HOLLY HILL — Not many residents realize that the anonymous-looking warehouse at the end of a loop of industrial properties west of Ridgewood Avenue is ground zero for production of one of the world’s most famous arcade games, but the place is going on the map this week — literally.

A block-long stretch of 15th Street in front of arcade-game manufacturing company Bob’s Space Racers will be officially re-christened “Whac-A-Mole Way” at a 2 p.m. ceremony on Thursday by Holly Hill officials. It’s a nod to the company’s most famous product, Whac-A-Mole, the battle of man-and-mallet against the game’s namesake critters, popping persistently out of holes, just ahead of the next whack.

“It’s a big honor,” said Tony Cassata, operations and sales manager at Bob’s Space Racers, adding that the idea started as merely a joke with Holly Hill City Manager Joe Forte and other officials. “A joke turned into something that I’m very proud of — and the whole family is proud of it. I think the city is proud of it, too. They have people from all over the world contacting them about it.”

The city this week recognized Bob's Space Racers for its long, productive history in Holly Hill.

"The City of Holly Hill has enjoyed a longtime partnership with Bob's Space Racers, and is honored to be part of their international growth," Holly Hill Mayor John Penny said in a statement. "The naming of Whac-A-Mole Way is a great way to recognize this company for its success."

Bob’s Space Racers has been a fixture at 427 15th Street since 1974, when Tony Cassata’s brother, Bob, and business partner Jack Mendes, expanded an arcade-game business that Bob originally started four years earlier in the driveway of his home on Palmetto Avenue in Daytona Beach.

The company’s first game was a race of Apollo spaceships that inspired the company’s name, Bob’s Space Racers. Bob Cassata, who retired about 15 years ago, isn't expected to make Thursday's ceremony, company officials said, but Mendes, retired for nearly 10 years,  is slated to attend.

“Back in the 1970s, the space race was the big thing,” Tony said. “You would throw a ball into a basket and make your space ship go up.”

It was the Bicentennial year of 1976 when Bob Cassata and Mendes started work on Whac-A-Mole, the game that would forever overshadow any of the company’s future creations. Cassata obtained rights to the game from a couple of carnival workers who couldn’t get it to work correctly.

Jack Cook, the company’s president, joined Bob’s Space Racers that same year and recalls the big contract that helped put the game into the public’s consciousness.

“Chuck E. Cheese (pizza restaurants) was our first customer that we built smaller versions of the game for,” Cook said. “Originally, the game was always a mole, but Chuck E. Cheese wanted us to customize it, so it became “Whac-A-Munch,” which was a little purple-looking character with fur on his head.”

Many other incarnations would follow, Cook said.

“Whatever anybody wanted to have, we made,” he said.

In the company’s 100,000-square-foot production warehouse, a wall is adorned with dozens of customized Whac-A-Mole characters. Cartoon characters such as Scooby-Doo and Itchy, the latter a Simpsons character commissioned by Universal Studios in Orlando, share space with a likeness of cable-news financial host Jim Cramer and a Taco Bell-branded version of the game. Celebrities from Hulk Hogan to classic-sitcom star Gilligan have been immortalized in the game.

Whac-A-Mole has made cameos in TV shows, including "The Simpsons" and "Scrubs," and in TV ads for beer and credit cards. Over the years, there have been Whac-a-Mole playing cards and dozens of mole-themed products, many displayed as collectibles on the shelves of Space Racers executives.

The moles have raised their persistent heads in 155 countries, Cook said, covering six continents. In France, a long-ago version of a Whac-A-Mole board game went by the name Chass'Taupes, which translates to "Chase Moles."

Along the way, Bob’s Space Racers sold the rights to the game’s name to Mattel, but it still retains the world rights to makes the arcade and carnival versions that made Whac-a-Mole famous. It’s an arrangement that has worked well for both parties, Cook said.

The company now employs more than 80 workers in its Holly Hill headquarters, where jobs cover all aspects of the gaming industry: design, manufacturing, research and development, repair and distribution. The lobby walls are lined with awards received from the International Association of Amusement Parks & Attractions, a worldwide organization that tracks trends in the industry.

“We’re a one-stop shop,” Cook said. “We also do consulting. We can design your game area at your business, we can go into your amusement park and run your game area. We have some sales that we make where we don’t even know where it’s going. We have to find it on the map.”

At the heart of the company’s success is a simplicity that hasn’t changed much since the first mallet whacked a mole, Cook said.

“Simple names, simple games,” Cook said, leading visitors past games such as Whopper Water, Water Gun Fun, Roll-A-Ball and Stinky Feet. “We stick with very basic, simple, electro-mechanical games. The simpler the game, the more effective it is.”

Stinky Feet, a company favorite, involves blasting water at the feet of characters in adjoining bathtubs, until the most accurate shot logs the high score. Did we mention that the contestants sit on toilet seats?

“That was a napkin design,” Cook said of the concept devised by his wife, Glenda, the company’s CEO. “Most of our ideas come off of a napkin. Glenda came up with this sitting in our living room one Sunday afternoon.”

Tony Cassata echoes the company’s simple goal: “What we sell here is we sell fun.”

What: Official ceremony to rename a portion of 15th Street in Holly Hill as Whac-A-Mole Way.

Where: In front of Bob's Space Racers arcade-game manufacturers, 427 15th St., Holly Hill.