Pinball repairmen on Long Island keep the lights flashing on these old-school games

In the lower level of Ron Barbagallo’s Smithtown home, a quick flip of a light switch powers on more than 25 pinball machines in a high-ceilinged showroom.

Godzilla, Austin Powers, Star Trek, Elvis and AC/DC are just a few of the many themed cabinets. There are also original, unlicensed games like “The Champion Pub” and “Revenge From Mars.”

They’re all outfitted with dazzling artwork, flashing lights, ramps, buzzers and bells. All from different eras and brands. And all painstakingly restored by Barbagallo, one of the few pinball repair technicians working on Long Island.

“Pinball’s seen as a toy, but they’re amazingly engineered mechanical menageries.

Ron Barbagallo, pinball machine restorer

“I think a lot of people underestimate the complexity of them,” said Barbagallo, 63. “Pinball’s seen as a toy, but they’re amazingly engineered mechanical menageries.”

In recent years, the once-ubiquitous game has gained in popularity again, especially among older players looking to re-connect with their youth. But technicians with the know-how to keep these physical machines running are hard to find, say industry experts.

‘PINBALL HAS COME BACK’

Peter Gustafson, the executive vice president of the Illinois-based American Amusement Machine Association, said home sales for pinball machines, which can range in cost from $2,000 to more than $10,000, “went through the roof” during COVID.

“Pinball has come back in a big way, and it’s healthier than it’s been in a very long time,” he said. “People were bored out of their mind with money in their pocket saying, ‘We gotta get something for the kids to do, we gotta get something to do.’

“It’s an iconically American product, and there’s a resurgence in the retro and the mechanical and the analog.”

A former employee at Bally Manufacturing in Chicago who trained people to fix pinball machines throughout the 1980s, he said, “It’s a very sought-after skill by sellers, distributors and operators of amusement games because they’re such mechanical beasts. It’s an art form unto itself. There’s a job opportunity for somebody who wants to get into doing something kind of weird and cool.”

LEARNING BY DOING

Barbagallo has been in the pinball business since 1978, when he was just 17.

His father had started an amusement game route in the early 1970s, buying machines — coin slot, pinball and arcade — and securing locations to place them. Barbagallo, a mechanically inclined kid who gravitated toward pinball machines in game rooms throughout his youth, said he helped repair and move them.

Encouraged by his father to zero in on a specialty, Barbagallo said, “There’s a million plumbers in the world, but there’s not a lot of guys to fix pinball machines.”

In the mid-’80s, he said he started doing service calls on Saturdays while working full-time for a vending company. He’d drive around soliciting work from game and arcade operators who sold machines to people but couldn’t fix them.

“It was like new, uncharted territory,” he said. “There’s no training schools to learn it. I just had this thing. Little by little, I was able to blaze my own path.”

Barbagallo did in-home service calls and repairs throughout the region, but he has since segued into finding and restoring old machines.

Barbagallo spends weeks getting the grime out, removing scratches, stripping them down “to the last washer,” sanding, repainting, applying clear coating, rewiring and reassembling the machines.

His goal, he said, is to make sure they are rebuilt even better than before. “I try to make them as perfect as possible.”

From there, he sells and delivers the machines, which weigh several hundred pounds, to clients’ homes.

Outside of restoration jobs for clients, he can often be found in his workshop doing high-end restorations for his own personal collection, which he keeps in a separate row in the showroom.

He labors over these even more, devoting months to them, he said. His most recent is a complete rebuild of a “Twilight Zone” machine from the 1990s.

“All the ones in my collection are the best work I’m capable of,” he said. “I always try to outdo myself.”

For Barbagallo, working on pinball machines is more than just a job.

“I get my kicks from this work,” he said. “I always had this thing about taking some worn-out clunker ready for the landfill and saving it. Kind of like people who restore cars. I like working with my hands and being creative. I’m a one-man band.

“It’s really a hobby business I’ve been able to make a career out of.”

One of his happy clients is Gene Gonzalez, 59, of Smithtown.

When he entered the showroom for the first time, Gonzalez said, “I was blown away, like I was in pinball heaven.”

While there, a Batman ‘66 machine caught his eye. He said he gave Barbagallo a deposit on the spot.

“Whatever Ron’s restoring, he puts his heart and soul into it," said Gonzalez. "When he’s done, it’s like brand new.”

FATHER-SON FIXERS

Over in Amityville, Danny D’Elia, 65, and his father James D’Elia, 94, also found careers for themselves in the world of pinball.

In the early 1970s, the older D’Elia — an Air Force veteran and former liaison engineer at Lockheed Aircraft Service — fixed toasters and irons in the back room of a barber shop on Route 110.

One day, he recalled, someone walked in and asked if he knew anything about circuit boards.

“At the time, ‘Pong’ was the biggest game,” James D’Elia said, “and nobody knew how to fix that stuff when it broke down. That’s how innocent the whole industry was.”

