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The year began with CHS reporting the dream of a Pike/Pine pinball arcade bar lived on. It will end with the dream becoming a reality.

Time Warp is ready for a December 2022 debut on 10th Ave in the heart of Pike/Pine with plans for a grand opening next week.

The project from buds and business collaborators Joe Ricci, Sean Bray, Tim Uomoto, and Greg Larson fired up its games and its drinks Wednesday night to put the pinball and arcade bar through a test run with the friends and loved ones who have been waiting to play since the venue was first planned in early 2020.

“We have a bunch of friends that are super into pinball,” Ricci said. “Seattle’s a huge pinball city.”

Time Warp fits right in. But it has been a long ride and “a kind of pretty intense maze of permitting” to get here. Time Warp could be a reference to the great machines at the bar’s core. But it also fits a project that has been in motion since before the COVID-19 crisis. CHS first reported on plans for the bar in February 2020.

The pandemic slowed it down but the game was also complicated by the reams of paperwork required to change the use of the 10th Ave former fashion shop space on the ground floor of the Jack Apartments building, Ricci said. Nearly three years later, the arcade bar is now ready to beep and boop, flip and ding.

Time Warp is a showcase of Ricci’s work collecting, repairing, and fine tuning great pinball machines and arcade games and the sci fi and tech art and creations of his friends and collaborators including an enormous printed and backlit mural put together by the band of entrepreneurs and creators around nearby Pike/Pine makerspace Passable.

The bar includes games and machines you quite literally won’t find anywhere else. They were built by Ricci and friends for Time Warp — and, quite possibly, they may not fit with another arcade on the planet. Let us know when you see The Simpsons Colonoscopy Party at Chuck E. Cheese.

Ricci speaks about Time Warp’s games and machines like people. In fact, you might recognize one or two from around the neighborhood. “This guy actually lived in Vermillion for a long time,” Ricci says, introducing CHS to one of the bar’s Pike/Pine veteran games.

Other parts of the neighborhood are also ready to become part of Time Warp. There are plans for a few drinks on the menu in collaboration with neighbor shop Drip Tea that should add boozy boba to the offerings soon.

For food, Time Warp’s early promises of surprisingly cheap eats and “a selection of the best, most exotic ramen and noodle cups from around the world” have come into reality with a wide menu ready for a pour of steaming hot water and some special add-ons available at the noodle bar including slices of American cheese. Yes, the instant noodle bar is kind of a joke and, yes, you’ll probably want a slide of cheese for a delicious, cheap dinner that is easy to hold while you play.

Ricci thinks Time Warp could end up billed “the cheapest date in Seattle” — “two cup noodles and a roll of quarters, is like 25 bucks,” he says, proudly.

Time Warp is 21+ and located at 1420 10th Ave. Keep track of the official opening and learn more at timewarp.bar.

HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.