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Bingo! This is exactly why Astroworld closed. They made it too affordable, lost the out of town tourist crowd and became overrun with local trash and punks. BCS could not attract anyplace that would attract enough affluent types to keep prices high enough to discourage the " sidewalk scateboard " ( sorry if I date myself or offend anybody I don't know what y'all call these punks that infest malls and parks nowadays ) from taking over .

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Teenagers?

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And the thing about places like Gattiland is that they won't attract students, too. Places like Top Golf & Main Event would attract both demographics, which sounds like the key to being successful.

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Not exactly true! We ate there a lot during college. Not one of us had a kid, but we were all down for some cheap food. The buffet was like 5 bucks and for that you could eat all the salad, pasta and pizza you could stand. The food wasn't terrible and there were plenty of college students doing the same.

Plus, Gattiland had a pretty good run, fist in their Bryan location and after it moved to the new location in College Station. The reason we stopped going even WITH kids was that they seemed to have lost their ability to keep the place clean. Cheap food is fine, but I don't want to look around at the mess and lose my appetite. The College Station location got pretty awful after a couple years in that location. Was hard to find a clean table, plates and cups were stacked wet and people left the buffet areas too messy. I didn't care much to see fettuccine alfredo draped across the croutons, etc.

Yeah the Gatti town in CS lost our business when the rooms with the big TV started to stink really bad (pro-tip: don't put carpet in a place where kids eat) along with the arcade games being broken all the time. Oh and the food going way down in quality. It just got into a death spiral where the owners kept.cutting costs and that drove more people away.

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don't bother going to the place in Brenham either.

where was the go cart track here?

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There was a go-kart track at Holleman and Highway 6 (later torn down for Wolfe Nursery, now Cavender's) and also at Pooh's Park

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I got an amusing cartoon map of '88-'89 College Station today, and it showed Post Oak Go-Karts and Amusements at Holleman and 6.

Aggieland War Games is suuuper fun for kids and adults. Puts Grand Station's laser tag to shame. I've been there several times.

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don't bother going to the place in Brenham either.

where was the go cart track here?

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There was a go-kart track at Holleman and Highway 6 (later torn down for Wolfe Nursery, now Cavender's) and also at Pooh's Park

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I got an amusing cartoon map of '88-'89 College Station today, and it showed Post Oak Go-Karts and Amusements at Holleman and 6.

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I remember such map!

The smallest Texas market they're in is El Paso which has around 1 million population in the MSA.

Just dont see D&B coming into this market within the next 10 years at least.

The reality is that these concepts will likely go to Corpus, Lubbock and possibly even Beaumont because of I-10 before here. We aren't big enough and lack the 25-40 population especially.

To add, our proximity to Houston actually works against us because of the propensity for consumers to commute there for the day or overnight to enjoy offerings they have there.

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The reality is that these concepts will likely go to Corpus, Lubbock and possibly even Beaumont because of I-10 before here. We aren't big enough and lack the 25-40 population especially.

To add, our proximity to Houston actually works against us because of the propensity for consumers to commute there for the day or overnight to enjoy offerings they have there.

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Yup. We sprint over to Houston or Austin for a quick day of entertainment. Everything you could want within a two hour drive.

I may be crazy but I think that a decent sized water park in Santa's Wonderland would be a profitable venture. Both are seasonal & the spot could get income in both cold & warm weather so no extended down times......

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I may be crazy but I think that a decent sized water park in Santa's Wonderland would be a profitable venture. Both are seasonal & the spot could get income in both cold & warm weather so no extended down times......

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Where would they even find room for it? It's not exactly a sprawling venue.

Drive-In Movie theater would be fun in Aggieland! Austin has a cool one!

About 6 or 7 years ago, one of my coworkers and I, looked seriously into franchising Top Golf. They were in the early stages (i believe Chicago & Alexandria were the only ones open), and starting to look into Houston. We had initial discussions with TG management, and they ultimately decided not to franchise. They had an investment/development group they were already working with in the Southern U.S. Long story short, the minimum population density they considered for a TG location was 450-500k people.

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Drive-In Movie theater would be fun in Aggieland! Austin has a cool one!

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The Showboat Drive-In in Hockley is only about an hour away:

http://www.theshowboatdrivein.com/home.html

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Drive-In Movie theater would be fun in Aggieland! Austin has a cool one!

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The Showboat Drive-In in Hockley is only about an hour away:

http://www.theshowboatdrivein.com/home.html

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AND it is living largely off of the nostalgia crazy and the " I'll try it once " types.
Like so many my age I grew up going to drive-ins. It was a special time and a lot of fun. Out of a sense of nostalgia we went again to a drive-in a few years ago. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed it BUT...It was damn HOT, it was damn HUMID, the sound was OK, the picture was...well hell..its a drive-in. The concessions were like old time BUT fighting for an overpriced hot dog , popcorn and coke was...well......

