Basically, our whole design concept is how we’d want our bedroom to look like in the early ’80s,” says Antz Wettig, 46, who owns the Germantown music venue Zanzabar with his brother Jon, 45.
Growing up in St. Matthews, the two used to cut the grass for their dad in exchange for $10 in quarters to go play arcade games all day at Sears or the grocery store.
Manufacturers stopped making arcade games and pinball machines in the late ’90s, but the brothers began collecting early games shortly after they opened the bar six years ago. They’ve since amassed close to 100 arcade games in all styles (mini or cabaret, cocktail and upright) and 40 pinball machines, many of which are in a building next door. “My brother’s got a real problem,” Jon Wettig says. “I’m not going to drive to Milwaukee to pick up a video game.”
The collection includes Muhammad Ali and Star Trek pinball machines and Donkey Kong, Mouse Trap and, Antz Wettig’s favorite, Joust — a game in which the player is a warrior riding an ostrich. A couple years ago, the current Joust world record holder came through town and played the game for eight hours on one quarter and said that Zanzabar’s is the most difficult he’s seen. Neither of the brothers has touched an Xbox. “If you don’t put a quarter in it, we don’t know how to play it,” Antz Wettig says. Zanzabar’s menu even has a Mata Hari Hot Brown, named for the pinball game from 1978. The Cooking Channel show Offbeat Eats recently featured the bar’s playful menu in an episode called “Game On,” airing later this month.
“When you go to belly up somewhere,” Antz Wettig says, “if you have activities, it’s a little more exciting. Gives you a little more purpose to be out.”
Images courtesy of Gail Kamenish.
This article appears in the October issue of Louisville Magazine. To subscribe to Louisville Magazine, click here.
