Background
Memorial City is a mall that was built in Houston, Texas that opened for business in 1966. It has since grown to having over 140 stores and services over the years. The mall is located at 900 Gessner Road.
Celebrity Cafe, located inside Memorial City, originally began as an actual eatery until at one point the owner converted the Cafe into a full-sized arcade, swapping out the dining tables for video and possibly pinball games.
The arcade/known games
Celebrity Cafe was located in the north wing of the Mall with Montgomery Wards. Originally the games ran on tokens, then later it was turned into a payment basis, believed to cost $5 an hour for patrons to play as many games as they wanted within that time frame, as the games were set on free play otherwise.
- Bosconian
- Centipede
- Congo Bongo
- Defender
- Dig Dug
- Donkey Kong
- Frenzy
- Galaga
- Looping
- Ms. Pac-Man
- Pac-Man
- Pac-Man Plus
- Pleiades
- Solar Fox
- Space Duel
- Space Zap
- Stargate
- Subroc-3D (cockpit model)
- Tempest
- Vanguard II (cockpit model)
- Wizard of Wor
- Xevious
Trivia
- When Stargate was released, a hand-lettered sign was put on top of the cabinet stating that Celebrity Cafe was the very first game room in all of Houston to have it. Within a few weeks, another game room in Memorial City (possibly known as Games) acquired it as well.
- Celebrity Cafe was in good company with many other game rooms in the Mall during the arcade boom, as Quiptar's (in the same wing), Quiptar's II, Green's, Games, Games, Games (two doors down) and Games also existed at the same time. However, Celebrity Cafe also suffered the same fate of most of the other game rooms in the Mall, going out of business after the video game crash of 1983-1984 hit.
This arcade was featured in January, 2017.