Dexter: Original Sin Filming Locations: The Arcade
The
location: The Arcade
Q.
What is it supposed to be on the show?
A. An old-style video game arcade.
Q.
Where is it supposed to be on the show?
A. At 300 Oceana Drive, in Miami, Florida.
Q.
When did we see it on the show?
A. We see twice in Episode 9, of Season 1.
The first time is when Dexter goes there at night to prepare his kill
room. We see him covering the room in plastic sheets, and placing photos
of the child victims on the ceiling, so that Spencer can see them
when tied to the table.
We see it a second time when Dexter lures Captain Spencer to the arcade by leaving a fake blackmail note on his condo's door.
After
Spencer enters the arcade, Dexter rushes him with a hypodermic full of
M99, planning to knock him unconscious with the drug, as he does with
all of his victims.
But Spencer fights back, and with
Dexter weakened after giving blood at the police station, a difficult
struggle ensues. But Dexter manages to overpower him and knocks him out
with the needle.
He winds up strapped to Dexter's
table, but becomes one of the few victims to escape that situation after
refusing to reveal the location of the kidnapped child, Nicky.
Dexter
chops off Spencer's finger (which is what Spencer had done to two
children), but then tricks him by allowing him to escape from the bonds
and flee the arcade.
As Dexter expected, once free, Spencer heads for the place where he is
holding Nicky captive: in the bowels of an old cargo ship.
Q.
What is it actually in real life?
A. An old-style video game arcade.
Q.
Where can I find it in real life?
A. This scene was filmed at an
actual video arcade, one of the few left in the city. (There were
zillions of these arcades back in the '80s and early '90s, but most of
them have disappeared.)
It's called “Family Arcade”, and you'll find it at 870 N. Vermont Ave., in the East Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles.
That's right across the street from Los Angeles City College, near the northeast corner of Vermont & Burns Ave.
This is on the south side of the Hollywood Hills for a change,
one of the few filming locations this year that wasn't in either the San
Fernando Valley or Long Beach.
You can find the Arcade's website here, and a collection of photos of the arcade here.
As of 2025, at Family Arcade you pay a single $25 charge to play for the
entire day, with the games on free play, so you don't have to mess
with coins or tokens.
Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was?
A.
This was a little tricky at first, because when Spencer pulls into the
parking lot behind the arcade, a mural on the wall calls it the “Pirate
Arcade”. Obviously, that mural was added by the production, along with
the large “300” number, which matches the fake address that Dexter sent
to Spencer in the show. In reality, the street number is 870, and there
is no real mural on the back wall near the parking lot.
Other shots
show the words “Family Arcade”, but early on, I wasn't sure whether that
was the actual name of the place or whether it was just a blurb describing the arcade as family-friendly.
At
first I couldn't be sure that it was even an actual real-world arcade.
They could have built this sort of settings at the studio, by simply
filling a space with vintage arcade games (although that mirrored
ceiling could be a bit tricky).
So when I googled for
the name “Family Arcade”, I was pleasantly surprised to find the place
almost immediately, and a look at the many photos & videos
of the room easily confirmed that this was the arcade used on the
show. It's hard to miss that mirrored ceiling, or the colorful neon
tubing running around the room.
