Start Your
Engines
Operator & Equipment
Supplier Prime Time Amusements
Is Off to Their Races with Xtreme Karting Emporium
in Ft. Lauderdale
VROOOM, VROOOM! South Floridians are
revving their engines as they get ready for this month's grand opening
of the newest in family fun, Ft. Lauderdale's Xtreme Indoor Karting, a high
profile location that is the brainchild of
operator and equipment supplier David Goldfarb of Prime Time Amusements.
"This place is going to have a real
wow factor," enthused David when we caught up with him last month amid the
mad
scramble to get the facility up and running. "This is not just an amusement
center. Each area you walk into will overwhelm
you with the way it's designed and themed."
Xtreme Indoor Karting is located at
the busy intersection of I-95 and West Commercial near Lockhart Stadium.
"The venue is unbelievable," he continued. "We have 300,000 plus cars
passing by our venue every day. It's probably the
best location in South Florida, which is growing by leaps and bounds as a
region."
Goldfarb's company, Prime Time
Amusements is partnered with go-kart industry veteran Bill Mulder, who has
built tracks across the country, in the development and operation of the
upscale entertainment facility. Chicago real estate development firm E.J.
Plesko & Associates, which owns the land and facility, is also a partner in
the project and has put up close to $5 million in funding.
The partners expect their new
100,000-square-foot indoor karting location with 40-foot ceilings to become
a prototype, which can be duplicated in other growing communities around the
country. In fact, they already have their eye on a location in downtown
Chicago for their second facility. "This is a model for how we intend to
move forward," declared Goldfarb.
With one of the longest indoor tracks
in the U.S. and special karts imported from England that can reach speeds of
up to 50 miles per hour, the facility promises to offer a one-of-a-kind
attraction for local thrill seekers.
Eat and Drink or Drive
In addition to kart racing, Prime Time
will oversee an adult arcade area featuring 100 pieces including several
high end gaming attractions like Jesler's NASCAR simulator, Sega's
eight-player Derby Owner's Club and Qubica's Highway 66 bowling simulator.
The facility also offers three fully
appointed team building activity centers for corporate business, four
birthday party rooms and a kiddie arcade with 35 plus games aimed at the
younger crowd. Xtreme Karting's concession area will offer mid-scale food,
meaning it's not snack bar fare but not high-end dining either, plus wine
and beer service.
Inside the location's sports bar,
patrons can order chicken wings, pizza, or hamburgers and enjoy the
fun-filled atmosphere with high top tables, Hooters-style waitress service,
12 50-inch flatscreen televisions and two 65-inch TV screens. "The whole
facility will be cashless running on the Sacoa Card system," noted Goldfarb.
"That includes the game room, the kart tracks, the arcade games and in the
dining area. There is nothing in the venue that takes cash except the SACOA
card machines."
Coca-Cola has signed on as the
location's soft drink beverage provider, and has big plans to cross promote
the center through, among other avenues, offering coupons on the back of
Miami Dolphins tickets.
"They saw the project and were
immediately interested," said Goldfarb. "The coupons will offer 20 free game
credits. Our beer distributor, Gold Coast, is also donating hoods from
NASCAR race cars for use in theming the facility, and the boat manufacturer
Sea Ray is building a mock boat for our track.
When it comes to safety, especially in
a facility that serves alcohol, Goldfarb says they will stand firm on a zero
tolerance policy. "If you want to drink, you cannot drive," he said. "There
is a built-in tracking system that will allow each cart to be stopped by one
of our staff members."
Xtreme Indoor Karting plans to market
its location heavily to local businesses for team building experiences. They
will offer packages for up to 200 people, offering three private rooms
complete with pool tables, a separate bar, games, TV screens, a Wurlitzer
jukebox, plus select packages on the go-kart track.
"We have hired a full-time marketing
person for the venue to really reach out to the community, especially when
it comes to corporate outings," continued Goldfarb. "You can rent out each
component or even the whole facility. This is an experience that you are not
going to get anywhere else."
Looking ahead, Xtreme Karting expects
to generate an average spend, per visit, of $25 per person. Ten minutes on
the kart track alone costs just under $20
Starting Young
At 33, David Goldfarb may seem like a
youngster to many in the trade but he already has more than a decade of
experience operating in pretty high profile locations along the Florida
tourist belt.
He got his start as an operator at 19
years old, operating games in his fraternity house at the University of
Central Florida. Later he expanded his route with games and pool tables in a
local submarine sandwich shop near campus. Interestingly, his own father,
who had retired from the garment business in New York and moved to Florida,
was also starting up a crane route.
Ultimately, they joined forces, and
later landed the business for several venues on the Universal Studios
Orlando campus in Orlando. That included the hotel and NASCAR Café.
"At 24 I wanted to move to Miami,
where I started a street route totally separate from the operations in
Orlando," explained David of the beginnings of their 300-plus game
operations in south Florida.
Later, Goldfarb's dad suffered a
stroke and he wound up getting back into the operating business in Orlando.
Around that same period, Universal wanted to consolidate all of their
operations to one vendor and settled on Prime Time, boosting their presence
at the high-traffic tourist venue from 50 to 400 coin-op machines.
In the last year, Prime Time has also
taken on industry veteran Rick Dee, who spent decades overseeing Florida
operations for Cleveland Coin, as a partner and VP of its operations at
Universal. He is also providing valuable insight into the future of Xtreme
Indoor Karting. The opening of that location will bring their total number
of machines on location close to the 1,000 mark.
Prime Time is also engaged in
equipment rentals to corporate events and bar mitzvahs and they sell
refurbished and new, imported equipment. In fact, last year they jumped into
the new game fray when they began offering several pieces built in Europe
for the U.S. market, including the punching game Knockout, as well as other
coin-op novelties including Arm Wrestler, the kicker Prime Time Goalie and
the table game Crazy Squash.
Prime Time will move its corporate
headquarters into the new Ft. Lauderdale facility, consolidating its south
Florida offices, while maintaining their satellite office at Universal
Studios in Orlando. "We operate games. We sell machines. We rent machines.
All of this will be headquartered in this Ft. Lauderdale venue," said
Goldfarb.
Once Xtreme Karting is up and running,
the partners plan to add an additional 20,000 square feet with batting
cages, rock climbing, additional arcade and a mini Indy-style track. They
are also looking ahead to their next venue, and already have their eye on a
90,000-square-foot property somewhere near downtown Chicago.
For more on this young and growing
industry player, check out their new venue in south Florida or log on to
their website at
www.primetimeamusements.com.
To send email to RePlay Magazine, it's
editor@replaymag.com
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