Interview with Rob Berk & guided tour of Past Times Arcade (Girard OH), January 2026

The owner of Past Times Arcade and founder of Pinball Expo, Rob Berk, sat down with us during our recent visit to Ohio! He was gracious enough to answer a few questions and share some history about his journey from a young player into the curator of one of the world's greatest public collections of pinball machines. Then, he took us on a tour through the aisles of Past Times to show off some of his favorite machines in the collection! Huge thanks to Rob for taking the time to talk with us. Please make sure you make the trip out to Past Times Arcade; you won't regret it! ** PLEASE NOTE: ** There is an audio clipping issue on Chris' microphone that could not be fixed in post-production. We have presented it as originally recorded, as attempting to perform any sort of post processing unfortunately made it sound worse. We'll be investing in a different set of lapel mics in the future to prevent issues like this going forward. CHAPTERS -- 00:00 Intro / sitting down with Rob Berk 00:30 INTERVIEW: Early interest in pinball 01:13 INTERVIEW: The passion & collector's mentality 02:10 INTERVIEW: Homecoming 03:10 INTERVIEW: The Past Times building 04:20 INTERVIEW: Rob's first pinball machine 05:25 INTERVIEW: Add-a-ball vs. replay 05:51 INTERVIEW: Growing the collection 07:09 INTERVIEW: Where do you put it all? 07:50 INTERVIEW: A well-oiled machine 08:07 INTERVIEW: The start of Pinball Expo 09:57 INTERVIEW: The first Pinball Expo's guests of honor 10:54 INTERVIEW: "When's the next show?" 11:18 INTERVIEW: Breaking down the walls 12:21 INTERVIEW: Continuing the legacy 12:47 INTERVIEW: A testament to the power of pinball 13:05 GUIDED TOUR: The Wall of Fame 14:02 GUIDED TOUR: Space Hunt 14:37 GUIDED TOUR: "International Row" 15:22 GUIDED TOUR: The Hankin collection 16:28 GUIDED TOUR: Hell 16:49 GUIDED TOUR: The Zaccaria collection 17:40 GUIDED TOUR: The wackiest game in the International aisle 18:13 GUIDED TOUR: Thank you, Ron 18:40 GUIDED TOUR: Sega's "Surfing" 18:55 GUIDED TOUR: When video met pinball 19:42 GUIDED TOUR: The classic Sterns 20:03 GUIDED TOUR: Cosmic Princess 20:37 GUIDED TOUR: Info cards 20:55 GUIDED TOUR: Seawitch... or Beatles? 21:07 GUIDED TOUR: Asteroid Annie & The Aliens 21:30 GUIDED TOUR: Recurring themes vs. licensed themes 22:16 GUIDED TOUR: Speaking of licenses... 22:31 GUIDED TOUR: Radical! 23:16 GUIDED TOUR: Tron LE 23:32 GUIDED TOUR: Punchy & Mario 24:15 GUIDED TOUR: Beach Games 25:08 GUIDED TOUR: The Atari collection 25:20 GUIDED TOUR: Landing on Venus 25:51 GUIDED TOUR: Q*bert, Orbitor, & Iron Maiden 26:38 GUIDED TOUR: Hairy-Singers & Safe Cracker 27:18 GUIDED TOUR: The Williams Sixties styling collection 27:57 GUIDED TOUR: The Bally collection 29:22 GUIDED TOUR: The Gottlieb collection 30:02 GUIDED TOUR: The first game with flippers / Thank you, Harry 31:06 GUIDED TOUR: Flying Aces 31:43 GUIDED TOUR: Terminator 2 custom 32:31 GUIDED TOUR: A few more games 34:45 Wrap-up and thanks to Rob 35:16 Final thoughts / outro 36:03 End card Website: https://pasttimesarcade.com/ Game listing on Zenius: https://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/ar... If you've enjoyed this video, please consider throwing a like my way, leaving a comment on this video about your favorite games, and subscribing to the channel for more arcade content. And if you want to see some behind the scenes photos from my arcade travels, please follow me on Bluesky and Instagram: https://bsky.app/profile/s1ckh4nds.bs...   / s1ckh4ndsrbn   Want to help support the channel, these videos, and future road trips throughout the country? Please consider channel membership! Members get early access to all my latest videos as soon as they're uploaded and more! Learn more details here:    / @s1ckh4ndsrbn   A huge thank you to our channel sponsors! Please visit them! The Pixel Lab - https://share.google/ZvRVN2V6HoI56eNcL Stinger intro / end card music: "Dragon Team" by Maitro & Eliot The French Kid, from the first edition of the "Dragonball Wave II" album. Background music: "Freescape" by Büromaschinen, courtesy Upitup Records (https://www.upitup.com/) #arcade #arcadegame #arcadegames #arcadetour #ballypinball #electromechanical #family #familytime #familyfun #girard #gottlieb #interview #interviews #ohio #pasttimes #pinball #pov #retroarcade #retrogames #sternpinball #videogame #videogames #vlog #walkthrough #williamspinball