Best Place for Grown-ups to Play Vintage Arcade Games

Those with coulrophobia (an extreme fear of clowns) shouldn't even come within spitting distance of Shorty's, but if you can get past the freaky carnival theme and the clown dolls staring you down from every nook and cranny, it's the best place in town for kids of drinking age like myself to play Ms. PacMan for hours on end without a passel of screaming brats ruining our playin' mojo. Even if Shorty's wasn't a bar, the mural alone—a horrific cartoon of an escaped circus lion hunting a shrieking clown—would likely be enough to send the under-10 set packing. Hell, it even gives me the heebies. But Shorty's isn't the best only because it's a bar and must ban minors to stay in business. It's the best because of its sizable wall o' video games in the front room—Ms. PacMan, Galaga, Donkey Kong, Target Terror, Mario Bros., and Big Buck Hunter Pro among them—not to mention the 16 pinball machines in the back room, better known as "Pinball Cove." And at the universal price of 50 cents per play, it's almost possible to pretend that it's still 1991, our president is, uh, Bush (dammit!), and you're eating that Shorty's cream-cheese hot dog on your parents' dime.—Sara Brickner