In This Issue

…in our 58th year!
It's a wrap..................23
In This Issue
This year's RSA Convention and Trade Show with
the ILTA in Orlando, followed by the U-Profit Success Workshop, made for
two great ways to learn
how to increase your rink's
business, stay on top with
fresh ideas and have fun
while doing it! Check out
the RINKSIDER's photos
from both events.
July-August 2011
Healthy choices in snack bars
sound better than they sell
By Dionne Obeso
W
ith all the hype around eating healthy
and providing children with nutritious snacks, you may be considering
amending your rink’s offerings. There are a ton
of healthy options to choose from, and it can be
confusing to try to decide what kids will buy.
According to Doug Foval, owner of the
40,000 sq. ft. Skate Galaxy in Baton Rouge,
La., healthy snacks just aren’t worth the effort.
“Some of our customers were requesting healthier options, so we decided to give it a try, but
they just don’t move well,” he said. In the mean
Derby wheels keep on
rollin'….......................17
Groups of tough ladies
on wheels are growing by
leaps and bounds, and
are constantly looking for
good gear and win-win
promotional opportunities.
Find out why you should
consider partnering with a
local roller derby team whether they bout in your
rink or not - and how to go
about building this lucrative relationship.
To Facebook or not to...25
PRSRT. STD.
U.S. Postage
Paid
Pontiac, IL
Permit No. 592
With Facebook's constant
changes and upgrades,
keeping up can often seem
a devastating task. Online
tech writer Joe Dysart
shares advice and the latest info from experts and a
FB saavy rink operator.
Current trends: The snack area at Ron Sherman’s Skate Zone rink in Crofton, Md., is
a hit with its funky and up-to-date styling, but trying to get current with healthy snacks
didn’t fare the same.
time, the unhealthy options continue to move in
volume. Foval can sell three boxes of Hershey’s
Cookies and Cream candy bars in the time it
takes him to move one small box of granola
bars.
Although he hasn’t given up on selling his
healthy snacks just yet, he does acknowledge that
the few moms who requested the healthy snacks
are basically the only ones buying them. He said,
“We’ve mostly only sold [fruit cups and granola
bars] to a mom or two, but the kids are not buying
any of it. And in a skating rink the kids are your
biggest market. They speak volumes.”
Rob Sherman of Skate Zone in Crofton,
Md., has also tried going the healthy route. His
rink primarily serves skaters 16 and under, and he
concurs with Foval’s assessment of the market.
“If you have the right demographic and you
have a lot of adults skating your facility it could
possibly work. Some skating centers also have
a full grill - almost a complete restaurant - and
something like that may work for them, but for
most of us with quick service areas and limited
seating, that may be a deterrent,” he said.
Sherman continued, “We tried offering
fresh tossed salads for a while. We prepared them
in lidded plastic containers. We’d make around
continued on page 34
Check out these five tips for maintaining
your rink daily, monthly and annually
By Connie Evener
M
aintaining a family entertainment and
skating center is a time gobbler that
requires never-ending to-do lists, persistence and nerves of steel. To find out how two
rink owners keep their facilities looking good and
operating smoothly and safely - without breaking
their budgets or their backs - The Rinksider interviewed Doug Foval of Skate Galaxy in Baton
Rouge, La., and Ron Johnson of Roller World
Skating Center in Clovis, N.M. Although each of
their businesses is unique, Foval and Johnson use
many of the same basic techniques:
Nip it in the bud...
The best way to approach a maintenance
hassle is to prevent it in the first place. With years
of experience behind them, Foval and Johnson
troubleshoot the situation.
continued on page 34
Rinksider_JUL_AUG_11.indd 1
Employees of Roller World in Clovis, N.M., regularly maintenance the skate floor to
extend its life.
6/21/11 5:38:12 PM
34
Roundup (cont'd from page 1)
20 for a weekend and throw away 17. I don’t
feel it’s what our customers are looking for.
You don’t go to a theme park and want to
buy a salad. You want to buy a funnel cake
and ice cream, and it is the same thing at
skating centers.”
With such value placed on fun and
entertainment, eating responsibly goes out
the window, even for many of the adults
who skate or bring their kids. For Sherman,
the difference was made very clear when he
switched back from baked chicken nuggets
and fries to deep frying. Kids flocked to the
order counter, and his fry sales quadrupled
almost instantly.
