Fondest arcade memory?

For those of us who were fortunate to experience the arcade scene, what was your fondest memory from those days? For me, it would probably be when I used to play Killer Instinct all the time, and the local "pro" at the game challenged me. I picked Spinal, he picked Fulgore, and I won the first part of the fight doing nothing but combo breakers because he only used auto-connects. The look on his face made my childhood complete. I won the final half of the fight with my ultra combo, a few breakers, and even did whatever the finishing move was called in KI. If not that, then it was a few years ago when I was playing Mortal Kombat 4 at the movie theater's small corner arcade. This movie theater is built inside a mall, and the arcade is kind of inbetween the mall, the theater, and the exit. Well, a guy looking like he was 30 or so, wearing a business suit and carrying a briefcase, walks up and asks if he can play. I tell him sure, and he proceeds to absolutely DESTROY me with his Sub-Zero.

I 'completed' Power Drift, and the bonus is that you get transformed into the fighter plane from After Burner for a level. Everybody in the whole arcade gathered around to watch and I have never felt so special in my whole life.

I miss arcades so much. :(
 
I remember the first time I saw Mortal Kombat. This was the year after Street Fighter 2 came out and this game had BLOOD! which had my pre pubescent mind racing. 
I have so many fantastic memories, like when Daytona USA came out and it was such a brutal step up from Virtua Racing.
Or when Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo came out and I proceeded to be owned as hell by this group of asian kids who were always hanging around there. Those guys were insanely good and that was probably the first time I discovered the aspect of watching a video game as a spectator "sport" when I saw them against eachother.
4 player cabinets is still an experience the home consoles haven't managed to emulate. I want my Simpsons or X-Men dammit!

me and a buddy brute forced our way through i think it was Mercs  with $20 worth of quarters. 
 a princely sum in those days.   
 
the game did get the best of me by not allowing any continues after being defeated. so my back up lives (read pre-spent quarters) just vanished. 
 
good times.

the local pool had a few arcade machines when I was real little, used to play metal slug and get schooled at street fighter which was pretty cool. then they got a time crisis machine which blew my fragile young mind.

I have no single fond memory but I loved the following.Tabletop Pacman, Outrun, Chase HQ, Street Fighter 1 and 2, Samurai Shodown 1 & 2. Hang On, After Burner, RType, 1943, Darius, Vampire Savior
 
   JuJu /Toki was awesome also, but little known I think. I remember Bogarting joints while chatting to cuties as I played...Man, I was so cool back then. 
 
 edit:

Didn't really have arcades in Sweden (atleast not where I lived), but some fond memories include: 
 
 * Spending basically an entire weeks vacation in Italy in some dirty arcade playing Mortal Kombat with my cousin. We were like 6 or 7.
 
 * Visiting some sick arcade (it was like four fucking floors) in London while I was with my dad on a business trip. We spent an entire day in there, just trying out all the cool shit. They had actual virtual reality for christs sake. I easily count that as one of the best days in my life. I must have been 9 or 10. 
 
* When me and a friend found out an old video store in our town had an arcade hidden away in the back. We found out a week later they were shutting it down in like a month so we cut school almost every day and just played the shit out of everything there until they closed. We wanted to buy their Time Crisis machine but it was ridiculously expensive (atleast for us, at that age). We were 15-16.

Holy shit! I tried virtual reality at that same arcade in London as a kid while vacationing with my parents.
It was some kind of mech game. The VR machine wasn't in the arcade though. It was outside toward some cinema if I remember correctly (I saw Jurassic Park at it.)
I remember being amazed at London since it had that huge ass arcade and Hamley's.

" Didn't really have arcades in Sweden (atleast not where I lived), but some fond memories include:    * Spending basically an entire weeks vacation in Italy in some dirty arcade playing Mortal Kombat with my cousin. We were like 6 or 7.   * Visiting some sick arcade (it was like four fucking floors) in London while I was with my dad on a business trip. We spent an entire day in there, just trying out all the cool shit. They had actual virtual reality for christs sake. I easily count that as one of the best days in my life. I must have been 9 or 10.   * When me and a friend found out an old video store in our town had an arcade hidden away in the back. We found out a week later they were shutting it down in like a month so we cut school almost every day and just played the shit out of everything there until they closed. We wanted to buy their Time Crisis machine but it was ridiculously expensive (atleast for us, at that age). We were 15-16. "

I still go to arcades sometimes, the best recent one was completing House of the Dead 4 with my buddy, we had an audience and everything. It was awesome.

