 "Photo: Chelcey Adami")
Between 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Monday, a total of five people found their way to Le Fun to play a quick game. One came in for a game or two of pinball, two left after realizing they left their quarters at home, and two other occasional patrons came in "to get away from it all." Business is no longer booming for Le Fun.
The 32-year-old arcade will close its doors Dec. 16 because of dwindling business, said owner Exxon Feyznia.
Le Fun will be the seventh store on the Drag to close or relocate this semester, following Sunglass Hut, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Rick's Hair Salon, Nomadic Notions, Legs Diamond and Mojo's Daily Grind, which will close Jan. 1.
The Church of Scientology of Texas, which owns the building, will not re-lease the property, said Cathy Norman, director of special affairs. She said they plan to raise funds and eventually renovate the entire building for church use.
Feyznia moved to Austin from Persia in 1972 to attend the University. He started working at Le Fun as a cashier in 1973, when the arcade consisted of 34 pinball machines and one Pong arcade game. He remembers the arcade's first driving game, Smokey Joe, in which the player drove a fire truck through the streets and had to avoid parked cars. Feyznia bought Le Fun in 1984, and the arcade now houses more than 80 games, including racing, fighting, sports and fantasy games, Dance Dance Revolution and three pinball machines.
Despite the growth, however, business has significantly decreased.
"If you walked in 10 years ago compared to today, business has dropped at least 70 percent," Feyznia said. "The Drag looks kind of dead."
He said Le Fun was no longer a profitable business and that he could no longer afford to buy new games.
"The game room is not as popular as it used to be because of all the Xboxes and Playstations," Feyznia said.
Josh Fields, general manager of Einstein's Arcade, north of LeFun on the Drag, said that because of the rise in popularity of the Internet and console games, arcades in general across the country haven't been making a lot of money.
Feyznia explained that since people can learn strategies for new games on the Internet, they are no longer motivated to come in and spend money learning the game at the arcade. Also, with the rise in popularity of video game consoles, game manufacturers have been making better console games than arcade games, he said.
"It's been an adventure," Feyznia said. "I've had this business for 20 years, but maybe it's time for me to move on."
Angelica Sanchez, a sophomore at Travis High School, said she comes to Le Fun at least twice a week. She said it was a great place to hang out and called it a "no-parents-around zone."
James Madden, who has worked at Le Fun for eight months, found it hard to believe that the arcade would soon close.
"Lots of people are going to lose a place to hang out," he said. "It's probably one of the coolest things on the Drag."
Feyznia hired the Los Angeles company Super Auction to hold an auction at Le Fun on Dec. 17 to sell its more than 100 arcade games.
Be the first to comment on this article!