The men’s restroom in the new addition at Next Level Pinball Museum is fully decorated with posters and collectibles.

Oregon’s largest arcade is leveling up with a major expansion.

Hillsboro’s Next Level Pinball Museum is set to unveil “Boss Level” on Thursday, March 21, opening another 7,000 square feet of space and adding 150 games available for free play.

Located at 1458 N.E. 25th Ave., the museum is a gaming haven steeped in nostalgia. Players transcend into a technicolor world as they enter the neon-lit arcade, which currently consists of 20,000 square feet of games and memorabilia.

Next Level has heavily evolved since opening in 2017, with the newest addition marking the sixth expansion of the location, according to owner Jordan Carlson.

“With the growth that we’ve seen over the last couple of years, we knew that we wanted to bring more square footage here — just so there’s more room for people to be throughout the whole museum,” Carlson said.

While the museum has established itself as one of the largest arcades in the world, that was not always the vision. Carlson, who owns the museum alongside his wife, Whitney, and father, Fred, started the business as a pinball retailer.

“Believe it or not, seven years ago, this wasn’t what we were planning on doing. We were going to sell pinball machines and have a little bit of a man cave as part of our sales area,” Carlson said.

But one day, during a local car show, Carlson decided to put out a sign offering $10 for unlimited play all day at the site.

“We couldn’t believe how many people came in, and things just started turning,” he said. “All of a sudden, Next Level museum was being created.”

Next Level still sells pinball machines for the top retailers, but the museum now attracts patrons from far and wide to play classic and contemporary titles set to free play.

“If you want to be here for two hours, you got your money’s worth. Or if you want to be here for 10 to 12 hours, you really got your money’s worth,” Carlson said.

Including the new extension, Next Level has amassed 300 pinball machines and 310 arcade cabinets — featuring the likes of “Donkey Kong,” “Ms. Pacman” and more.

“Boss Level,” which will extend the arcade into the museum’s former maintenance space, pays homage to the iconic Nintendo, Sega, XBox and PlayStation games that made up many childhoods. According to Carlson, the museum took in feedback from guests, bringing in more racing games, classic pinball machines and a new “Halo” game, among others.

Just like the rest of the museum, the walls for the new space — even in the added restrooms — are adorned from floor to ceiling, displaying collectibles that span from posters to Pokémon cards.

Connor Stowe, Next Level’s marketing director, explained how Carlson’s dad acquired all sorts of memorabilia as he developed his vintage lunchbox collection, which people can find at the museum.

“(His dad) started amassing all of this trade fodder for lunchboxes. So he’d pick up Barbies or Transformers and so on,” Stowe said. “Then when this place came to be, they decided to actually use some of that.”

As the museum’s identity became clearer, the owners started to curate what would go on the walls, looking for items that could help people relive their memories.

“You would hear people reminisce over certain things about their childhood, and then it sort of became like a target for us to seek out,” Stowe explained. “It’s not things from your childhood, or my childhood, or my mom’s or my grandma’s — it’s everybody’s childhood. So it’s designed to have different things from different eras.”

The ball seems like it’s just beginning to roll for Next Level as it continues to grow and gain global recognition. Recently, the museum was named “the best pinball venue in the world” for the third consecutive year.

“We just had some people from an Australian pinball museum that made a trip here before they were down at the Texas pinball festival. We’ve had people from Brazil, New York, Kansas City each week,” Carlson said. “We’ve really seen an uptick over the last couple of years, and we want more people from all over the world to come check us out.”

Next Level Pinball Shop & Museum is open Thursday and Fridays from noon to 11 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Customers pay $22 to play all day long.

In celebration of the expansion, Next Level will be open every day from March 21 to March 31.

To learn more about extended hours, tournaments and more, visit nextlevelpinballmuseum.com.