Adventures of Shanghai Hillsboro, Oregon

Next Level Pinball Museum

Oregon's Biggest Arcade Comes at a Small Price

Adventures of Shanghai PNW · November 15, 2026

The painted Boss Level and Next Level garage door at Next Level Pinball Museum

This is just a little door. Wait until you see the inside of this building.

Next Level Pinball Museum in Hillsboro is the largest arcade on the West Coast and I'd bet most of Oregon has never heard of it. Twenty-three bucks gets you in for the entire day, and more than 615 of the games are on free play. No quarters, no tokens, no card you have to keep feeding. But the games are honestly only half of what's going on in there.

Newsweek readers voted it the best arcade in America in 2025, and pinball fans have voted it World's Favorite Pinball Location three years running.

Know before you go

Where
1458 NE 25th Ave, Hillsboro
Cost
$23 all-day wristband, in and out. Ages 3 to 5 are $17, 2 and under free
Open
Mon noon to 9, Thu and Fri noon to 11, Sat 10 to 11, Sun 10 to 9. Closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays
Plan for
A few hours at least
Kids
Yes. No alcohol on site, food carts outside

Start at the doors

Hand painted Peach and Rosalina doors leading onto the arcade floor

Starting here because this is the moment I understood what kind of place this is. Peach on one door, Rosalina on the other, both hand painted. Behind them it's Halo, Cruis'n, and a camo Target Bravo cabinet and so many more. Look up on your way through, the ceiling is covered too. Murals by @Bring_Life_Art.

Even the emergency exit got painted. Garfield, Odie, the whole crew. Nothing in this building was left plain.

Three hundred pinball tables

A long aisle of pinball machines with collectibles shelved floor to ceiling
A row of Gottlieb pinball tables under a wall of vintage lunch boxes

Three hundred pinball tables. This is one row. And that's a lunchbox wall sitting right on top of them.

The lunch boxes belong to Fred Carlson, the owner's dad. He started collecting them about 45 years ago and has around 3,500 now. Every pinball machine has a little card on it too, with who designed it, what year it came out and who did the sound.

The racing corner

Four player Pac-Man table in front of a row of Super Bikes and MotoGP racing cabinets

They have so many different ways to race! Racing games were always my favorite as a kid. I couldn't even drive a car yet, and I was smoking other players on the motorcycles.

The room that costs extra

The mural painted doorway into the Pay to Play Zone

See the sign? That's the main room in the building where you need money. Claw machines, card dispensers, the motion ride. Almost everything outside this doorway is already paid for, and the few games out there that aren't only cost a little.

The Man Cave

What does a man do in his man cave? He games. That's exactly what Jordan Carlson did in 2017. Next Level started as a pinball shop with a little man cave in the sales area, and during a local car show he put out a sign: $10 to play all day. It worked! Six expansions later, that man cave is a 27,000 square foot building, and it's still run by Jordan, his wife Whitney and his dad Fred. Yes, they're still trading for lunch boxes.

The Man Cave aisle of classic arcade cabinets with a BurgerTime side panel in front

Our visit

A Minecraft birthday party table in the Next Level party room, on a glass tabletop over old VHS covers

I spent hours playing video games here. With all the lights it can get a little disorienting, and an hour turns into six fast. I actually hosted my son's 7th birthday here, and we had a blast. The party room is huge, with TVs inside and the video games right outside the door.

Before you go