Arcades in St. Louis

Looking for flashing lights and high scores in St. Louis, MO? There are 9 arcades mapped here. That's 9 arcades mapped around St. Louis. Machine condition varies wildly between venues, so the one with the best-maintained cabinets wins regardless of size. Check whether the venue runs on tokens, cards or coins before you arrive with the wrong currency.

This guide covers every arcade we could verify in and around St. Louis (within about 40 km), built from OpenStreetMap's community-maintained data. Names you'll run into include Up-Down and Chuck E. Cheese, plus The axe house. If an arcade's missing from St. Louis's list, it probably just hasn't been mapped yet.

The St. Louis arcade lineup

9 mapped within about 40 km:

What the map tells us about arcades in St. Louis

2 of the 9 list their opening hours on the map, which is genuinely useful — arcades keep long hours, so the listed times are usually good.

6 have websites listed. Worth a look for tournament nights and free-play evenings.

Most of the arcades in St. Louis list a phone number. Useful for checking party bookings and tournament schedules.

6 arcades list websites — worth a look for opening times and whether they run leagues or tournament nights.

The St. Louis arcade run

Making a day of it in St. Louis? Work this order: Up-Down, Chuck E. Cheese, The axe house, The Lazarus Pinball Museum on 26 Western Plaza, Swing-A-Round Fun Town on 335 Skinker Lane, Tri-Township Activity Center, Dave & Buster's on 13857 Riverport Drive, and Chuck E. Cheese on 720 South County Center Way. That's the arcade run in one sensible loop, no backtracking. 1 more are listed below.

Arcade tips for St. Louis

A few things worth knowing before you work through St. Louis's arcades:

• Watch the regulars first at Up-Down. The high-score table tells you which machines are hot and who's worth watching. Fifteen minutes of watching teaches plenty.
• Don't feed a broken machine at Chuck E. Cheese. If it eats your credit without starting, tell staff immediately. Good venues refund; all venues should know.
• Bring ear protection for kids. Arcades are loud. Little ears appreciate plugs, and you'll enjoy it more too.
• Set a budget. Arcade spending evaporates. Decide the amount up front, load it on the card, and stop when it's gone.

Good to know

We searched about 40 km around St. Louis — that covers the town itself plus the surrounding communities you'd reasonably drive to. Listings come from OpenStreetMap, mapped by local volunteers, so a brand-new arcade in St. Louis can take a while to appear. If you spot one of the 9 that's closed, or a great arcade we missed, the fix is to update the map itself — that's where this guide reads from.

We don't list machine lineups — they change too often. What we list is the where: real venues, verified by real mappers.

If you run one of the 9 listed here and something's wrong — a closure, a move, new hours — the fix is the same: update the shop on OpenStreetMap and the correction flows through to this page on the next daily refresh.