He said he obtained a schematic and put his electronics engineering and soldering skills to good use.

This prompted the launch of a vending business soon after, and the involvement of Danny, then 15, in 1973.

“I got four boys, and he was the only one who showed any interest in mechanics,” said James D’Elia.

His son worked at his dad’s company, where he began fixing pinball machines, before joining Royal Vending in Farmingdale at 18 — going to hundreds of bars across Long Island, repairing and refurbishing old jukeboxes, pool tables, cigarette machines and pinball machines.

“That’s where I cut my teeth and got the feel for those machines — I became somewhat of an expert,” Danny D’Elia said.

So much so that he said he branched out into in-home pinball repair at night and advertised his business, On Location Vending Repairs, in the Pennysaver. He also worked for other vendors, plus repaired VCRs, fixed copy machines for Canon and maintained games at the Fun Zone

Amusements on Route 110 in Farmingdale in the 1990s. The shortage of people who could repair pinball machines helped him expand his clientele to out-of-state companies that sold to New York, he said. He said he’d bring his dad along on “really tough jobs.”

“There’s only a few of us who do this stuff,” Danny D’Elia said. “I liked that I didn’t have a boss. I was out on the road, I used to take my wife, Dawn, with me every once in a while. I was pretty happy doing what I was doing.”

His father chimed in, “At one point he said he’d do this for free because he loved it so much.”

“Yeah, if I was independently wealthy, I’d still go out and fix machines,” the younger D’Elia said.

“It’s that sense of accomplishment, that you can go somewhere and in a half-hour or an hour, it’s working again. And the clients are so happy.”

CLIENT LIST GROWS

Jeff Levy, 74, of Queens, first met Danny D’Elia about 15 years ago when he purchased a Williams pinball machine called “Medieval Madness.” The company that shipped it to him recommended D’Elia for the installation, Levy said.

All these years later, Levy said he has the repairman “on speed dial,” reaching out two to three times a year for little repairs.

“When I call Danny, he’s there the next day,” Levy said. “He’s been indispensable in keeping it healthy and in good order, like a pinball doctor.”

Danny D’Elia is mostly retired these days, but — his van well-stocked with tools, parts, wires and bulbs — he said he does two to three in-home repairs every few months if he can.

His customer list, though, piles up fast. “I get a lot of calls because there aren’t a lot of options.

Pinball has made a big comeback and there’s money to be made. I wish I was this busy 30 years ago.”

PRESERVING HISTORY

D’Elia sends a lot of his customers to Sal Castilloneso, 40, the owner of Arcade Salvation LLC, who has been in the amusement business since he was 19.

A regular at the Nassau Mall arcade in Levittown as a boy, he said pinball machines spoke directly to his love for electronics and mechanics.

Today, Castilloneso said he offers in-house repair and restoration service calls, wielding a particular expertise in circuit boards with a truck full of hundreds of parts, plus coils and switches. He also sells machines from his mini-showroom at his home in Huntington Station.

"It's really just become a niche business where there's not a lot of people doing it and it's easy to become successful when you end up mastering that skill...There isn't really anyone else who's really diving into the repair work like I do, especially the electronic side," he said.

 We’re really restoring and preserving a piece of American history.

Sal Castilloneso, owner of Arcade Salvation LLC

Castilloneso said he’s proud to carry on the legacy of the trade. “We’re really restoring and preserving a piece of American history. Pinball started years and years and years ago. I think people enjoy that. They’re amazed I’m able to get into ’70s machines.”

He’s in it for the long haul, he said, but worries about the future: “I don’t know if there’s a lot of interest among young people to get involved in” machine repair, he said.

PINBALL LONG ISLAND

Another Long Islander looking to keep the tradition alive is Josh Guskin, who in March 2023 opened Pinball Long Island on Main Street in Patchogue largely to “pass the pinball torch” to a younger crowd, he said.

“We get all age groups, from stroller to walker,” said Guskin, 42. “Parents have their nostalgic heartstrings pulled and it’s gratifying to see kids who’ve never played before. Because if it stops at a generation, it’s over.”

Among the 100 machines that line the spacious venue are “The Munsters,” “Shrek,” “Iron Maiden,” “The Sopranos” and “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

“There’s a theme for everybody here,” he said. “And what’s great about pinball is that no two games are the same.”

Glenn Warmuth, 55, an attorney from Medford, said he pops in about three times a week and even had a birthday celebration there this year.

“There’s a community there, and I don’t think most people who like pinball easily find that,” Warmuth said. “If I have a trial or some other work that has to get done, I try to get down there. It helps my mind shift into a different gear and that can actually be helpful.”

A pinball player from a young age, Guskin said he has collected arcade and pinball machines for years, teaching himself to fix them through internet forums and trial and error. It’s a skill that’s come in handy with his new venture, where he is also the sole technician.

Referring to his arcade, he said, “This place is the extension of my basement. I still feel the same way playing today that I did playing my first game as a kid.”