Home · The operator
One bloke, one bench, a lot of solder
The short version of how a pier-arcade operator ended up running a console shop two streets back from the sea.
Reggie Marsh spent the best part of fifteen years keeping coin-ops alive on the Margate seafront — swapping tubes, chasing earth faults, talking holidaymakers down off broken claw machines. When the old arcade floor was cleared in 2015, he bought a van-load of cabinets nobody else wanted and dragged them to a unit on 11 Marine Drive.
Most of those first cabs were dead. Some came back with a recap and a clean; the rest got stripped for sticks, buttons and harnesses that still had life in them. That's still how it works — the shelf out front and the spares drawer out back are two ends of the same job.
The rule that hasn't changed
Nothing goes on the floor until it's been switched on and run for a bit. If a console needs work to behave, it gets the work. If it can't be made right for a fair price, it isn't sold as working — it goes in the parts bin where it belongs. That's the whole pitch, really: what's on the label is what's in the box.
Where to find it
The shop sits at 11 Marine Drive, Margate CT9 1DH, open Tue–Sun · 10:00–18:00 GMT. Reggie's usually the one behind the counter, so if you ring +44 1843 226 470 you'll most likely get him with a soldering iron still warm.