has owned Main Event since June 2022<\/a>, after buying it from Ardent Leisure Group Limited and private investment firm RedBird Capital Partners for $835 million.<\/p>\nMain Event is more family-oriented than arcade and restaurant chain Dave & Buster\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Neither Main Event nor Dave & Buster\u2019s representatives responded to Newsday\u2019s requests for comment.<\/p>\n
There are 182 Dave & Buster’s branded locations, including venues\u00a0in 43\u00a0states, Puerto Rico\u00a0and Canada. That number also includes a few franchise locations in India and the Philippines.<\/p>\n
Challenges hit profits<\/h3>\n
Dave & Buster\u2019s Entertainment, headquartered in Dallas, has been dealing with financial challenges due in part to the growth of competitors, such as Topgolf and Round1 Bowling & Arcade, according to a December note from Jake Bartlett,\u00a0senior equity research analyst at Truist Securities, the investment banking arm of Charlotte, North Carolina-based Truist Financial Corp.<\/p>\n
The company’s has had declines in net income\u00a0\u2014\u00a0sometimes losses \u2014 for the last\u00a0five consecutive quarters.<\/p>\n
Dave & Buster\u2019s reported a net loss of $42.1 million in its fiscal 2025 third quarter, which ended Nov. 4, compared to a loss of $32.7 million in the same period a year earlier.<\/p>\n
Sales at locations open at least one year fell 4% in the company\u2019s most-recent third quarter compared to the same period a year prior. That was a smaller decline than\u00a0the 7.7% dip between the third quarters of 2023 and 2024.<\/p>\n
In April, Dave & Buster\u2019s announced a strategy, called “Back to Basics,” to improve its financial picture. That plan included returning popular items to Dave & Buster\u2019s menus in October, introducing new games more frequently and revamping its building remodeling process to make it more cost effective and successful.<\/p>\n
Last July, the company hired Tarun Lal, who had been president of KFC U.S, as its CEO to lead the turnaround.<\/p>\n
The changes have led to some progress, Lal told analysts during a December call about the company\u2019s third-quarter earnings results.<\/p>\n
“This work bore fruits over the course of the third quarter as we saw sequential improvement” each month at locations open at least one year, “with the final month of the quarter down only roughly 1%,” he said.<\/p>\n
Dave & Buster\u2019s improved results are a positive step\u00a0against a backdrop of a slowdown in restaurant spending, Bartlett wrote in December.<\/p>\n
Looking into 2026, “we are encouraged by management’s renewed focus on new game investments, adding [about] 10 new games in ’26, same as ’25, but … more integrated marketing,” as well as improved food and beverage options, he wrote.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\n\tTory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.newsday.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Main Event will bring its billiards, laser tag and bowling to New York State this spring, with the opening of a family entertainment center on Long Island. The chain\u2019s first venue in the state will open at Tanger Outlets Deer Park on May 18, according to a representative for the shopping center. Main Event will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2321087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[21796,390866],"class_list":["post-2321086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-business","tag-retail"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Main-Event-set-to-join-battle-for-Long-Islanders-entertainment.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2321086"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2321088,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321086\/revisions\/2321088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2321087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2321086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2321086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2321086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}