Not long ago, Mississippi was, in Stephen Thaxton's words, "a bit of a pinball desert." If you wanted to play in a sanctioned tournament, you drove to New Orleans. If you wanted a machine, you drove to Louisiana or Alabama or Tennessee to find one. And if you wanted to connect with other people who loved the game, you mostly didn't — because you didn't know they existed.

That's changed. And a good bit of that change is happening at a tap room in Belhaven.

A Community Built Around Four Machines

Fertile Ground Beer Co. now hosts four pinball machines — rotated regularly to keep regulars on their toes — and a monthly sanctioned tournament open to anyone who walks through the door. The IFPA, the International Flipper Pinball Association, tracks ranked players in a worldwide database of more than 150,000 competitors. Sign up for your first tournament at Fertile Ground and you're in it.

The machines arrived through a connection between Fertile Ground COO Connor Reeves and Stephen Thaxton, who, along with his wife Jessica, runs Southern Tilt, a Jackson-area pinball operation that has quietly been growing Mississippi's tournament scene for years. "We've always tried to create a space where people would want to gather," Reeves says. "This was just another great extension of that."

The Fertile Ground tournaments run smaller and more regularly — 10 to 14 players on a typical night — which is part of the point. "We like to say, don't get intimidated," Jessica says. "There's all levels, all skill levels, all ages." Stephen is quick to add that ranked players don't always win. "There is a good amount of skill involved," he says, "but there's also a great amount of chance." The ball bounces where it wants.

Why Pinball Came Back

The resurgence of competitive pinball isn't accidental. Stephen traces the original decline to home consoles and smartphones — suddenly the games people once fed quarters into were available on a screen in their pocket. But something was missing. "People got tired of sitting in their home," he says. "They missed that connection with people — the analog, the actual feel of putting your hands on something and making it react instead of just being on your phone all the time."

Connor Reeves sees it playing out in real time at Fertile Ground. "People are increasingly craving authentic experiences," he says. "In an age of everything is digital and now with AI, you can't tell what's real and what's fake online. You can tell what's real when you're playing pinball."

What's Coming to the Tap Room

Fertile Ground is now one of three public IFPA-sanctioned tournament locations in Mississippi and the only one in Jackson proper. A new Stern Army partnership — a sponsorship program run by Stern Pinball, one of the sport's leading manufacturers — will add monthly structure and giveaways to the tournament series. And on May 28, a Pokémon pinball machine is expected to arrive at the tap room, with a launch party planned around it.

"I think the Pokémon machine will attract people who wouldn't normally find pinball," Stephen says. For Ryan Parker, a local enthusiast who helped get the Fertile Ground tournaments off the ground, that's exactly the idea. "I think pinball is such a social game," he says, "and the brewery is a perfect place for it."

Tournament nights are open to first-timers. Show up, put your name in, and play. The regulars will help you figure out the rest.

Follow Southern Tilt on Facebook for upcoming tournament dates.