TreyTX
09-26-2005, 12:51 AM
Hey all--I have not posted in such a while and came across this blog---the deal is when I took the pics the stage or shelf was installed the previous owner (remember this is 1991 and CEC was in the process of getting rid of their franchisees) was the tech of the Ogden store but was able to purchase this location from the original operation, Rocky Mountain Restraunts, Inc which had this location and 3 others in the Salt Lake area. So when they closed the location the tech bought this store for really nothing. I bought the store in 1995 and at the time corporate really was just trying to keep afloat. So when I purchased this location from the tech (under a management agreement--ShowBiz would not transfer the franchise agreement to me as the wanted the store closed) He really had not done much with the store this is why the location looks old. We were the only tenant left in the center as the local grocery store, Smith's, relocated to a newer location and all other tenants closed. When I arrived they did have the C-stage facade behind the skeeball lanes but we had to move the entire stage to a different wall and actually build a new stage to house the C-stage facade. We also repainted the store with the base-A remodel and did upgrade some games. The store had once the Beach Bousers, which were in the back use for parts, and a TV was placed in their spot. The store did have the cypervision installed as corp sent everyone out the machine free (part of the animated fund) but for 1 year before me they never had any TVs connected to it so when CEC would say "stay tune for a CEC TV special" you would hear the audio only in the showroom...all of the employees thought that the show was broken as they had no idea what was going on...also the store was in default on their royalties so we always has the previous month's showtape. At the time McBiz Inc was managing (under contract) the other two stores in the market, however the owner of Salt Lake store and I were somewhat pals. Now corp really wanted this location closed and as we has just installed the C-stage for about $5K they were in the process of placing the MMBB for cyperamics and wanted this stage instead which cost about $25K in install--which we did not have the money for this. This location was only doing about $9-11K a week as Salt Lake was doing about $35K a week. Funny thing is the Provo location was almost in bad condition as mine but they did about $15K a week--and still opened. All of the commercials on tav were for SBZ so we never benefitted of having dual concept advertising. But laster as concept unification happened all TV ads and newspaper ads had the new CEC logo and the old SBZ logo so we finally got advertising. When I arrived I had a large SBZ painted sign installed on the building next to CEC. We answered the phone as "It's a great day to be at Chuck E Cheese and ShowBiz Pizza" and I only ordered SBZ paper goods and party supplies as well as only SBZ/Billy Bob merch so that our customer would know we were part of the two SBZ locations south of us. Now corp really never bothered us even though our location was giving SBZ a bad name until concert unification as the other locations were in better finical condition than us. Funny how corp has never opened a new CEC in the Ogden/Layton area but there is a couple of Peter Piper Pizzas. From what I gather once existing SBZ/CEC franchises expire corp will either buy the location or require that owner quick using their CEC name and go local. When I closed the location I relocated most of the equipment back to Texas and open an independent called "Banjo Billy's Pizza" you can see the retrofit of the character under my pics under misc. pics. We used a new operating system by Gilderfluke and Rock A fire tapes but had the character names edited out. For example, on the Sailing song when it would say "Ah that's great Billy, yea real nice...all sailing is my most favorite summertime fun...." I had they edit out the Billy...you can't even tell where the music came from. I opened this location when almost every SBZ franchise was going independent...I later found out that we all failed...I will try to find some other pics of Banjo Billy's Pizza. So I hope this explains more...treyclewis@yahoo.com