With more than 200 arcade games among their offerings, the Fun Plaza Family Fun Center in Myrtle Beach, S.C., recently installed the latest Intercard cashless technology while maintaining their historic charm.
The open-air arcade has classics like Skee-Ball and a 1957 Williams baseball pinball machine to modern games like Tomb Raider and Halo: Fireteam Raven. It was started in 1938 by Conrad Allen Burroughs, continued by his son Red Waldorf, and today by Burroughs’ grandson Jimmy Waldorf, who’d been considering going cashless for years before taking the plunge.
Jimmy Waldorf, owner of Fun Plaza Family Fun Center in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Todd DeMott of Intercard with one of five new iTellers that let customers easily enjoy the center’s 200 vintage and modern games.
“Everybody was telling me the difference between Intercard and the others is the service,” he said. “I called another vendor a few times and I couldn’t get anybody to answer the phone. I call Intercard and they answer the phone – boom, boom, boom. So I said, ‘Well, that’s what I need to do,’ so I went with Intercard.”
Fun Plaza’s Intercard system has more than 300 iReaders, plus five iTeller kiosks and five Balance and Recycle Stations that let customers easily check their redemption points. On the classics like Waldorf’s prized baseball game, customers are given the choice between quarters or card. He was initially worried that the technology would detract from the nostalgic experience.
“But I come to find out maybe 90 percent of the people that come into the arcade are using the card and only 10 percent are using quarters,” he said. “Since putting card readers on the baseball machines, I got back to 100 percent of the people having the ability to play the games, whether they use quarters or they use card swipe.”
Be sure to pick up a copy of RePlay’s September issue to read Melody Cherchian’s profile on the 81-year-old fun center. In the meantime, visit www.funplazambsc.com and www.intercardinc.com for more information.
