We hadn’t seen an arcade outside of Dave and Buster’s since the early 2000s, but a few years ago 9-year-old Caine brought them back with all the style of a child’s imagination. Using mostly cardboard and tape, Caine created a makeshift arcade in the front of his father’s car parts shop. This little guy took it so seriously, he had a little office area, slots where he could push tickets through for winners, his own staff shirt, and he even special deals: 4 plays for $1 or buy a fun-pass for $2 which entitles you to 500 plays. His father was just as impressed as we are:
“One day Caine tells me ‘Dad I wanna buy a claw machine’ so I asked ‘why don’t you just build it?’ So he got an S hook, put a piece of yarn on it and then put a track on the top of a box and I was like ‘what the heck?’ He figured out how to make a claw machine from a string and a hook!”
The most impressive part to us was that Caine decided he needed security on his fun passes. So he gave each a number and used a calculator to find the square root, which became a code. If someone walked in with a fake fun pass then he could put the number in and square it to see if it was a real pass. How smart of him!
When Nirvan Mullick happened upon Caine’s Arcade he thought it was so cute that he organized a flash mob to play Caine’s games, and made a video of it. The story went so viral that Caine now has a $250,000 scholarship fund that will help him to be successful in his future creative endeavors.
But wait, there’s more! Not only did Caine’s Arcade turn into a local hot spot, drawing people from all over the world and even actor Jack Black, but Caine has also inspired many children all over the place to create their own cardboard games. Check it out.
It’s so nice to see a father support his son’s endeavors even when they seem futile. Caine’s persistence is inspiring and a reminder that sometimes a success story begins with failure. We wish him all the best with his future entrepreneurial pursuits.
And today we celebrate...