Avalon Theatre

I have mixed feelings about this place. It’s fun and pretty inexpensive. Great date spot. But the games are not maintained very well. A lot of them eat your change and others have out of order signs. Staff aren’t very attentive when you try to get them to fix the machines either. But my biggest complaint about this place is the email club. Once a week I get a coupon in my email which I enjoy. But they don’t accept them unless you print them out and bring it in. It’s like you didn’t need a printer to send me it but I need one to bring it back? Every place I’ve ever been to has accepted a coupon by me showing it to them on my phone. Who has a printer anymore?

It’s cheap, clean, and they have kettle corn. Movie and snack prices are pretty good. Parking is terrible. Staff is friendly.
The theaters themselves are TINY! The smallest I’ve ever seen. Also, if you are short, you wont be able to see over the seat in front of you, let alone a person, if one sits in front of you.
This place could be great for a long fun date because it’s inside and there is plenty to do for not a lot of $$.

I frequent Portland, and this is the first time I’ve been here. This place is amazing. Be prepared to be taken back to your childhood, toting around a bag filled with nickels and a smile. Most games cost about 3 nickels. $ 10 will get you a long way if you’re playing video games. If you’re playing to win tickets, not so much. But still worth it. The prizes are ridiculous, but in a good way. You’re in a nickel arcade, don’t expect too much. My girlfriend and I went here and we are in our 30s. You shouldn’t be surprised to see «adults» coming here for a fun date night. It’s a great place to try for the kid at heart.

So… Are children 12 & under really allowed to see «R» rated movie Paranormal Activity as it is the only movie playing? «$ 2.50 ages 12 & under, $ 5.00 matinée all ages.» Obviously unless you are a parent living in the age of «idiocracy» you will not allow this, but why is this movie the only option at a children’s theatre??? At least the one in Milwaukee has other options like goosebumps & hotel transylvania 2.

Boy do those nickels go fast! RLOL
The variety of games and selection was OK. Skeeball was byfar the best! Air hockey is always a thrill! And the infamous jump roping game… well, I think I was the only one in our party NOT to hit the jackpot :/​. Other than a game that involved a suction cup and baseball sized gumballs there really wasn’t much to write home abt.
The Avalon is dated — dungeonesque. It smells like old cheese and everything EVERYTHING is sticky. I hadn’t heard or seen many of the games offered and @ times I wld insert a nickel and NOT see or hear frm the game. It is what it is tho. And we had a great time challenging the kids… and losing @ only a nickels notice. I think it took abt an hr for each of the kids to go thru a bag of nickles. The greatest part abt that… they cm pre-​bagged in either $ 5 or $ 10 purses.

Cheap and a great place to spend a few hours. Only loses one star because they don’t serve alcohol. The later you go, the less children you’ll be forced to deal with. Really like this place, and recommend it for dates.

Weekend with the nieces here always a plus and good distraction from school. Haven’t been here for a while but soon to visit again when time permits.

It’s exactly what you pay for. Which in my book is perfect. It’s cheap. So yea not everything is going to look brand new. But everyone complaining on here I don’t really get. It’s an arcade. One of the last of its kind. So go in and play a ton of games for $ 2.50 and a handful of nickels.

Interesting place, would return if I was going to watch a movie and then play some games. We went just to play games, but there isn’t enough there for that to make the trip worth it by itself.

This was a great way to beat the heatwave that portland was experiencing while we were there and do so without spending a ton of money. It was about $ 3 per person to get in and we got 100 nickels for $ 5. ALot of the games were not spitting out tickets as promised, but there were alot of fun arcade games to play. The prizes are just cheap things at the end, but my 6 year old son had a great time here. Glad we checked it out.

The Milwaukie location is so much better than this site.
We were totally disappointed. Only ½ the game room was open, the games were geared toward the older kids. ½ of the ½ was stealing nickels and you couldn’t find anyone to help you.
I don’t think I will ever go back!!! It felt like chaos the entire time we were there.

Love bringing my nephews here! The outside of the theater is beautiful and is definitely reminiscent of a bygone era. On the inside it is definitely a little more rundown and I’m mostly knocking off a star because the theater seating is so uncomfortable. That being said, this place is a haven for kids and adults alike.
They always have a good variety of children’s and adult movies playing. It’s only $ 3 for an adult ticket and even less to bring the kiddos. The kid movies tend to play in the afternoon which is nice because that’s when I usually have my nephews with. I have noticed that they keep the same movies for a long time which can be good if you don’t get there for a while but bad if you have already seen it all. There’s plenty of snacks to choose from and the popcorn is always buttery. But man those seats hurt my back. At least the inside of the theater is nice and clean. Sometimes while in a movie you can hear noise from the game room which gets to be a bit distracting.
Speaking of the gameroom… the kids love it! It’s only $ 2.50 for admission to get into the gameroom and the selection in there is insane. The room itself is huge. It reminds me of an amped up version of the arcade I went to in the mall while growing up. If my arcade had had a movie theater attached and full snack counter I would’ve lost it.
I bring my three nephews and they are always so happily exhausted after spending a few hours here. I love that it’s so inexpensive, that I can give them a giant handful of nickels to play with, and that I can just sit back and watch them have fun. This place makes me one heck of a cool uncle haha. Bring your kids or come at night with just the adults!

