Shorty's: A Low-Tech Game Club

It's four o'clock on Friday and the sun is sneaking into Shorty's. With four hours to go until its formal opening, Belltown's new pinball palace is already ringing - with the zing! and ping! of vintage video games. As visitors drop their quarters into Frogger and Joust, owner Martha Manwaring seems oblivious. Ordinarily, she'd be first in line for a pinball Olympics. Now, she's busy choosing flavors for her cotton candy.

Should she have Boo Blue, Jumpin' Jelly or Leaping Lime? All suit the colorful palette of Shorty's decor, for the space itself has been rebuilt like a giant pinball. While Manwaring shelves napkins and juggles boxes, visitors wander in to view the giant flippers and bumpers. Most are soon sidetracked by the real games.

Which is exactly what its owner wants: a "low-tech, low-budget, Belltown version of Gameworks." To design her arcade inside a former thrift-store, Manwaring tapped Larry Reid, who created the Lava Lounge. Reid had been longing to do a club with a circus scheme. But his son Marshall saw the long, thin space as a game. "So," says Reid, "we made it a carnival-themed pinball."

With Manwaring's partner, Jake Matthews, they built the fittings. Their "backboard" was created by artist Jacques Moitoret, with a mural by Bobby Love and Ernie Gosnell (residents of Capitol Hill's Lucky Devil Tattoos). Meanwhile, Manwaring decided on a simple menu: pop, drip coffee and connoisseur hot dogs.

Shorty's will specialize in the "Coney Island." Says Manwaring, who once ran a hot-dog cart but will also serve the Hebrew National Dog (a kosher product); German sausages topped with sauerkraut; a chili-and-cheese dog; and the "Kogel Vienna." Still in the works is a vegetarian tofu-dog.

Right now, the steaming Viennas smell irresistible. But Shorty's previewers can't be pried off the games. Larry Reid nods sagely from a plastic couch in the corner. "There was a time when video arcades were ubiquitous. Then computer games captured all the novelty. Now, the Generation X kids are hitting 30; they're too old for toys from Sega or Nintendo. But - they'll come in and get nostalgic over Defender."

Shorty's is located at 2222 Second Ave.; 206-441-5449. Hours: Mondays-Wednesdays, 11 a.m.-midnight; Thursdays-Saturdays, 11 a.m.-2 a.m.