Today's post covers the early history of four of the more popular arcade chains of the 1970s and 1980s. It's a little short on details, but I hope to correct that in the future.
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Time-Out Family Amusement Center
In 1970, Tico Bonomo opened the first Time-Out Family Amusement Center. Bonomo's grandfather Albert Bonomo had emigrated to the U.S. from Turkey. In 1897 he founded the Bonomo Company in Coney Island and began selling salt-water taffy and hard candy. Albert's son (and Tico's father) Victor invented a new confection called Turkish Taffy Bonomo Turkish Taffy became one of the country's most popular candy treats (people loved to crack it to pieces before opening the wrapper), especially after Tico Bonomo created The Magic Clown, which ran on NBC from 1949 to 1954 (it continued on local networks until 1959). Created solely to sell taffy, it was one of the first sponsored children's programs.
In 1970 Bonomo sold his interest in Bonomo Turkish Taffy to Tootsie Roll Industries and was looking for a place to invest his money when he encountered some electromechanical arcade games and decided to open his own arcade (he apparently also opened an instant portrait studio around this time). His first location in Northway Mall in Colonie, New York, was a resounding success. The next year, he opened four more locations, including locations in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Bonomo opened his business just in time to cash in on the first video game boom and by 1975 there were a dozen Time Outs. By 1978 there were 20. As video game arcades began to gain a reputation as a hangout for unruly teens, Time Out began to revamp its image by brightening up their arcades with brighter colors and more family-oriented design, resulting in more expansion. On December 30, 1986 Bonomo sold the entire chain (which at the time comprised 74 locations - including non-mall "Station-Break" locations - in 15 states, plus D.C. and Puerto Rico) to Sega, staying on as president and CEO. In the early 1990s, Time-Out was purchased by the Mall Entertainment Division of Edison Brothers' (a clothing and shoe maker from St. Louis and Tico retired to Virginia. He died in Great Falls, Virginia on September 14, 1999.
Photo of a Time-Out - from the excellent Time-Out Tunnel website (http://timeouttunnel.com/) |
Time Zone
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A Time Zone in Detroit - from the Detroityes.com website |
The similarly named Time Zone was founded in 1974 by Ted Olson. At the time, Olson (who had majored in accounting at the University of Montana) was working as comptroller for Atari when he decided to purchase the company’s street route. After getting the okay from Nolan Bushnell, Olson took the route, along with the rights to the name Syzygy and went into the arcade business for himself. The first Time Zone was opened in a small San Jose shopping center on November 1, 1976. At only 700 square feet, however, the space was too small and after Olson experienced problems with loitering and disturbances from neighboring stores, he closed the location within 18 months. A second, 1,500-square-foot location at the much larger Mountain View Center mall proved much more successful. Like Time Out, Time Zone attempted to create a family atmosphere where adults as well as teens could enjoy the arcade experience. Olson spent $30,000 - $40,000 a year on radio advertising and promotions to push his message. By the end of 1977 Olson had six arcades in the Silicon Valley area and was still growing.
Malibu Grand Prix
In March of 1975, a group of overgrown kids from Orange County CA created the first Malibu Grand Prix near Angel Stadium in Anaheim. The idea had come about when Ron Cameron, a Malibu investor, was visiting Detroit and came across a miniature speedway where people could drive cars around a dirty track. He took the idea home with him to California, made a few improvements, and started his own business. Initially, the only feature was a miniature race track with three-quarter scale, custom-designed, 28-horsepower, formula one racers powered by Sachs-Wankel rotary engines, which allowed anyone to play Mario Andretti for a dollar a lap. The cars, which were valued at $12,000-15,000 each, cruised along at speeds of up to 67 MPH. The "official fastest time" for each location was posted on a board outside the track. After three or four months, the location installed a half dozen pinball games and a handful of video games (operated by an outside vendor) outside the main building. When the games proved to be an easy source of extra income, the owners tore down some of the offices in the main building to make room for more. When the second location opened up in Fountain View, it included a small game room with about 25 games. The third location opened in Pasadena in July of 1976 with 67 games. The owners quickly realized that using an outside vendor to supply their games was costing them money and began operating their own games. While the race track remained the focal point of the centers, the video games became almost as well-known. By late 1976 the first Malibu Grand Prix's outside of California were opened in Tucson, Denver, and Houston. As the video game explosion got into full swing, Malibu Grand Prix became one of the largest arcade chains in the country. In 1977, Cameron sold the chain to Warner Communications (owners of Atari) for $4 million. Under Warner, the chain soon expanded to over 100 locations nationwide. The Malibu Grand Prix idea eventually spawned imitators such as Funway Freeway, which had locations in 19 states when Warner sold it to Six Flags in 1980. On December 31, 1983 Warner sold Malibu Grand Prix to a holding company controlled by two Canadian businessmen for $19 million, who later merged it with a company called Castle Entertainment. In 1984 the chain lost $6.3 million on revenues of just $28.1 million. In the first quarter of 1985 they lost $2.4 million more. Ron Cameron fared much better. In 1988 he sold his five acre estate for a reported $7 million - at the time the second highest price ever paid for a home in Malibu (after Johnny Carson's $8.5 million purchase in 1984). In 2002, the last three remaining Malibu Grand Prix was purchased by Palace Entertainment.
Aladdin's Castle
Even bigger than Malibu Grand Prix was Aladdin’s Castle. The chain had its origins in a company known as American Amusements, Inc. After graduating from the University of Miami, Jules Millman went to work for the coin-op distributor World Wide Distributing in Chicago. His uncle, who owned a discount store, let Millman put some games at the entrance where they made over $100 a week. If a handful of games could make that much money in a high-volume discount store, thought Millman, imagine how much money they'd make in a dedicated location in a mall. Millman visited mall after mall and they all turned him down flat. Then he found a mall that was having trouble leasing space and talked them into letting him try his idea. Millman created something far different from the typical coin-op game location, creating a family-friendly location where parents could take their kids. He installed carpeting. Smoking and eating were banned. It was an instant success. Before he had a chain of arcades (called Carousel Time) in malls across the country. The company’s marketing department began scanning newspapers looking for announcements of new shopping mall openings then convincing the owners to add an amusement arcade. It was often a tall order. Many at the time felt that arcades were hangouts for troublesome teens and hoodlums. The Carousel Time people then made a novel suggestion – “You already have kids hanging out here in the mall. Why not give them a nice, well-policed place to have fun rather than having them prowl the aisles and other stores?”[1]Getting the mall owners to agree with their proposal was only half the battle. The company then had to make sure their new arcade would comply with local zoning laws, which could be quite restrictive in the early seventies. In April 1974, Bally purchased American Amusements and changed the name from Carousel Time to Aladdin’s Castle (the chain had about 50 locations at the time). By the end of 1975 the chain had 75 locations and eventually became the largest of the arcade chains. With 450 locations at its peak in 1983, it was called “the McDonald’s of the arcade business.” As the video game industry crashed, Aladdin's Castle went into sharp decline. Bally closed 46 locations in 1984, 88 in 1985, and 47 in 1986 (though in terms of profitability, the chain had its best year yet in 1986). In 1989 Bally sold the chain and exited the arcade business entirely.