loan from John and Eric's private collection. Sometimes Julie's will buy machines to refurbish and sell in order to keep up with operating expenses. When a machine is listed for sale we will include a price next to the title here on our website under the "Games" tab. A portion will also be contributed to Julie's Mission
At this time we do not sell games on consignment. There are a few reasons for this. Some are for the reasons we sell games as noted above. Some are for the reasons explained in the question after this, below. Additionally there is the complexity of warranty repairs and support following a sale.
Many have generously offered to loan us their game which we appreciate! Before our own games arrive we invest a fair amount of parts and labor in them before arrival. For the sake of consistency it's difficult to balance these efforts on a game owned by someone else. There are some locations around the country that are "collectives" with a potluck or pinball club approach. This does work for some folks but is not our approach. We are in a unique position with Julie's Mission in mind. Either way, we thank you for having us in mind to consider this!
For "Solid State" pinball machines, manufactured in 1978 and newer, please see John's business site Pinball Plus for current service availability. Generally speaking, John is slowing down with repairs as he's been in this business since the 80s and wants to focus on the machines for Julie's
For Electromechanical machines 1977 and prior to, that's Eric "reelhouse". Eric works beyond a full time job leading a service team for a medical device manufacturer. His own collection is on a 4 to 5 year waiting list as it is! That being said, he is happy to show you the way towards some great resources to self teach, just as he did as a kid. There are a few folks in the cities who repair the older machines however few, if any, formally perform service calls.
Our main collection focus is towards classic and unique machines. Many come through previous customers and word of mouth. We don't intend to purchase every newly released title. We wouldn't be above to cover our operating costs taking this approach and working with Julie's Mission would not be possible. Hopefully we will have the opportunity to secure new titles from time to time.
John and Eric have collected pinball machines for a majority of their lives. Eric and his father bought Eric’s first machine when he was 10 years old. Over the years they have networked with many in the industry and hobby. With John owning two retail stores and continuing repair business, some customers choose to sell their machines over time. The most common reason is downsizing their homes/ becoming empty nesters.
Selling parts is not something we are set up for at this time. We carry a limited number of generic parts on site for emergency repairs and a few extra things if we are working on something in our offices. We source our parts from the same places most collectors and retailers go.
We have approximately 80 pinball machines on site! With admission we want to promise you a minimum of 54 working machines. With more than that on free play this allows room for error if something needs repair and still hold our promise to you. Julie passed away at the age of 54; that's how we came up with that number. However it is rare for 2 or more machines to be "down for the count" during your visit. To date it's never happened.
John: The one the works. Although John has been frequenting Baby Pac recently
Eric: The next one to restore that hasn't been played in decades so other's can enjoy again
We try to set our rates at what we hope is a good value for folks to play pinball. We also want to show our appreciation to our customer and those who follow us. For example some discount codes will be released in our YouTube videos and on Facebook. Other times we will have a discount posted at our location. If you haven't been able to find one yet but you've taken the time to read through our FAQ, then we are pleased to offer code: FAQ54 for 8% off one of your Saturday Open play visits.
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