JEFF HUNT We acknowledge and respect the first humans of the unceded land we call San Francisco, the Ramaytush Ohlone. We condemn the genocide of these and other tribes across the Western Hemisphere. We honor their legacy and history and we support rematriation and sovereignty efforts. Hello and welcome to Storied: San Francisco. I'm your host, Jeff Hunt. I haven't been to the circus since I was a kid. Like zoos, I've got some ethical problems with how the animals are treated in both environments. Still, memories of the excitement of going to the big top as a kid are still very much with me. It's something like the reminiscent feeling of stepping into a video game arcade in the ‘80s. All of these sensations are invoked when I enter Musée Mécanique, San Francisco's penny arcade-and-more, located in Fisherman's Wharf. But Musée Mécanique wasn't always located just off Taylor and Jefferson in one of San Francisco's busiest tourist neighborhoods. Here's owner Dan Zelinsky to trace the history of the place for us, back to New Orleans and a historical figure you might already be familiar with. JEFF And was it Musée Mécanique right out the bat, or …? DAN ZELINSKY No, I mean, there was a Musée Mécanique long before my dad owned Musée Mécanique. JEFF Here in San Francisco? DAN Yeah. George Whitney owned it at Playland at the Beach. There was a Musée Mécanique there. Before that, Musée Mécanique originated in New Orleans. One day, P.T. Barnum was trucking through town doing his P.T. Barnum stuff and he bought the Musée Mécanique collection from whoever owned it at the time. He took it on the road with him and eventually he ended up in San Francisco and sold that collection to George Whitney, along with the name. And it just has been here in The City ever since. JEFF So the original Musée Mécanique both was at Playhouse at the Beach and also your dad did not own it originally. So what's the story? How did your family come into that? DAN My dad bought the collection from Whitney, who had a location set up in the Cliff House. JEFF Was this after Playland closed? DAN No, this was in the mid-’60s. My dad bought the collection that Whitney had at the Cliff House and he added machines to the collection at the Cliff House as well. And it just kept growing from there. JEFF Do you know why Whitney sold? Was he just getting out of it, or …? DAN The short story is that the landlord, the federal government, condemned the property and he was forced to sell. Eminent Domain. They took it—game over. JEFF Do you know the story of how your dad secured the spot at Cliff House? DAN Aar as I know, he just said, “Hey George,” and they made a deal. JEFF But do you know the story? DAN Not really. I'm sure it was fairly simplistic, cuz they would have lunch every weekend, someplace at the beach. And I'm sure they'd discussed whatever business whims they had on their mind at the time. And I guess Musée Mécanique was one of them. My dad just took it over from George and never looked back. JEFF So by the time you came along … do you have siblings? DAN I have two sisters. JEFF By the time your dad's children, you included, came along, Musée Mécanique was already a thing? DAN Alive, yes. JEFF I moved to San Francisco in the year 2000. I can't be sure how I heard about it, but I do remember my first trip to the Cliff House. I was told there's an old building at the ocean's edge that has a restaurant, a bar, and a penny arcade. And just outside the main building was something called Camera Obscura that was worth checking out. It was all part of the mystique of my new hometown. That version of Musée Mécanique at the Cliff House felt a lot different than what Dan owns and operates today at Pier 45. Here's Dan with more JEFF When did Musée Mécanique open at the Cliff House? What year would that have been? DAN Under George? JEFF No, with your dad. DAN That I don't know for sure. I'd say at least the early ‘60s. JEFF And it was there how long? I moved here in 2000 and that's where it was when I moved here. DAN It moved outta there about 2002, give or take. Don't quote me on anything. JEFF That's all right. We're not journalists here. DAN Good. JEFF Why did y'all have to move over? DAN Oh, they kicked us out. The landlord tore the building down … I don't wanna get into that. It's really ugly. JEFF That's the opposite of making people happy. Let's just say that. DAN I don't wanna say that. JEFF I'll say it. DAN You can say it. My job is to make people happy and I like doing that JEFF Were you already running to the place? DAN No. Well, I was the manager. And then when my dad passed away, I became everything. JEFF When was that? DAN 2004, give or take. My dad found this place just before we passed away. This