CONCORD — As California’s pinball elite battled head-to-head for the state championship title at The Flipper Room last month, an international audience tuned in to watch pinballs ricochet through mazes of colorful bumpers, habitrails, poppers and ramps.
But before those quarter-slot games became a full-scale business in Concord, Mike Moretti started with a single Star Wars-themed machine he lugged into the breakroom of The Art of Picture Framing, the wholesale frame shop he’s owned since 2006.
Shortly after his crew asked for another machine, Moretti began filling empty offices with both new and nostalgic games. Then his business was added to the Pinball Map, a crowdsourced forum for pinball enthusiasts.
“We were also going through the economic crash of 2008 — people were losing homes and 40% of frame shops closed basically overnight in the country, let alone in this area,” Moretti said. “All of a sudden I see all this stuff happening with the pinball machines — these were young people coming into a frame shop. I thought, ‘Maybe this is our answer. It’s not the answer, but it’s our answer.’”
When Moretti eventually moved his framing business to a different building on Shary Circle, he specifically set up a showroom for those pinball machines, where he also displayed game-related prints and art for sale. The Flipper Room, as its known today, officially opened for business in Fall 2017.
Both of Moretti’s small family businesses have thrived through calculated risk. Rather than following in the footsteps of his family’s shoe business, he studied fine art and oil painting at the University of Illinois, Chicago before moving to California, diving into the framing world and opening up his small boutique wholesale shop.
Moretti’s day job now includes tinkering as a pinball machine mechanic, while his wife, Katie, manages the merchandising and retail side of things — tapping into her past experience owning a retail store in Walnut Creek before the 2008 recession.
Moretti credits the success of The Art of Picture Framing and The Flipper Room to their ability to pivot, which has allowed both businesses to organically grow through happenstance relationships, social media followings and community engagement.
Q: From going to art school to starting your own small businesses, you’ve clearly embraced risk and passion. Does that flexibility come naturally?
We are not what the business world would consider a textbook company. When I started this whole thing, it was like a big art project — it went through iterations, just this organic thing that kept growing and growing.
When I started the frame shop, it was just me and a truckload of equipment that I bought along the way. Eventually we had 25 employees and were doing big-box retail, semi loads of picture framing. Right before COVID, we scaled down into what we are now — a nice crew of three framers and a freelance photo journalist — and I’ve never been happier.
When we opened the wholesale shop, we were also going through the economic crash of 2008 — people were losing their homes and 40% of frame shops closed basically overnight in the country, let alone in this area. All of a sudden I see all this stuff happening with the pinball machines. These were young people coming into a frame shop. I thought, “Maybe this is our answer. It’s not the answer, but it’s our answer.”
But these things aren’t cheap, so I had to start learning how to fix them.
Q: You heavily credit Tom Johnson, the owner of Tilts Electronics just down the street, for helping you tackle this business. Besides the luck of opening up shop next to an expert in pinball repair and restoration, how did that partnership work?
He just said “I’m going to teach you how to fix these things,” because repairs on these things aren’t cheap. Good techs want to pass on their knowledge. He’s become kind of like family — we’ve got a great relationship, and neither of us exchange money. I’ve loaned him games to put in places like Google, and I help him move games because he’s too old to haul them; he helps me fix pinball machines and teaches me things.
Pinball is a magical thing like that, and I think that’s why I latched on to it so hard. People are so willing to go out of their way to help you move really heavy pieces of furniture in awkward places for no money. All they would like is to get to play the game when it gets to its destination.
Q: How are pinball and art connected, besides sharing your commercial real estate space?
Back in the 80s and the 90s, pinball manufacturers were hiring artists to draw really cool art. That changed around 2000, when a couple of the big companies collapsed.
When Dirty Donnie [an artist based in Concord] was asked to do the art for the Metallica pinball machine around 2013, that sort of brought back hand-drawn art into pinball. For me, that was like a whole new rebirth. I contacted him when we opened The Flipper Room, and we still work together all the time. Through that introduction and happenstance, we’ve gotten lumped into the rock poster art world.
I think artists are open to opportunities. Like we’re a frame shop, but we’re also an art gallery. For people like Dirty Donnie, he needs framing, and we built a relationship from there because I understand the language.
Q: Prior to bringing the pinball machines online, had you ever made such a sharp pivot in your work?
You now have all these companies online framing companies that have warehouses with machines that I never thought would exist – one even pumps out frames like noodles. When I went to a trade show many years ago, I realized I couldn’t compete.
That’s why we went back to boutique, high-end framing because there’s always going to be a client out there that buys expensive art and needs somebody who knows how to handle it. You don’t buy a Renoir drawing and then bring it to Michael’s.
Q: Is there a link between all the various businesses you’ve been involved in since working for your family’s shoe repair business?
They’re all a lost art — shoe repair, art framing, pinball machines. And in a weird way, I think there was a natural progression.
I knew I didn’t want to be in the shoe business, but I think there was a naivety that (framing) was somehow going to be different. Even though it is vastly different, it is so much the same; someone comes in with a problem and we solve it. But instead of employing cobblers, I have a crew of skilled craftsmen and framers. In that way, there’s an enormous parallel.
Right after college, a bunch of us went on a fish road trip. We had this crazy idea to move to California and open a cafe with a small stage and picture framing, which made no sense. Our parents thought we were crazy, but we went out and moved to California. I ended up going into wholesale picture framing. But I think it’s kind of funny how when I look back at what The Flipper Room is, it’s really not that far divorced from the crazy idea that we had.
MIKE MORETTI
Age: 46
Job title: Owner, The Flipper Room and The Art of Picture Framing
Residence: Oakley
Hometown: Lake Villa, Illinois
Education: Bachelor’s degree in fine art at the University of Illinois, Chicago
FIVE FACTS ABOUT MIKE MORETTI
- The first pinball machine he acquired, Star Wars, is still in rotation at The Flipper Room
- Alive, an Elvis-knockoff pinball machine produced by Brunswick in 1978, was the first game Moretti remembers while growing up in Chicago
- The Flipper Room produces an annual fine art print in collaboration with local artists or members of the pinball community
- John and Katie met in high school
- Before becoming affiliated with pinball, the Moretti’s first met Tom Johnson — the pinball maintenance expert who works down the street – while selling him oil paintings during weekend flea markets