South Georgia has an unlikely new business – video arcade machines. Rick Priester, a Savannah native, founded an arcade importer company in 2008 called Arcade Factory in Los Angeles. When the trade war with China implemented tariffs that threw a wrench into his business model he changed courses, purchasing an old factory in Statesboro, the Cooper-Wiss plant, to fashion the machines himself. Now Arcade Factory is putting out 4,000 machines a year here in Georgia, with plans to expand and hire more local workers. Manufacturing, and arcades, are back in Statesboro.
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