Central Oregon’s Bend River Mall boasted an Aladdin’s Castle that felt more like a clubhouse than a chain store. Opened circa 1980 along U.S. 97, the pit‑stop arcade became the rainy‑day refuge for skiers and desert commuters alike. A vintage Facebook photo dated 1997 shows the gold‑turret sign glowing behind a father‑and‑son selfie—proof that the branch was still thriving well into the late ’90s.
According to the International Arcade Museum’s location directory, the site (3046 Hwy 97 N.) went dark in the early 2000s, a casualty of the mall’s gradual unraveling. Reddit’s /r/Bend community remembers the Twilight Zone pinball’s spiral ramp and a rare Star Wars Trilogy sit‑down that “ate dollars faster than Mt. Bachelor powders a snowboard.” Today the suite hosts an off‑brand cell‑phone kiosk, but the angled entrance and old security gate tracks still betray its joystick past.