(06/16/2010) – Anaheim, California – As reported last week, yesterday was the last day of operation for five of the seven formerly remaining ESPN Zones, a regional sports bar, grill and video arcade concept pioneered by The Walt Disney Company.
The closed locations include of Baltimore, Atlanta, Chicago, New York Times Square and Washington, D.C. The two remaining locations are both in Southern California; one, fully owned by Disney, is located at Downtown Disney, the entertainment district of The Disneyland Resort, and the other, a franchised location, is at L.A. Live, an entertainment venue in Downtown Los Angeles.
Speculated reasons for the chain’s closure revolve around the current economical situation in which going out to eat is a luxury, but it also didn’t help that of all the entertainment and food offerings available, a night out at ESPN Zone wasn’t exactly what most would consider “reasonable” – before or after the 2008 economic crises. Rather than run specials that encouraged patrons to linger and offer discounted food and game promotions on a regular basis (more successful chains, such as Dave & Busters, routinely employ this practice), Disney did the opposite with their promotions. In a bizarre move which seemed to cater exclusively to the upscale sports-bar crowd, ESPN Zone patrons routinely found themselves facing signs at their tables that expressed: “Due to the excitement and great interest in today’s game, there is a $10 food and beverage minimum, per person, per hour.” Note that this $10 minimum didn’t even include games, or items purchased in the ESPN Zone’s on-site gift shop. While such verbiage may be appropriate on big game days or on a busy Saturday night, this sign was routinely displayed – even when there was no remarkable game that day, even when the restaurant and the bar were less than 1/4 full.
The ESPN Zone concept is the third failed idea from Disney’s Regional Entertainment Division, a sub-division of Disney Parks & Resorts that was formed to help bring in money from cities that Disney did not operate theme parks in. The first initiative, Club Disney – a kid-friendly playland and entertainment venue featuring the Disney characters – proved financially unsuccessful. The same situation applied to DisneyQuest, a virtual indoor theme park concept. The third attempt, ESPN Zone, relied not on the Disney brand name but rather the branding of ESPN, the highly-valuable brand acquired by Disney when the company purchased The American Broadcasting Company.
Disney announced they would continue operation of the Downtown Disney location in Anaheim, which sits between the company’s two California theme parks and the three on-site hotels. The L.A. Live location, a franchised venue, is unaffected by Disney’s decision.
-Report by William J. Nash-McAdam
As someone who used to work as a server at ESPN Zone, I would’ve chosen to lose my job before giving up the $10 food and beverage minimum. Had we lost that minimum, the place would’ve went out of business faster, because people would order two sodas and take up tables for hours watching sporting events. You guys definitely have it all wrong with this article.
Hey Bruce,
Thanks for your thoughts. Having worked as a server myself, I completely understand this concept and relate to what you’re saying here. To that end, an overall minimum for the table for a set time period would’ve been better. From the customer’s point of view, however, $10 per person, per hour is quite excessive … when you’re at a restaurant that’s nearly completely empty, this rubs most consumers the wrong way. Obviously, everyone now is out of a job … so clearly the per person, per hour minimum didn’t work either. I wouldn’t say we have it all wrong here, but I would say that the sport-bar concept could be a lose-lose all around, for either servers or customers (as it was, since it’s gone now). Would there have been a better way to handle this that you can think of?