The Exhilarama at Memorial City Mall was an indoor family entertainment center which opened on December 11, 1993 in Houston, Texas.[1]
Background[]
Memorial City Mall is a shopping mall located at the intersection of Interstate 10/U.S. Route 90 and Gessner Road (or 303 Memorial City) in Houston. Constructed in the early 1960s, the mall has since grown to be one of the city's more popular malls, mostly due to a large renovation project that took place in the early 2000s.
Exhilarama was a brand of Edison Brothers Mall Entertainment (EBME), a unit of Edison Brothers Stores (EBS). Most locations housed arcades, rides, laser tag and kids' play structures. Fame City was a similar outfit that opened in Memorial City Mall in 1989, but did not do well, which this location was bought out by Exhilarama.
History[]
This Exhilarama at Memorial City Mall covered 47,000 square feet and included a number of rides, a large kids' play structure, party areas, laser tag (known as Laser Ex), a prize redemption area, a snack area, virtual reality, video games and pinball machines. It had a large storefront inside the mall and an outside entrance.
Following a 1995 bankruptcy, parent company EBS sold off select Exhilarama locations to Namco Cybertainment in 1996[1]. Namco did not exercise the right to buy the Memorial City location, and control of the facility was passed to Nickels and Dimes (owners of the Tilt chain), who offered to operate it while the mall worked on a redevelopment plan that eliminated the entertainment center. At different times during these years the play structure was removed, Virtuality was eliminated, select rides were removed and replaced with arcade games, and laser tag closed.
Mall remodeling proceeded in late 2000.[2] Exhilarama was demolished, and most of its former space was remade into anchor store Lord & Taylor (later J.C. Penney). A shallow portion of the interior storefront remained, facing the newly expanded food court and Venetian Carousel, and became Tilt (Memorial City Mall).
Known games[]
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 A History of Edison Brothers Mall Entertainment: 1993 by Michael D. Current, Atari History Timelines. 2022-03-28.
- ↑ Memorial Shopping City, Mall Hall of Fame. Accessed 2021-02-19.
External links[]
- Exhilarama - Memorial City by Marylyn Peklenk at YouTube (2015-03-16) — A list of arcade games shown is in the comments of the video.