“We tried offering healthier snacks like
granola bars, but when it comes down to it,
there just wasn’t the sales volume,” he said.
Joe Champa of Champs Rollerdrome,
in Louisville, Ky., gave healthy foods a try as
well, placing them in the smaller of his two
rinks, but as with Sherman and Foval, the
kids were just not buying it. “The culture is
turning toward concern about obesity and I
thought it wouldn’t hurt to try. It didn’t work,
RINKSIDER
July-August 2011
Independent Voice of the Industry
so we stopped selling the healthier options,”
he said.
In the end, the choice to sell or not sell
healthy foods is a business decision for roller
skating rinks, not a moral or ethical one. Our
culture may be trending toward health awareness, but there is a long way to go before
amusement parks or entertainment centers
like roller skating rinks will scorn staples like
pizza and chips in favor or veggie wraps and
sandwiches on whole wheat. Champa said,
“We tried offering fruit plates and yogurt,
but it doesn’t turn a profit, and as good as it
is for them - unlike the schools - you can’t
take everything else out and just not sell
anything.”
But all is not lost, and we don’t have
to think of roller skating as an activity that
promotes unhealthy behaviors. While pizzas and nachos may not be the ideal meal
choices, there are other benefits. According
to Champa, “It has merit to try to get kids to
eat good food, but when they’re skating and
having fun and don’t realize they’re exercising, that’s probably a more important factor
than trying to force them to eat right. That’s
something parents have to teach them, and
we have to pay our bills, so unfortunately we
have to turn a profit and offer things that sell,
like pizza, nachos, and soda drinks.”
Something that all three of these rink
operators noticed in common, however, was
a huge number of sales in bottled water.
While Champa mentioned that he had a hard
time selling things like bottled teas, other
healthy beverages like Gatorade and bottled
water are big favorites, especially during the
weekday skates and early skates when parents are more likely to bring small children.
Plenty of operators may still feel motivated to try healthy options, and some areas
may have better luck than most, but overall,
the battle is uphill, especially when kids and
teens are making their own snack and meal
decisions during skate sessions.
Foval has not pulled his healthy options,
despite the uninspiring sales numbers. “If we
find something else we can sell, that’s great,
but trying to make things in our small food
court is difficult. We don’t have the work
area to prepare things like wraps and other
healthy meals,” he said. “I wish we had a
food area big enough to make and sell all
kinds of stuff, but we are somewhat limited,
as are most rinks.”
It is encouraging that, despite high volumes of soda sales, entertainment centers like
Foval’s Skate Galaxy (which also includes
laser tag and Go Karts) cannot stock water
fast enough. Every rink that chooses to stock
a few granola bars on top of their regular fare
is making a move in the right direction.
Those rink owners who have made a
concerted effort to make their food courts
health food havens are ahead of the curve and
ahead of their time. Foval pointed out that his
rink is the only one remaining strong in town
and in the surrounding areas, with one skate
center up for sale and a second rumored to
be in trouble. It is important to look toward
the future in terms of health and good food
options, but it is also important to be there
right now as a place where kids can get their
sneaky exercise, and maybe their pizza, too.
found some plastic drums that fit perfectly
around the water fountains, but will allow the
air to circulate. They give support on the front
so when kids lean on them, they won’t pull
out of the wall,”
explained Foval.
“Like I said, think
Fort Knox.”
interior walls every two to three months,
which cuts down on the need for re-painting.
Rental skate maintenance and safety checks
are ongoing: As soon as employees have
rotated all the way through Roller World’s
rental skates, size by size, they begin again.
Because Clovis tends to be hot and
humid, keeping skate wheels clean was a big
chore – until Johnson came up with an idea
for a wheel washer that cleans the wheels
on more than fifty pairs of skates in an hour.
It’s easy and simple to make, and very cost
effective, with parts costing $4 or $5. He’d
be happy to share how to make your own.
Just give him a call at Roller World, (575)
762-5777.
coils need to be cleaned, too.
The object, of course, is to keep those
air conditioners running longer, and more
efficiently to keep electricity costs down. “It’s
the same thing with the coils on the bottom of
Coke and Power Aid machines, refrigerators
and ice machines,” said Foval.