Bottom line. Glad we went. Probably wont go back for another 40 years. A near Houston locale can survive for a LOOOOOOONG time with a few MILLION baby boomers and a few million kids nearby trying it out.
A BCS locale could last a few months until the novelty wore off and folks went back to 21st century convenience.

I still think there are plans for a water park out near hwy 30 and 244.

This thread has all kinds of posts. From the well informed to the admittedly ignorant, with a little of everything in between.

Keep it up, guys! I don't mean that in a bad way either. It's just a nice solid discussion that hasn't turned into 2 people bickering yet!

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If someone opened up a outdoor put-put, golf carts, and bumber boats place, they would be making a killing.

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no they wouldn't. that has already been tried and it went down hill.. it was located on valley view drive where aggieland cycling is now

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If someone opened up a outdoor put-put, golf carts, and bumber boats place, they would be making a killing.

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no they wouldn't. that has already been tried and it went down hill.. it was located on valley view drive where aggieland cycling is now

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Even in its heyday, Putt-Putt was pretty mediocre as far as bumper boats and mini-golf went. The greens were pretty boring, no windmills or pyramids, just a collection of fiberglass animals.

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Drive-In Movie theater would be fun in Aggieland! Austin has a cool one!

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The Showboat Drive-In in Hockley is only about an hour away:

http://www.theshowboatdrivein.com/home.html

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AND it is living largely off of the nostalgia crazy and the " I'll try it once " types.
Like so many my age I grew up going to drive-ins. It was a special time and a lot of fun. Out of a sense of nostalgia we went again to a drive-in a few years ago. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed it BUT...It was damn HOT, it was damn HUMID, the sound was OK, the picture was...well hell..its a drive-in. The concessions were like old time BUT fighting for an overpriced hot dog , popcorn and coke was...well......

Bottom line. Glad we went. Probably wont go back for another 40 years. A near Houston locale can survive for a LOOOOOOONG time with a few MILLION baby boomers and a few million kids nearby trying it out.
A BCS locale could last a few months until the novelty wore off and folks went back to 21st century convenience.

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I only know of one drive-in theater each for every large metropolitan area, of which BCS is not one. Heck, we can't even support more than two movie theaters in our area anyway.

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If someone opened up a outdoor put-put, golf carts, and bumber boats place, they would be making a killing.

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no they wouldn't. that has already been tried and it went down hill.. it was located on valley view drive where aggieland cycling is now

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Even in its heyday, Putt-Putt was pretty mediocre as far as bumper boats and mini-golf went. The greens were pretty boring, no windmills or pyramids, just a collection of fiberglass animals.

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Drive-In Movie theater would be fun in Aggieland! Austin has a cool one!

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The Showboat Drive-In in Hockley is only about an hour away:

http://www.theshowboatdrivein.com/home.html

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AND it is living largely off of the nostalgia crazy and the " I'll try it once " types.
Like so many my age I grew up going to drive-ins. It was a special time and a lot of fun. Out of a sense of nostalgia we went again to a drive-in a few years ago. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed it BUT...It was damn HOT, it was damn HUMID, the sound was OK, the picture was...well hell..its a drive-in. The concessions were like old time BUT fighting for an overpriced hot dog , popcorn and coke was...well......

Bottom line. Glad we went. Probably wont go back for another 40 years. A near Houston locale can survive for a LOOOOOOONG time with a few MILLION baby boomers and a few million kids nearby trying it out.
A BCS locale could last a few months until the novelty wore off and folks went back to 21st century convenience.

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I only know of one drive-in theater each for every large metropolitan area, of which BCS is not one. Heck, we can't even support more than two movie theaters in our area anyway.

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Fixing to get a third, right?

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I only know of one drive-in theater each for every large metropolitan area, of which BCS is not one. Heck, we can't even support more than two movie theaters in our area anyway.

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Fixing to get a third, right?

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Not heard that, and frankly, with the daily crowds at Cinemark (and their lower-than-average ticket prices), I don't think we need a third cinema (I will say that Premiere was much needed, it sucked when Cinemark had a monopoly on the city's movie theaters).

Thought we were getting a beer and movie place at the new development on University where married student housing used to be.

Just because a type of business failed a decade or two ago when BCS population was 100,000 and A&M was 25,000 or so doesn't mean it won't work now with the BCS area population at about 250,000 and A&M at around 70,000.

I remember when Lowe's was here years ago and closed down. Lowe's appears to be doing well here now.