Rainbow Novelties

They have good inventory of pinball games.
I play several of their tables at a local place.
I call the number listed on the machine, someone answers. I tell them I can’t get fight the power on the Twilight Zone machine because the bars are bent.
Next afternoon, I walk in, see the repair guy, and I started talking to him. He was genuinely excited to talk pinball, and he knew all the in’s and out’s of these games.
I told him about all the issues I’ve found with all the games there, and he said he would fix them.
And guess what? He did! Not only that, but he asked me what table I might like to replace one of the older ones. I told him I have not seen or played a fully functioning Whirlwind machine in years.
And guess what ?
today I walked in during lunch to shoot some pinball, and there, in all it’s glory, was the fully functional Whirlwind of my dreams. Today I felt the power of the wind like I had not felt in years.
Thank you Rainbow Novelties for keeping these machines alive and well.
5 stars, all the way.

Couple of months ago, I was searching for an EM pinball repair technician and came across this place on Unilocal.Judging by the positive reviews, I thought I found what I was looking for. I called and a female answered. I told her that I am looking for a repair person for my 1977 Jacks Open machine. Well, she wasn’t cordial at all and said that they don’t service private owners of pinball machines and only businesses. When I asked for a recommendation, she just hung up on me. In these tough economic times, do businesses really find it necessary to hire jerks that scare away customers? I finally found Greywolf and am happy.

Here’s something you might not have known about John S.: I’m a pretty good pinball player. I don’t normally like to brag; but considering that I spent a considerable amount of time in my twenties playing pinball when many of my peers were drinking, dating, and meeting the people they would eventually marry, I figure there has to be something to show for all that wasted time. Not that playing pinball is wasting time, exactly. Actually, I attribute a great deal of my ability to not lose my mind during a difficult time in my life to playing pinball so regularly.
My favorite pinball machine is Medieval Madness. You’ve probably never heard of it, and you most likely will never play it, as it’s worth more now than when in came out in 1997, so individuals are more likely to buy it and keep it in their living rooms than arcades or pizza places are to have it for public use.
So I used to play Medieval Madness and Junkyard and Scared Stiff and sometimes the Austin Powers pinball game at a Super Kmart in La Habra, which is in Orange County. I detest Kmart and only really ever bought M&Ms there when I needed to break a twenty so I could play pinball for an hour on $ 5 at 3:17 a.m. (And I did used to play at all hours.) I’ll save my Super K stories for other reviews, but one of the reasons I enjoyed their mini-​arcade so much was that the coin-​op service company affiliated with their machines was top notch. I want to review – wait a second; I just remembered the name of this other company, so I’ll go ahead and finish this story in a future review.
When the Attack from Mars pinball machine at Molotov’s in the Lower Haight was malfunctioning, I wrote down the phone number for Rainbow Novelties, the company that owns the pinball machine, and called on a Friday night. Amazingly, someone answered the phone, and instead of just telling me they would fix the problem, she asked me what the error message was and seemed to be writing it down.
I haven’t been back to see whether they fixed it, but the fact that they answer their phones and seem interested is a positive sign.
UPDATE: 12÷4÷09
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So I’m bumping Rainbow Novelties up to five stars because I had a sort of magical customer-​service experience with one of their repair guys. So I was playing Medieval Madness at Molotov’s as usual, and I somehow screwed up the catapult during multiball. The game was basically unplayable because one of the balls was trapped somewhere I didn’t know was physically possible for it to reach – and I’ve played this game literally thousands of times.
Anyway, when the bartender saw me moving the machine around, he asked me whether it was broken, and I told him it was. He said he would call Rainbow Novelties, and I thought he meant later. Well, I started playing the Lord of the Rings pinball machine, and literally twenty minutes later, the Rainbow Novelties repairman showed up. Not only did he fix the original problem, but he also fixed the coin return that had been eating quarters every once in a while. While he was repairing the pool table, I noticed that MM still wasn’t working properly. I explained the problem to him, and he opened it up again and spent another fifteen minutes tinkering with it until he had solved the problem.
This place rules. I realize that it’s their job to repair stuff, but they always answer the phone when I call, and they get things done quickly.