The Avalon is a great inexpensive option for family entertainment. I have been going to the arcade her since I was a kid and it has provided great fun for my kids as well. The movies are late run and very affordable. The theater is intimate and offers comfortable seating but no particular frills. The arcade floor is good size and the big screen in the large arcade plays Blazer and other sporting events which is nice. The tickets are fairly easy to accumulate and the kids always enjoy trading for prizes at the front counter.
There are three items for improvement:
1. The arcade games do not seem to change much and some of the games are fairly tired. In the last three years, I have not noticed a single game change.
2. The ticket counter should have a system in place to accumulate tickets over a series of visits, allowing frequent patrons to earn more significant prizes. Maybe a voucher receipt with the total number of tickets? Maybe they offer this, I have never asked, but it has not been offered to me either.
3. There was only a single pinball game I could find??? Seems like there should be more.

Yes to all the fun and entertainment this theater has to offer! Boyfriend and I wanted to go see a movie at a different theater. He had just finished reading the book Unbroken and when I told him that the movie version was screening here, he insisted we go see Angelina Jolie’s finest work (he’s ridiculous).
The movies here are only $ 3! I didn’t think it would be any less than the $ 4 at the Academy, but it is! The theaters are adjacent to Wunderland, the nickel arcade. Should you have time to relive your childhood before or after a movie, you can do that here with a handful of nickels.
It was slightly distracting while in the theater watching the film to hear the commotion of excited kids winning big and the raucous of the game sounds. It would be awesome if the theaters were soundproofed but that’s probably not a large priority and it wasn’t too horrible, I guess. All in all, a great experience and recommended for a date night any night of the week.

So this is where I will be when I’m looking for something to do with all my change.
I actually love playing video games. The competitive side shows its evil head while enjoying air hockey, house of the dead, and of course skee ball. It’s a little under $ 3 per person to get in this joint. Then the games take nickels, priced from 1 nickel to around 4. I think there may be some that cost a bit more but for the most it’s 1 – 4. Some games give tickets which are the normal fair, I usually hand mine over to some kid that’s not so annoying.
So this place isn’t some fancy franchise, so go in with that in mind. The games aren’t brand new but they cover all the types. Like I mentioned ones for tickets like dropping the coins in to knock others over, strategy, guitar hero, some that shoot, some racing, pinball, and a few in between. If you go early then expect kids, a little later then you get the older kids.
So take your dollars and your nickels. I’ll meet you at the air hockey table!

What better way to fulfill your kids’ wildest screen time fantasies than to bring them to an electronic free for all with games that take nickels?! Okay, so it’s a bit dated, the teenagers running the place look like the stoned teenagers running every arcade in history, and the tickets-​for-​cheap Crap method always leads to some form of heartache (for instance, when your children realize that what they bought is absolute garbage), but where else can you go these days and entertain multiple kids for hours on 20 bucks???
Solid fist bump to this place.

Fun place to come blow five bucks. Admission is just under $ 3, and you can either get bags of nickels or bring your own rolls of 40 nickels ($ 2) like we did. We did the games, not the movies.
Classic pinball machines, Pac Man, Star Trek, skee ball, basketball hoops, wheel spins, use the Toy Story-​type «Claw» to try to get a stuffed animal (sorry, no three-​eyed aliens), gamble for more nickels, and air hockey. Too bad there’s no Wheel of Fortune. That one’s my favorite!
Problem is, several machines were broken and ate our nickels. Staff was good about fixing it and comping us when it happened, but it happened on three different machines and we didn’t always report it. Place is also dirty, as others have mentioned, and people leave their empty nickel bags laying around on top of the games.
My bf and I had fun here on our whirlwind trip up to Portland. While you might want to avoid this place if your date is a clean freak or germaphobe, it’s a fun, cheap place for a date.

I love this place! While a little worn and ghetto, it’s so much fun. I love the nickel arcade, and wish I could play games all the time!
Earn those tickets to win some sweet cheapy prizes!
The only thing that would make this place better is if they had a basketball arcade game. They have the coin pushing ones, the ones where you have to base it on timing, racing games, skee ball, air hockey, guitar hero, and more!

You don’t go here for the movies. It does movies but in reality its all about the arcade. Great spot for a double date. Great spot to have fun with friends.
Yeah, its old and it has a certain musk smell, but dang, it makes you feel like a little kid playing nickel arcade games and yelling and winning tickets. Good for kids and adults.

There aren’t many things you can do for one nickel these days. That is the truth. The sad truth. A nickel will only get you so far. Can you still buy a piece of Bazooka gum for a nickel? Maybe, but do you really want to? The Avalon solves that problem. A nickel will get you a few minutes of fun. Four of them will get you a few more minutes of fun.
It costs $ 2.75 to get into the Avalon. After that, a pocket full of nickels will give you an enjoyable evening. They have pinball, skeeball, video games and other assorted games that I remember from my youth at the NJ shore. The most fun Sue and I had on this New Year’s Eve night was air hockey. I can’t think of anything more fun that you can do for 20 cents in Portland.
For that alone I would come back.