was the last thing he did was save Musée Mécanique or it would've been gone. JEFF There's the story. DAN I found out that while we were at the Cliff House and in that location that my dad was funding it out of his pocket. It came to me and my accountant said, “You have a problem cuz you can't afford this.” So we made every change that we needed to make to make it start, from ground zero to where we are now. JEFF It's been roughly 20 years in this location. How has it been for you to run it, going from manager to running the place? DAN I don't think there's any difference except it's … it's just all good. I mean, whether I was just working for my dad … I really enjoyed working for my dad. My dad was a lot of fun. He'd come out here several times a week. And we would play. We would just play. We used to have a mechanical horse, like you'd see in front of Safeway, and he'd ride the horse. What was really weird, when I knew he was coming out, I would make sure everything works. Just make sure it's perfect. And he would come out here and nothing ever worked. I don't know why that was. And then he said, “Don't you ever do anything around here?” I said, “Dad my gosh.” Anyway, what's that guy, Darwin or something? He chases me down a lot. Rotten guy. JEFF Are any other members of your family involved now? Do you have kids? Are they involved? DAN I have kids but they're not involved. I have a wife who helps me on a daily basis. JEFF And is it just the one employee with you? DAN It is today and he's only here once a month. I have several employees. Everybody's got like a half-day shift most of the time. JEFF Now let's hear from a few more Musée Mécanique visitors about the overall effect of all of Dan and his employees’ hard work. JEFF What's your name? BRIAN My name's Brian. JEFF And where are you from, Brian? BRIAN New Jersey. JEFF Where in New Jersey? BRIAN Sussex County, the northwest part. JEFF Have you been to San Francisco before? BRIAN We have, but first time right around here. We're riding around California on motorcycles going to every Major League ballpark. We saw the Giants yesterday. Sorry about that. JEFF I was gonna say, is it your fault? But is this your first trip to Musée Mécanique then? BRIAN Yes. Yes, absolutely. Very, very interesting. We do a lot of traveling. We work for a motorcycle travel magazine, and places like this, where do you see this? You never see this, this is amazing … baseball stuff. I got a whole pocket full of quarters now. JEFF Is there any other … have you ever been to a place like this anywhere else in the country or the world? BRIAN I've seen things along this line, but not as intricate, not with ancient stuff like this. I mean, they all seem to work, which is amazing. Like me. Old, but still kind of working. JEFF Are you gonna go back to New Jersey or wherever you go and tell all your friends about this place? BRIAN Well, matter of fact, we're gonna put it in Back Roads magazine, which is backroadsusa.com. JEFF First, what's your name? MICHAEL My name's Michael. JEFF And where are you from, Michael? MICHAEL We're from Rochester, New York. JEFF We've had a guest on this show who grew up in Rochester and has lived in San Francisco for a while. He's a really great musician. He actually does the music for our show. His name is Joe Begale, but his stage name or whatever is Otis McDonald. You should check him out .. another Rochester kid. Are you just on vacation out here in San Francisco? MICHAEL Yeah. We're just taking a few days here. JEFF First time? MICHAEL Yes, for me it is. JEFF What do you think of The City overall? MICHAEL So far, it's been great. We’ve just been seeing the sights to see. We rode the cable car, went around the Bay JEFF In a boat? MICHAEL Yeah, in a boat. JEFF You lucked out and got the best weather of the year. Do you feel good about that? MICHAEL I do. I do. JEFF Is it cooler here than it is in Rochester right now? MICHAEL Well, right now with the heat wave, it's hotter here. But back home, this is about normal weather for back home right now. JEFF So how the heck did you hear about this place? Or how did you end up here? MICHAEL We just kind of saw it. We were, you know, doing touristy things, coming to Fisherman's Wharf and saw it pop up when I was looking at places to go. This just seemed like the kind of place that me and my wife would be interested in. JEFF Have you ever been to a place like this anywhere else? Have you ever seen anything like this? MICHAEL Not this extensive. In Rochester, we have the Strong National Museum of Play. And they have a whole history of arcade games there as well. But all of their displays aren't working the way they are here. So that's really neat. JEFF So this is