Presented by Spawn Point Coffee
I was able to interview Michael Lepsch on March 11, 2025, at my company function, where we all played a ton of games and had some great food. Michael owns Arcade 92 at the Flower Mound, Texas location, one of their two locations; the other is in McKinney, Texas. You can see more of Arcade 92 at their website: https://www.arcade92.com/
Todd Friedman (TF): Are you originally from Texas?
Michael Lepsch (ML): So, I’m a Yankee. I was born in New York and lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma for a short bit. Tulsa was my first interaction with video games as an eight-year-old. I’ve been in the DallasโFort Worth area for now well over two-thirds of my life. I’m not from here, but most of my life I have lived in Texas.
TF: When did you decide you wanted to open an arcade and why did you choose these two locations?
ML: The funny thing is I want to say that I decided to open an arcade sometime in 2018, and while going through my parents’ attic, I found a box of some drawings I did in the third grade. Inside that box was a drawing of myself that I did, and it says one day I am going to have one thousand dollars, and with that money I am going to open a video game store. So apparently, I had this idea when I was in the third grade, and I just forgot about that.
TF: Do you own both locations, and which one did you open first?
ML: We opened our McKinney location at the very end of 2019. In fact, we opened on November 29 because that’s the anniversary of Pong. I specifically wanted that date, and we got it to work out. I really wanted to open on that same date here at Flower Mound, but we missed it by a week because of some city inspections, so we opened here on December 4, 2023.
TF: How was the reception when you first opened? How is the turnout?
ML: In McKinney, it was great. This is like a retirement job. So, when I first had this idea, I was pretty sure this would work. I can honestly say that when it came to opening day in McKinney, I remember unlocking the door after spending an insane amount of money on construction and all those things and being like, this was a good idea, right? You know that that weekend we were packed, and it stayed that way for a while, so that was great. Here in Flower Mound, I felt a lot more confident. It kind of had the same beginning to it, but I felt much more like I knew what I was doing. I think that McKinney had that excited nervousness. Here it was far less, but it’s been great. Both locations have done fantastic, and like I said, McKinney met and exceeded all my expectations, so I was like, hey, why not do it again? We’ve been here in Flower Mound for just a little over a year now in the second location. I’m having a great time.
TF: How important is the maintenance of the machines, and how do you handle the wear and tear?
ML: When we first got started, I was the technician, and now we have four people who are techs, but I will chime in when things get busy. I kind of Google-taught myself to fix the machines. All four of my tech crew are under the age of 25, so that’s cool because I’ve been able to kind of keep that going. I tried to put out an ad for a retro game technician and no one’s answering those. I go in, but sometimes they must cross-pollinate, but I’ll tell you it is not easy. One of the tough things is when a monitor goes out. You can’t get new monitors, so a lot of times you must sacrifice a game to make a new game work, and that’s a tough decision. You don’t ever want to see taking a game out of circulation.
TF: What does it take to keep Arcade 92 fresh, and do you try to circulate different games?
ML: We have a general strategy. About every month we recycle three titles. So, three games go out, which makes sense, and itโs easier now that we have two locations because we can swap between those. We have about 120 games at the Flower Mound location, and I’ve got 100 at the McKinney location, plus we’ve got about 30 or 40 games in storage, most of which are working.
TF: Do you see yourself expanding and opening more arcades?
ML: Maybe. It is kind of like a retirement job for me. I did this because I could never not work, and I wanted to do something fun. I also did this because, you know, my story goes back to when I retired from the industry I was in before. I was definitely working too hard.
For the full interview with Michael, please go to https://www.oldschoolgamermagazine.com/arcade-92-the-full-interview/
To see more of Arcade 92, visit their website: https://www.arcade92.com/76
Presented by Spawn Point Coffee
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