MOST of the patrons at Mission Dolores in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn go for craft beers like Dark Horse Scotty Karate Scotch Ale or the house pour, Narragansett Lager. But some do not make it as far as the bar.

Lured by twinkling lights, they step up to the three vintage pinball machines stationed just inside the entrance, reach into their pockets for quarters and indulge in one of the greatest of all American pastimes, the pursuit of the silver ball.

Pinball is a genuine subculture. Lawn tennis or duckpin bowling might be more obscure, but not much. Once a popular attraction at arcades and bars across the United States, pinball went into a death spiral in the early 1980s, done in by video games, and it has struggled ever since.

Yet, against the odds, the sport survives. In bars, cafes and some truly odd outposts scattered across the five boroughs of New York, the flippers are still flapping. Some of them belong to reconditioned machines from defunct companies like Williams and Bally. Others can be found on new games from Stern, for several years the sole remaining pinball manufacturer in the United States until an upstart, Jersey Jack Pinball, entered the market in January 2011.