I have lots of fond memories of arcades since that's where the best games and graphics were from the 70s and 80s.  I was introduced to gaming on the boardwalk of the south Jersey shore, and had a birthday party or two at Chuck E. Cheese when I was a kid.  I played awesome new games at Disney World which were more impressive than many of the rides.  But, my fondest memories go back to my 1st year in college.  I was living in the LA area at the time, and there was this great arcade up in Pasadena that my geeky friends and I used to visit.  They had everything from the classics to the newer stuff.  I played Strider, Bad Dudes, Aliens, all the Star Wars games, Major Havok, Ninja Gaiden, and the list goes on and on.  That place also had pinball and air hockey, too.  The group of us would go there after a movie or after hitting up Fatburgers and just play video games for hours. 

" Holy shit! I tried virtual reality at that same arcade in London as a kid while vacationing with my parents. It was some kind of mech game. The VR machine wasn't in the arcade though. It was outside toward some cinema if I remember correctly (I saw Jurassic Park at it.) I remember being amazed at London since it had that huge ass arcade and Hamley's. "

Too many to pick a favourite. Among hundreds more, I remember...

• Getting good with the twisty knob on the Midnight Resistance controller, and finally finishing it.
• Seeing a mad crowd of people around one machine and pushing in to see what it was. Turns out it was Street Fighter II.
• Blowing up the Death Star for the first time in that awesome sit-down cabinet.
• Playing Vendetta (brilliantly garish 4-player Final Fight clone) with 3 mates - hey, there's no Giant Bomb page for this?
• Getting addicted to the crap Mutant Fighter with my mate Matt Francis - nor for this?
• Seeing a Neo Geo machine for the first time (More than one game in a cabinet? Madness!) - Ninja Combat, The Super Spy and Cyber Lip, baby.
• Mortal Kombat II.

Being fired from one and led away in hand cuffs. As they take me out the door my aunt walks by. Good times!

I'd have to say my fondest arcade memory was Star Wars Trilogy. If anyone else played it you know it takes you throw sweet stages of the movies such as the first run on the Death Star, to Hoth, Endor, and to the last battle with Vader. I forget the rest but it was quite awesome.

Seeing Resident Evil 3 in an our arcade was both confusing as hell to me, and pretty awesome.

I think I was playing Jurassic Park or something with my Dad.

" I'd have to say my fondest arcade memory was Star Wars Trilogy. If anyone else played it you know it takes you throw sweet stages of the movies such as the first run on the Death Star, to Hoth, Endor, and to the last battle with Vader. I forget the rest but it was quite awesome. "

Mine must be playing the Star wars arcade game for the first time, on a fairy to London.

My friend and I spending 20 dollars in quarters to beat Metal Slug X. All the time in rollerskates. Ahh good times

Beating The Simpsons was a great experience.

Just thought of some others. Beating the Terminator 2 arcade game at "Cheapskates", a roller rink we went to in elementary school for some sort of reward for getting to the end of our 5th grade year (In my school district, middle school or junior high, whatever you want to call it, starts with 6th grade and goes up to 9th grade. You start high school as a sophmore here.). All the cute girls that thought I was a nerd still thought I was a nerd, but they seemed to find me cute AND nerdy after they saw me beat that with a friend while wearing rollerskates and having shitty 90s dance music playing. I'm not sure why. In Minnesota, the only arcades you can really find anymore are Gameworks in Minneapolis, which is about a 30 minute drive for me, and you have to buy a time-based game card, so you have to plan to go to make the most out of it. The other one is in Valleyfair, a theme park. Last time I was there, a bunch of faux-metalheads (The kind who believe Avenged Sevenfold is the pinnacle of music) were sitting around playing Guitar Hero arcade. When one of them finished a song, I asked if I could play a quick song. They said sure, and I proceeded to play through Bulls On Parade on Expert, getting 100% and setting the new high score on that machine. They watched the entire time, and one kid actually started headbanging really akwardly. And yes, I know RATM isn't metal, that wasn't the point. I just was tired of hearing "Almost Easy" played over and over again by kids who would probably shit themselves at a Slayer concert.

" For those of us who were fortunate to experience the arcade scene, what was your fondest memory from those days? For me, it would probably be when I used to play Killer Instinct all the time, and the local "pro" at the game challenged me. I picked Spinal, he picked Fulgore, and I won the first part of the fight doing nothing but combo breakers because he only used auto-connects. The look on his face made my childhood complete. I won the final half of the fight with my ultra combo, a few breakers, and even did whatever the finishing move was called in KI. If not that, then it was a few years ago when I was playing Mortal Kombat 4 at the movie theater's small corner arcade. This movie theater is built inside a mall, and the arcade is kind of inbetween the mall, the theater, and the exit. Well, a guy looking like he was 30 or so, wearing a business suit and carrying a briefcase, walks up and asks if he can play. I tell him sure, and he proceeds to absolutely DESTROY me with his Sub-Zero. "