The front room won't prepare you
Strangelove Bar sits on Metropolitan Avenue between Lorimer and Leonard, with the kind of low-key facade that makes you walk past twice before noticing the door. Inside, it's dimly lit wood and leather booths, a respectable selection of rye behind the bar, and bartenders who remember your order. You could have a perfectly fine evening here without ever knowing about the back room. Most people do, actually. They order their Manhattans, settle into conversation, and leave. You should not be most people.
The giveaway is the small stack of quarters on the corner of the bar, next to the tip jar. They're there every night, and if you ask about them, the bartender will gesture toward a black curtain near the restrooms. That's all the direction you'll get.
Through the curtain is 1987
The back room runs nearly as long as the front bar, but darker, narrower, and humming with electricity. Twelve pinball machines line both walls, their backglasses glowing like storefront windows after midnight. These aren't the modern digital versions—owner Marcus Chen spent three years sourcing and restoring machines from the late eighties and early nineties. The Addams Family from 1992. Medieval Madness. Theatre of Magic. The machines that defined the form before video games made pinball feel quaint.
Chen keeps the room at exactly 68 degrees year-round because the older circuit boards are temperature sensitive. He learned that after The Twilight Zone machine died during a heat wave in 2022. Now there's a dedicated HVAC unit, and Chen checks each machine personally before opening. The flippers have tension. The bumpers fire clean. These machines play like they did when they were new.
The Tuesday and Wednesday advantage
From 5 to 8 PM on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, every machine switches to free play. No quarters needed. This is when the serious players arrive—the ones who know the rule sets, who can explain why you should always shoot the left ramp on Medieval Madness, who've memorized the Theatre of Magic's five-ball multiball sequence. They're friendly about it, mostly. If you're standing behind someone watching their game, they'll often step aside after their ball drains and let you take a turn.
The rest of the week, it's fifty cents per game, and you get your quarters at the bar. They keep them in rolls. If you break a twenty, the bartender will ask if you want "pinball change," which means a short stack of quarters in a rocks glass. This is the correct answer. By 10 PM on Fridays and Saturdays, there's usually a small crowd gathered around whichever machine is running hot—someone chasing a high score, the ball refusing to drain, the machine tilting just enough to keep things interesting.
The high score board tells stories
Chen maintains a physical high score board on the wall near the curtain, updated weekly with Sharpie on white contact paper. The initials are mostly regulars. KLM holds the top spot on The Addams Family and has since March. DRG owns Medieval Madness. A player who goes by XXX has claimed Theatre of Magic for six consecutive months, and there's a running joke that no one's ever seen them play—they just materialize, post a score, and vanish.
The machines themselves keep internal high scores, of course, but Chen's board creates a different kind of competition. It's public. It's permanent until someone beats you. And because the machines are maintained so precisely, you can't blame a broken flipper when someone takes your spot. The board has created minor feuds. Two players who've never spoken have been trading the top Medieval Madness score back and forth since summer.
What to drink while you play
The bar doesn't do complicated cocktails—this isn't that kind of place. But they make an excellent Old Fashioned with Rittenhouse rye, and the bourbon selection runs deeper than you'd expect. The move is to order something you can set down on the small shelf beside each machine without worrying about it. Bottles work better than glasses. The machines tilt if you bump them too hard, and you will bump them. Everyone does. The tilt sensitivity is set to tournament standards, which means it's unforgiving.
Chen added the shelves himself after watching too many drinks end up on the floor. They're just wide enough for a bottle and a phone. Some machines have old rings stained into the wood from before the shelves existed—The Addams Family machine has three overlapping circles on its left side. They've become part of the machine's character. Chen won't sand them out.
The late crowd knows the codes
After midnight, the back room takes on a different atmosphere. The early-week casual players are gone. The people here know the machines intimately—they know the secret codes that unlock hidden modes, the exact timing on the multiball sequences, the spots where the ball tends to hang up. They play with the sound off sometimes, reading the machine by feel and the backglass animations.
This is when you might see someone play a single game for forty minutes, building up extra balls, triggering wizard modes, doing things with the flippers that look like sleight of hand. The unspoken rule is that you don't interrupt a game in progress. You can watch, but you stay quiet. The machines demand that kind of attention.
Practical notes
Strangelove Bar is at 304 Metropolitan Avenue, between Lorimer and Leonard Streets. The L train to Lorimer Street puts you two blocks away. Open Monday through Thursday 5 PM to 2 AM, Friday and Saturday 5 PM to 4 AM, Sunday 3 PM to midnight. Free pinball Tuesdays and Wednesdays 5-8 PM; otherwise fifty cents per game. Full bar with focus on whiskey and rye, bottles $8-14, cocktails $12-16. Cash and cards accepted, but bring singles for the quarter exchange. The back room fits maybe twenty people comfortably—if it's packed, you'll wait for a machine. Weekend nights after 10 PM expect crowds. The Addams Family and Medieval Madness are the most popular machines; Theatre of Magic and Twilight Zone see less traffic. No food served, but they don't mind if you bring something in.
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Please drink responsibly. Must be of legal drinking age.
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