Founder's Corner: 3,200 Miles, Seventeen Stops

Originally published in The Monthly Multiball, September 2026.

It has been a few months since the last one of these landed in your inbox. That was deliberate, and it is worth explaining, especially since we named our newsletter the MONTHLY Multiball.

First off, we don't believe in sending a newsletter we don't want to read ourselves. This summer we slowed down from larger events and Pinball Passport went on a road trip. We traveled by train and car, about 3,200 miles, nine states, seventeen stops, from Barcade in lower Manhattan to The Pinball Palace in Brunswick, Georgia. We met up with another operator at Keg & Coin in Jacksonville and visited South-A-Philly in St. Augustine on the drive home, both places we may have missed just a couple of years ago. We started at Duffy's and finished at Calle Ocho, which felt right. The full route is at the top of this email and on our Instagram.

“Fill the spots and we will build more.”

We went looking for examples and answers to how other operators run this. How do we actually deliver on the goal of making Miami a real destination for pinball? What I came back with was less technical, and less about product mix, than expected. The rooms that work are not the ones with the best machines. They are the ones where somebody wants to know your name when you walk in, and where a new player gets handed a free game instead of a rulebook and gets invited to league night. This very thing happened to us at Decades Arcade in Charlottesville, VA. I rushed in with an hour to closing, and they would be closed during our stay. Turns out the next night was league night! It felt like being part of a secret society, even if I was the new guy. Come by tomorrow, through the alley, not the front door; newbies and drop-ins are welcome. As my kids would say, BET! So the next night my eldest son, my eldest daughter and I attended league night, felt welcomed and had a great time. Another notable spot was Pinball Gallery in Malvern, PA. We basically felt like family by the time we left, helping set up for a birthday party that was coming in shortly and sneaking in some last-minute games after closing while the partygoers were arriving. This is pinball, the community. I can only set the tone. WE must deliver it, and I look forward to being part of that.

So here is what changed while we were gone.

A year ago Pinball Passport had one room. Every one of the four tournaments we have ever run happened at Duffy's Tavern. On September 30 we open our Wednesdays are for Miami Pinball tournament series at Calle Ocho Sports Bar and Grill, and that gives us two official Stern Army locations.

One of our first goals is to get to four. Four Stern Army locations, four machines minimum at each, close enough together that there is a competitive pinball night somewhere in Miami-Dade every single week. Calle Ocho now has four Sterns in the room and it is official: Calle Ocho is a Stern Army location. Two down, two to go. We are halfway to that first goal.

That is why the series has a name on it now. Wednesdays are for Miami Pinball. Not one event to circle on a calendar. A standing night, in this city, that you do not have to think about.

Before our first tournament in October 2025, the Miami area had not seen a public IFPA-sanctioned pinball tournament in more than seven years. We have now run four. Starting September 30 we run two a month through December.

That progress is real and it is also fragile, because it runs on one number: sixteen seats. Every night that fills is the argument for the next location and the next four machines, and the case for growing the footprint gets stronger. Every night that does not is the argument against.

So this is the ask, and it is the only one in this email. Take a seat. RSVP to info@pinball-passport.com, or better yet, fill out the form on our website. Fill the spots and we will build more. That is not a slogan, it is genuinely how this works.

And to my competitive players: I know the WPPRs are not optimized with this format. A multi-week league, more rounds in a night, more machines and more people all drive up the points. My petition to you is to show up anyway. Play for the love of it, play to train on modern Sterns, and let's keep increasing the number of IFPA-registered players so that next year our base score is higher. Let's build the community, get them engaged, and let the newbies see you play. Narrate your game while you are warming up, call your shots, nudge for a save, and let people experience what you already know: pinball is awesome.

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May your shots be dialed in and your flippers strong,

Jose