more of a working arcade, right? MICHAEL Right. JEFF Have you had a chance to play anything, or did I catch you right when you got in? MICHAEL We were just kind of walking around and taking it all in. Awesome. JEFF Do you think you're gonna play anything? MICHAEL Probably JEFF The happiness in and around Musée Mécanique was under threat just after the pandemic shut it down in 2020, when a four-alarm fire obliterated the Pier 45 warehouse next door. Somehow, the blaze didn't claim Musée Mécanique, but water and smoke did cause substantial damage. Here's Dan to talk more about that. JEFF Can we talk about the fire? That was scary. DAN My son calls me about four in the morning and he says, “Hey dad, what's this I hear about Pier 45 burning down?” When you're sound to sleep and planning on going to work that day, that doesn't set well. So I turned on the TV and there's Pier 45. The part of Pier 45 was the building behind this. Identical building to this, but 20 feet away. That was more depressing than I could ever even convey … JEFF … the opposite of happy. DAN Way opposite. But the firemen said the only reason this place didn't burn down is cuz the wind was blowing north or this would've been just totally gone. Nothing. And not to mention they worked like hell to save this place. There's a lot of firemen that grew up going to the arcade at the Cliff House. And now they were taking their kids and their grandkids here. They really did not wanna see this go. I don't think anybody wanted to see it go, but … JEFF Maybe a little extra inspiration. DAN Yeah. You know, nostalgia is a really powerful drug. And I learned a long time ago—don't mess with someone's nostalgic memories. It's just cruel. JEFF Did y'all have to close for a little bit? DAN We did because the port had a professional hazmat crew come in because this place had some smoke in it. And so they literally white gloved this place. I don't know what else to tell you. We survived. JEFF Hell yeah, you did. DAN Thank you. I would thank everybody concerned. Thank you. Not to mention SFFD, for sure. So then we got hit with COVID and we were closed for 18 months, which would've been the end of this. But my son started a GoFundMe account. And in the 18 months we were closed, that generated about $130,000, which is what we needed to keep this place afloat with all the insurance, which you have to keep going, and medical and accounting and just on and on … I couldn't believe how many bills just don't stop, even if you're not open for business, they don't stop. JEFF And that really speaks to the nostalgia probably that you're talking about and just what the place means to people. They didn't wanna see it … DAN Oh, absolutely. I got so many heartfelt letters, people from all over the world, literally. It was a tear jerker. It was just a beautiful, unfortunate set of circumstances, but they've got my back. JEFF Well, obviously y'all made it. When did you reopen, a year ago? DAN A year ago. JEFF And did it hit the ground running? Has it been (busy) like this? DAN No, it took a while to come back, ‘cause it was still COVID and a lot of people were not going anywhere. But it's percolating. JEFF It feels busy today. DAN On a scale of one to 10, it's like a four. It gets so busy that I can't roller skate. I have to sidestep and “excuse me, excuse me. Oh, excuse me …” JEFF Last question. It was one that Michelle had and I think it's a good one. What do you think the future is of Musée Mécanique, maybe the next five to 10 years? DAN You know, my future is day to day, considering everything that's happened. It's been a lot. So I'm just hoping for tomorrow. JEFF As with our last episode on McCovey Cove, we invite you to gather some friends or your family and venture down through the tourists to Musée Mécanique. Many machines cost only a quarter, and others are 50 cents. We dare you to spend five minutes in the place and not be left smiling from ear to ear. Join us next week as we kick off a short October series on San Francisco graveyards. Music for Storied: San Francisco was produced, performed, and curated by Otis McDonald. Michelle Kilfeather does original photography for us. Erin Lim of Bitch Talk Podcast is our contributing producer. And the show is produced and hosted by me, Jeff Hunt. Now in our fifth season, we have more than 190 episodes available on our website, storiedsf.com, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you're able to, please rate and review the show. And drop us a line at storiedSF@gmail.com. Thanks for listening. Stay strong, weird, and healthy, and we'll see you next time on Storied: San Francisco. This podcast is a proud member of the BFF.fm Podcast Network. Learn more at podcasts.bff.fm.