The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. On April 8, the first day of spring break for area schools, Swaders Sports Park opened its doors. There were no balloons, no traditional grand opening festivities, but an early warming trend had settled on the Central Virginia region and community excitement was strong. Tri-City residents had been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the area’s first family entertainment center, and throngs of teens and families poured into the facility that first day.

The flood of customers hasn’t stopped, says Ken Swader, director of operations for the park located in Prince George, Va., near the cities of Colonial Heights, Petersburg and Hopewell.

In fact, plans to hold a grand opening after the range’s July 3 debut have been tabled. “We’re so busy on the weekends now that it would actually be an interruption if we were to try and plan something big,” Ken says. “We built it knowing it would be successful, but we thought we’d have time to catch our breath, too.”

By the third week, Swaders’ daily sales total had hit the top mark set by Ken and his brother Glenn, who co-owns the facility with his wife, Tammy—and that was without the benefit of the range or even advertising. The only marketing thus far has been word-of-mouth. The two go-kart tracks are pulling the most profit, accounting for 35 percent of sales, followed by miniature golf at 29 percent, the batting cage at 12 percent and food and beverage sales at 6.5 percent.

“I’m amazed at how many people come here and give us $2 for 1 batting cage token,” (20 balls) says Ken. “I didn’t know that many people wanted to play softball and baseball.”

On Saturday nights, it’s not uncommon for a line of customers to snake out the front door, and there have even been 15-minute waits to get on the first miniature golf hole. The steady stream of customers has put Swaders’ operations to the test, and adjustments in several areas have been made.

After the first three weeks, Ken admits they were learning what they didn’t know. “As a proud father, we [were] at 85 percent efficiency/ capacity. As an honest businessman, we [were] probably at about 50 percent efficiency/capacity,” he reflects.

Spinouts and Sprite
Swaders has two go-kart tracks, an oval slick wedge and a meandering Grand Prix, and both had glitches early on. Rather than sliding through the turns, in pre-opening trial runs on the slick track wedge, the karts’ tires gripped the concrete surface. “We needed a special seal for the concrete so the cars would slide like they’re supposed to,” says Ken. After several calls to industry suppliers and seasoned go-kart operators, he found his solution: Rez-Seal, a lubricant that’s applied only to the turns to help the karts’ tires break away from the track. It took Ken nearly three weeks to remedy the situation, though, so the track didn’t open with the rest of the park.

Of course “if this had been done before we opened, we’d have been in big trouble,” Ken says. “Our lines are standing out the door as we are.”

There was another benefit as well. “The beauty of not having the slick track open has been running the rookie karts on that track,” Ken says. He thought once the slick track opened, the rookie karts—which were bought to run on the Grand Prix track—would have to be taken out of rotation. “We’re not going to pull 22 cars off the Grand Prix track for four to eight rookie karts,” says Ken. But that hasn’t been a problem. So far, the rookie karts have been able to run for a turn or two, “so we’ll keep things status quo for the time being,” he says.

Over on the Grand Prix track the problem was the opposite: drivers were consistently spinning out on turns one, two and four. Compounding the situation, the Kartrol track control system wasn’t working as planned. “The box in the [pit building] is supposed to send a signal to the box on the back of each car,” says Ken. “If there’s a wreck, we hit this button and all the cars go idle. Once you get the car out of the spin, you hit the green button [and the cars go again]. That’s not the way it was happening at all.”

Each time, two or three of the cars wouldn’t reset, which created an even bigger problem: frustrated customers. The consensus was that the metal pit building was interfering with the inside antenna, so the manufacturer, Amusement Products LLC, sent an additional setup that incorporates an antenna both at the control box and up on the roof of the building, and Ken says that is working better.

As for the spinouts, pouring a little clear soda syrup on the turns has provided enough stickiness to keep the rubber on the road so to speak. “With the Sprite syrup keeping 99 percent of the spinouts from occurring, we’re managing the track operation much better…and now everyone gets a full six-minute ride,” says Ken.

Food shortage
Managing food and beverage operations has been another learning experience as Ken has adjusted inventory levels to meet the high demand for pizza slices, slushies and chips—all of which they ran out of within the first few days of opening.

“When Glenn built Windy Hill [his first range], he put in a full-service kitchen, complete with grill, fryers, exhaust system, fire suppression systems. He didn’t do anywhere near the volume in food he expected to,” says Ken. “This time around, he wanted to keep it simple. Without a grill and fryers, the local statutes didn’t require the exhaust and fire suppression system, which was about $50,000 worth of savings.”

Now, Ken says they underbuilt the kitchen, and sales of food and drinks are higher than the two brothers expected, as is the popularity of slushies—they sold 2,000 in the first two weeks. Already, a second slushy machine has been installed and to save time, a standby mix is always chilling in the commercial-size freezer so it doesn’t take as long to thicken. They’ve made some other tweaks to the menu, too, such as taking away soft pretzels “because they’re hard to keep fresh” and iced tea “because we don’t sell much.”

Customers can buy snacks at the counter located inside the 3,700-square-foot clubhouse, or from a walk-up window on the covered patio outside the back doors, which also lead to the park’s amenities. Outside, high-top tables and chairs provide ample seating and ceiling fans generate a breeze to keep customers comfortable on hotter days. Inside, there’s another seating area with a 50-inch plasma-screen television usually tuned to sports, as well as the main sales counter, offices and an arcade room with family-friendly games for 5- to 12-year-olds. Two party rooms can accommodate up to 15 people each or be combined for a larger group. By week three, there were 60-plus birthday parties on the books, and several local corporations, including Capital One, had become regular visitors.

There’s plenty of parking in the 220-space paved lot—which is vacuumed daily—although Ken concedes that if business continues to increase, more slots will have to be added.

