Several years back, well before the pandemic, Chuck E. Cheeses had bought Peter Piper Pizza, further bolstering their position as the largest chain of arcade entertainment in the world. While today’s news won’t make Dave & Busters the largest, it certainly fortifies their position on the market.
H/T to Jdevy for this one; As the headline states, news broke this morning that Dave & Busters will be purchasing the chain of FECs called Main Event for $835 million. The sale will complete by the end of the year and Main Event’s current CEO (Chris Morris) will become CEO of the new company.
Dave & Buster’s expects the acquisition to add to both earnings and growth, and to achieve cost synergies of $20 million within the first two years.
At present, Dave & Busters has 146 locations while Main Event has 49 (I hand counted those from the locations pages so I might be off by one or two); Both locations have quite a presence in Texas already since they both got their start there. per a quote from the article, “Main Event targets a different demographic, families with younger children, while Dave & Buster’s has primarily targeted young adults.”
I did reach out to someone I know at D&B to ask for a comment but it was rather late int he day when I heard this so there’s nothing to add of press time here. It sounds like they will continue to keep the names and focus of each division where it is, although I do wonder how that will affect game purchases. While D&B has paused some of their game development efforts due to the pandemic, eventually that’s the kind of thing that will pick up again and so it could result in seeing some of those future D&B exclusives, whether timed or permanent, finding their way to Main Event as well.
Do you have any thoughts on this news?
Do you think this is a positive?
We got a ME here in Knoxville a few years back now and I’ve been several times. It’s fun and the kids love it, but to me Dave and Buster’s is just an all around better time, even though they both share many similarities..
I played the “Battle Pod” for the first time at a D&B’s up in Maryland and they also seemed to have a more vast and varied selection of arcade games, both classic and new. Then there is the sports bar and billiard area. They seem pretty consistent based on my next visit to the one in Jacksonville.
The kids love the bowling at ME and even the little ones get in on the action with the gutter guards. Then there’s the climbing activities and many of the games there would make P.T. Barnum proud.
All this rambling just to say that I think D&B’s is clearly the more adult oriented of the two, which makes me wonder what impact this will have on ME.
It’s hard to say. I know more than one industry expert has been rather surprised that D&B had that kind of money to throw at ME and that they paid 9x the value (apparently/supposedly). But how they might change up the feel of the locations is anyone’s guess. Seems like D&B is more valuable & recognizable as a brand so I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually phase out ME and just brand them all D&Bs.
Oh no … we’ve got a Main Event that’s about 10 minutes down the highway from a D&B. I hope they don’t close one of them, even if they do technically target different demographics.