Johnny Rockets to add arcades?

A South Florida-based franchisee of famous US burger restaurant Johnny Rockets is planning to add amusement arcades to his locations.

Kyle Eldrige also plans to add a full liquor sports bar, party rooms, flat screen TVs and a new menu that will include pizza. The new look will be trialled at his 12th location, which was due to open this month at the Oasis in Sawgrass Mills, Sunrise.

The restaurant (operating under the name of GameRoom since April), dubbed Johnny Rockets Fun and Games, will replace the former arcade and restaurant business GameWorks, which was recently sold by Sega Amusements USA.

"This is going to be a really unique experience," said Eldridge. "Kids are going to get an experience in the game room side as well as when they’re dining."

The idea of adding entertainment to the food chain was born nine months ago when David Goldfarb, owner of Prime Time Amusements and partner of GameRoom, was looking for a food partner to revamp the 20,000sq.ft venue. Prime Time Amusements is a Fort-Lauderdale-based arcade game company.

Building improvements at the Sawgrass Mills location will cost nearly $3m, said Goldfarb, who is part of a group of investors that include Ron Mogerman, one of the founders of former Grand Prix Race-O-Rama, now Boomers, in Dania Beach.

"This is a tremendous opportunity for Prime Time Amusements," he said. "If this venue works like we anticipate it to work, we’ll be working with Johnny Rockets corporate on a national and international scale."

Cozette Koerber, vice president of Johnny Rockets corporate communications, said the company thinks Eldridge’s model might work, and if it succeeds they will seek to implement the new concept at other locations.

"This is our guinea pig," said Eldridge. "If it does as well as well as we think is going to do, which is phenomenal, then we have plans on opening more."