Cameras throughout the parking lot and entire facility provide real-time video surveillance to a bank of monitors in one of the back offices. Ken also hired a uniformed off-duty police officer to patrol the grounds from 5 p.m. to closing Monday through Friday, and from 3:30 to closing on Saturdays and Sundays. “That’s expensive. If you spend $1,200 a week on security, it’s roughly like paying a manager.” But no price is too high to pay for customer and employee safety—a key element of the park’s mission statement: “Swaders Sports Park’s mission is to provide the highest level of family-friendly entertainment to our guests. We will offer the very best environment to allow you to enjoy the range of activities available here. Guests can expect well-trained, attentive, professional staff members to assist them in every aspect of their visit.”

Talent scout
Employees are a big part of delivering on that mission, and everywhere Ken goes—the gas station, the grocery store—he keeps an eye out for bright-eyed, customer service-oriented workers he can persuade over to the Swaders’ camp. “That’s the best way to find good employees,” Ken says.

And he needs more. “Glenn and I discussed the fact that we expected to need a core group of 10 or 15 to run the place all year long, with as many as 75 part-time employees when things were in full swing during the summer,” says Ken. The park opened with 53 employees, including a general manager and three assistant managers, and Ken has since determined he needs an additional three managers and 20 employees.

Ken also scouted out model job applications from successful area businesses. Local grocer Ukrop’s Super Markets came out on top, and Ken used the company’s application as a basis for his own. “I then visited the local high schools in late January and gave them a flier announcing our need for staff, which they distributed,” says Ken. “That led to a flood of applicants.” Nearly 500 people applied for positions.

Job candidates are rated from 1 to 10 in nine categories: appearance, personality, communication skills, extracurricular activities, work experience, grade-point average, enthusiasm, availability and math test results.

“I constructed a simple 10-question math test to test basic skills,” says Ken. “I explained that even if they scored zero, they could still work here, just not around money.”

There are four cash registers, two at the clubhouse sales counter, one in the kitchen and one inside the 12-foot by 12-foot starter shack located next to the miniature golf course.

All registers are part of a larger point-of-sale system from Micros Systems Inc. “I was very familiar with Micros’ POS from my experience with restaurants,” says Ken. “I knew that I wanted something like that, if not exactly like that.” Ken had several criteria for the registers: work seamlessly with online credit card processing, generate a receipt for signature as quickly as possible—credit card authorization takes 0.8 seconds and a complete a transaction only 30 seconds—and have full back-of-the-house information capabilities for management control and decision making.

“Information systems are critical,” Ken notes. “The cash register systems are the heart of what we do. That’s how I know I wasted 217 pieces of pizza in the last five days.”

In setting prices, Ken eliminated pennies, nickels and dimes from the equation. “We’re built for speed,” he says. “There’s no time to count change. All we do is count quarters and dollars.”

Prices at Swaders are higher than most other facilities and that’s on purpose. “We always thought our prices would be higher than the average because we expected to build a nicer, cleaner, state-of-the-art FEC, with professional management,” Ken says. He also built in specials, such as $1 off for military personnel from nearby Fort Lee, and “run of the park” passes. The $20 pass includes a miniature golf round, two go-kart rides and two batting cage tokens. For $25, customers also get a small bucket of practice balls. At week three, the $20 pass represented 15 percent of sales.

Last but not least
Now that the range is open, Ken’s betting on selling even more park passes. The goal was to open the golf practice center at the same time as the rest of the park, but drainage problems delayed construction. As a result, there was no time left this season to plant grass so Glenn sped up the process by covering the landing area and natural grass tee box with 13 acres of sod.

“Everybody’s asked about the driving range,” Ken says. Once a day, someone would walk in with their clubs hoping to hit a few practice balls. They finally got the chance July 3.

“We sold 100 buckets the first Saturday, and business continues to increase each day,” Ken says. “Our expectation is to sell 200 to 300 buckets a day on average.”

The tee line faces mostly east and is flanked on one side by a stand of trees and on the other by 75-foot-high netting installed by America’s Nationwide Netting Inc. The 300-foot-wide by 20-foot-deep concrete tee line accommodates 35 Fiberbuilt artificial turf mats, while the 200-foot-wide by 100-foot-deep natural grass area offers room for 20 more golfers. “I think it’s important to have both artificial and natural tees to attract players from all levels,” says Glenn.

There are no covered tees, though Glenn isn’t ruling that out. “We wanted to see how popular the tee boxes were before investing the additional money to have covered tees,” he says. “The expectation is that we would add covered tees before the second season once we see the level of play.”

Seven light poles, each with four fixtures, illuminate the two tee lines and shine downrange so that practicing players can follow their shots down the 300-yard-long fairway.

An ample inventory of 36,000 range balls means that the landing area can be picked every other day. Likewise, a regular mowing schedule and custom irrigation system will keep the range in tip-top shape. “We’re drawing water out of a natural spring-fed pond adjacent to the range,” says Ken. “We also have a separate irrigation system for the common areas, clubhouse [landscaping] and miniature golf hill.”

The entire park is professionally landscaped and along the concrete pathways, there are custom-designed PVC informational and safety signs as well as comfortable seating areas.

Everything at Swaders was built with the customer and quality in mind, and it’s getting noticed—and not just by patrons.

“We’ve had two or three inquiries from people asking about franchise options or if Glenn and I would be interested in a ‘development partnership,’ essentially helping them build out a similar facility with our expertise and their money,” Ken says. “Glenn has expressed some interest in pursuing those opportunities.”

But for now, the focus is on finishing out Swaders’ first season and fine-tuning operations for the coming spring.

“The idea was to get open with the core business plan and let the business drive what happens after that,” says Ken. “Our intent is to have the nicest facility around when we’re finished in the second season.” They’re well on their way.