The whole game, two fingers and a hip
Baton Rouge has a pinball bar. It's on Government Street, and it's better than your childhood remembers.
Kids today have video game controllers with more buttons than they have usable fingers—the kind of contraption that takes a young, pliable brain to master. The pinball machine was the opposite. Two index fingers for two buttons. A hip to nudge the machine when the ball needed a little persuasion toward one of the two paddles. That was the whole interface.
The pinball machine came back to mind last week, when the New York Times ran a brief on the Pinball Map—a search app that finds the machines nearest you. Type in Baton Rouge and two places light up: Central City Steak and Seafood has a couple of pinball machines, while BR.cade on Government Street has several as well as classic machines.
Walk into BR.cade and you'll smile before you've made it more than a step. Pinball machines ringing and buzzing. Second- and third-generation video games that used to draw a line out the door—Galaga, Ms. Pac-Man, Joust—glowing like they are waiting for you to return. BR.cade is built for the grown version of the kid who used to slide quarters into video games: adults who want to play a game and have a drink while they do it.
There's a $5 cover, except on Sundays and during happy hour—4 to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday—when you can walk right in and start playing. Most of the games are free, but bring a ten-spot for the handful that still want your money, including some of the pinball machines.
No tutorial. No thirty-button controller. No pliable young brain required. Two fingers and a hip still get the job done—and now you're finally old enough to order a drink while they do.