08/13/2026
A Summer of Change - A True Story
One summer day, in the early 1980s, a group of New Monrovia youth single-handedly and inadvertently changed the business trajectory of one entity, possibly forcing them to reevaluate the location and what was probably a well-thought-out, marketable offering to the community.
Bored and with limited options, I was part of a pre-teen, early teen crew that ventured out of our neighborhood west on Cove Road to the newly built Cove Center shopping plaza. No bikes, no cars, we headed down the sidewalk unassumingly needing something “different” to do. K-Mart was there, Publix was there, but our destination was W.C. Frank.
W.C. Frank was an arcade that offered THE best hot dogs for that time (maybe it felt that way because it was new) and arcade games that fueled your adrenaline and captured your attention a lot louder and with a bigger screen than was offered on your Atari at home (for those lucky enough to have one). For under $10, you could have a meal for less than $4 and break up the afternoon engaging in games, watching others battle to add their initials to the high score or even better, have the high scores and see your initials multiple times on the screen. Sounds good, right? W. C. Frank stumbled on a jewel of a plan but there was something they didn’t plan on: the boys from New Monrovia.
Well…what W.C. Frank offered, not too well thought out, was that there was no time limit for how long you could stay in the restaurant/arcade, which didn’t seem like it should be a stipulation because the obvious 2 choices were as long as you were there you spent money or when you ran out of money you left. BUT they had a small window of opportunity that was taken full advantage of: UNLIMITED REFILLS! So, we spent the afternoon (the initial one) hanging out in the air conditioned arcade, very hydrated and sugar rushed from all of the carbonated beverages.
There was another dent in the armor of planning that wasn’t considered: what if the plan of limited gaming time—because there are only so many quarters that will be spent in a given setting for a number of individuals—is met with a gaming wizard? What if there is a local individual who is way ahead of their time in gaming mastery, who can spend a minimal amount of change and far surpass even the superior level of hand/eye coordination, puzzle solving—basically a human cheat code—that not only dominates a machine but attracts onlookers marveling at the skill level as the machine is commandeered for an insane amount of time? What do you do then? Yeah, our neighborhood had such an individual. Legendary gamer before it even had a title!
Needless to say, W.C. Frank was in a storefront location in Cove Center and then it was not. Now I’m not saying the boys from New Monrovia in the early 1980s caused their quick exit but I’m sure we didn’t assist in increasing their profit margin either. Interestingly enough, when I went to check the year that W.C. Frank was located in Cove Center, a Google search indicates it was never there. Go figure!
Written by Chandler M. Josie 8/13/2026
