Musée Mecanique’s Old Fashioned, New Fangled Fun

Right in the heart of tourist-central, waterfront San Francisco, there are tons and tons of attractions that beg you to visit, and typically charge you a hearty fee to do so. It was refreshing to find one different one, Musée Mecanique, which is right on the tip of pier 43, and it’s free for admission to anyone and everyone.

I wasn’t surprised that admission was free, mostly because I still have no concept of money and still haven’t paid for anything bigger than a candy bar myself, but also because what awaited me beyond the creepy front door was more interesting than almost anything else we’d seen during our entire trip thus far.

Musée Mecanique is an old-timey, penny arcade. This was what a gaming arcade was a hundred years ago, and Dan Zalinsky (the junior Zelinsky to run the operation) has kept them all up to speed, up to snuff, and fit to play.

And I’m not sure how many times I’ve already said it, so I’ll say it again, admission is free. The only thing you can spend money on, from among the 10,000 feet of antique novelty machines, is the gift shop and the actual operation of the machines… but don’t feel pressured to do so.

If you’re looking for something between the prices of cheap and free to share with your children or parents, there is little more exciting and interesting than Musée Mecanique. They’ve got player pianos, monkey machines that dance and sing, a stainless steel predecessor to Rockem Sockem Robots, a porcelain baker that pulls toys from the oven to give to children, and entire small cities of animatronic fantasy that come to life for a mere pair of quarters.

antique arcade
Above – Even with all the antique games and entertainments of so many sorts available, me and the brother were equally delighted to play the little choo-choo video machine.

I was going to wind down the review at this point, but I just can’t do it. There are at least two big machines that are miniature cities. For half a buck you can bring the whole thing to life, from the carousel to the merry-go-round to the freak sideshow to everything in between. It’s amazing. I challenge you to build such a thing yourself if it looks so easy, but bear in mind you have to do so with ancient technology from yester-century as your only guide… Also, you have to donate it to me when you’re done so I can review it, cool?

If you’re old school, but not quite Jurassicly so, you might enjoy what my parents found fun. There are old arcade games from the quarter era such as Ms. Pacman, Pole Position, and other such unimaginably strange transitional games. I say transitional because they lack old world charm as well as new world technology, but still, you can see why dusty folks like my parents might dig them.

When I said cheap, I really meant it, because when you have a zillion machines that can entertain you a minute at a time for a quarter, we can all agree that’s a pretty inexpensive way of getting your giggles, but I also said free. If you’re seeing San Francisco with a budget of zero, this place has you covered too. I don’t know how you’ll pay your gas to get home, but I surely look forward to seeing you roadside with signs that beg cash for gas. But here, you can stand back and get almost as much enjoyment as the paying patrons. You’re still free to hear the player piano and watch the dancing gypsy or micro-city so long as someone else drops the coinage needed, and it’s just about as good.

Owner Dan Zalinsky has been running the business since his father, the original coin-op entertainment collector, passed on. Do a quick favor to him, us and yourself, and bring a buck or five to dump in to the machines. There’s so much fun to be had, and it’s every bit as new fangled as it is old fashioned.

Musée Mecanique is located at the end of Pier 43 on the San Francisco waterfront, between Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39, which are also two places that can’t be missed.

placards explain antique machines
Above – Something the parents really liked was the way all the machines had a little card in the corner that told the history. It said what it was, how old it was, where it came from and other stuff too.