Poppa Z's

When I was a kid, there was a pizza place named Poppa Z's about a mile from the grade school I went to. They had decent pizza, but more importantly, they had about two dozen arcade games (I'm talking skee ball, mini basketball, Street Fighter, The X-Men, Ninja Turtles, and several other classics, with a couple of lame little kiddie rides to boot). Then you'd get little tickets for playing the games, and trade those in for army men, bouncy balls, candy, and those Styrofoam airplanes that fall apart the second time you throw them. They had better prizes, but I never went often enough to save up for any of them.

Clearly, the business model wasn't anything revolutionary, but we all thought there was something pretty special about Poppa Z's. Everybody wanted a birthday party there. I think I was only able to have one. We didn't always have much money when I was growing up, so most of my parties took place at home.

Poppa Z's became Pop's Pizza Place after I got too old to keep eating there. In high school, a couple of my friends worked there for a while. A few years ago, they shut down. The vacant space was filled by a Pizza Hut and a daycare center, which I find ironic, since Poppa Z's had been, to some extent, a combination of the two businesses. Oh well. Life's pretty silly like that. I only wish I could get my hands on that Ninja Turtles arcade game one more time.