Foval also vacuums his 11 computers, plus another 11 arcade units, once a
month because their cooling fans suck dust
in. “About once a year, we take them outside.
We’ll have a table set up and we spray them
with an air compressor, real lightly, just to
make sure all the dust is out of the inside.”
And, noted Foval, “When you’re vacuuming out the computers, don’t forget the
ceiling display lights that have little cooling
fans in them – and baby, are they dust suckers.
If you don’t, you’ll be buying those expensive
light bulbs a lot more often. And projectors
are dust suckers, too.”
Maintenence tips (cont'd from page 1)
Chewing gum is bad for the floor, bad
for skates and an all-around nuisance, so
Johnson has banned it at Roller World. “We
don’t allow gum in the building,” said John-
A stitch in time...
By tending to small jobs
i m m e d i a t e l y,
Johnson
and
Foval keep the
situation from
deteriorating into
a major effort or a
liability issue, and
they can stretch
the intervals on
major unavoidable jobs, like
Skate Galaxy Manager Marcus Talbet sports a “ghost buster” skate floor resurbackpack canister vacuum to bust the dust on all rink surfaces facing or interior
and equipment.
painting.
At
the
son. “We have somebody at the door watchbeginning of each session, Roller World is
ing for gum chewers as they come in.” Chewready for business because Johnson had his
ers are asked to spit their gum into the “gum
staff go over the entire facility before lockbox.” And he’s turned the gum confiscation
ing his doors after the session before. No
into a running joke, having his staff tell those
employee leaves until all the work is done and
who complain that they can have their gum
documented. Everything, from the parking
back when they leave.
lot to the skating floor, the bounce house to
“Before we do any kind of repair or
the snack bar, is cleaned and inspected using
remodeling, we stop and think, ‘okay, how
checklists Johnson and his wife Teresa have
can they destroy it?’” said Foval. “You’ve got
developed over the years.
to build everything like Fort Knox because if
Roller World’s Concession Cleanit can be destroyed, kids will destroy it.” Case
ing List, for instance, itemizes 21 features
in point: Sinks, cabinets and water fountains
and pieces of equipment, from the popcorn
must be supported from the floor because
machine to the nacho cheese pot to the pickle
people on skates grab them for support and
jar, from the sinks and countertops to the
pull them out of the wall. “You don’t mount
floors. He provides detailed instructions for
sinks or cabinets on the wall with nothing
every item on the list, focusing on cleanliness
below them,” said Foval.
and safety. And it’s not just a matter of keepRecently, when a wall-mounted water
ing up appearances. Clean appliances work
fountain was pulled out of the wall (yet again),
better and last longer.
Foval came up with an inexpensive fix. “I
Johnson has his staff wash down the
Rinksider_JUL_AUG_11.indd 34
A dollar saved is a dollar earned...
Foval admits some people may think
he’s a bit obsessive when it comes to what he
calls “dust suckers,” but his goal is a better
bottom line.
Foval figures the air conditioning is in
How many rink owners does it take to
change a light bulb?
Only one, but speaking of light bulbs,
while CFL’s (compact fluorescents) do save
energy, there are issues when changing them.
Foval has heard that lawsuits are surfacing
over broken fluorescent bulbs because they
emit gases. So he and his staff simply note
burned out bulbs during sessions, then he
changes them afterwards, or on Mondays
when Skate Galaxy is closed.
Put it in writing...
Ron Johnson’s staff at Roller World
uses checklists, such as this to make
sure everything in his rink runs
smoothly and efficiently.
use at Skate Galaxy about ten months out of
the year. One of Foval’s most time consuming
jobs is changing 64 filters on 13 air conditioning units once a month. And the condenser
To-do lists, check lists, job descriptions,
rules postings, and all the documentation
required to run a rink can sometimes be overwhelming, but these days they’re essential.
Johnson’s “Roller World Skating Center
Staff Handbook” runs more than 40 pages.
It’s all based on RSA matierals, which he has
added to and refined over the years.
To see some of the checklists Johnson
and Foval use, go to The Rinksider website,
www.rinksider.com.
6/21/11 5:42:05 PM