A very special gamer, adult film star Veronica Church, was on site to shoot the porno flick "Table Hockey Hijinks" — and she and the film crew were determined to explore various nooks and crannies inside the beloved vintage arcade.
Church kicked off her session by luring her well-endowed playmate to an Operation Wolf-style shoot 'em up game. As one does in the middle of a busy arcade, she began to disrobe. Her male friend soon followed and the pair started spreading the love before heading to the restroom for an extended bathroom bang.
They emerged from the lavatory and moved to the air hockey table, where Church struggled to get the puck in her opponent's goal. Let's just say her male companion had no trouble scoring from behind. (And this is where we run out of porno-gamer puns.)
The movie, produced by Canadian company Mofos, clocks in around 40 minutes before the money shot drops.
Rick Medina, the owner of Arcade Odyssey, tells New Times the cinematic tour de porn was shot in mid-January, and that he didn't think much of the project, as he rents out the arcade for photo shoots and commercials all the time.
"We were approached by a film company that said, 'Listen, we wanted to do an adult thing. It's just a professional film shoot. We'll be very respectful, very clean,'" Medina recalls.
The arcade kept the filming low-key until some internet sleuths realized the setting looked a bit familiar. Thanks to an r/Miami subreddit user's recent post, it became clear the retro arcade was the setting for the porn movie.
"It's turned into a total shitshow," Medina tells New Times. "Everybody started up with, 'Oh my God they had sex where you eat.' Just friggin' insanity."
Derogatory reviews, frumpy phone calls — Medina has been getting inundated since the word got out about the shoot.
"It's basically turned into friggin' bible-thumping. I'm expecting to see some friggin' 'Kumbaya My Lord' outside the arcade any minute now," he says.
Medina maintains that the porn stars' nether regions were in contact with neither the arcades' game tops nor any food surfaces.
He stresses that the stars "only had sex in four areas of the arcade" and that everything was sanitized.
"They had sex in the bathroom, sex on the floor. They played air hockey while someone did her from behind, but they weren't on the air hockey table. And then they had sex on the bench," he insists.
Some of the Reddit users appeared to have a sense of humor about the situation. One quipped, "As long as they don't overwrite my Crazy Taxi high score, I'm fine with this." Another joked, "Wait until the [original poster] finds out what people have done on the hotel beds he has slept on."
Others were less open-minded, complaining, "This is objectively gross and disgusting for a venue that’s all ages."
Medina argues that the critics are "out of their friggin' minds" if they think his arcade is the only commercial space in South Florida where some extracurricular activities have taken place.
And he's not wrong.
Arcade Odyssey in Kendall is a throwback to the early 1980s heyday of arcades in the Miami area.
Photo by Arcade Odyssey
The Kendall-based arcade joins a growing list of South Florida businesses that have doubled as porno film sets. Some other notable locations include a Coral Gables gym, a bowling alley in Pembroke Pines, a Miami Subs in Hialeah, and Gramps, a popular bar in Wynwood.
Miami-Dade County Transit has even been tapped for the porn market. New Times previously discovered three transit buses were used at shoots for Miami-based Bang Bros' "Project City Bus." (All you need to know is that the bus was not the only thing ridden that day.)
Besides its recent claim to fame, Arcade Odyssey is considered one of the top arcades in South Florida, boasting a wide variety of vintage and rare games. Medina opened the place in 2011 in hopes of giving gamers a taste of the golden age of arcades when places like Pirate's on Coral Way and Flippers in Kendall were go-to spots for Miami youth.
"I wanted to bring something to the community that hasn't existed in over 30 years, which is why I built the arcade," Medina says. "I like the history of gaming. I think it's important for us to enjoy it, to share it."
Medina adds: "It was never meant to be a Chuck E. Cheese, and we never said we were a Chucky E. Cheese."
