Why 810 Billiards & Bowling's Michael Siniscalchi Chose Arizona

PHOENIX, AZ — What started as a spur-of-the-moment purchase has blossomed into a nationwide business model for Michael Siniscalchi.

That's because Siniscalchi, who previously worked as a trader on the Chicago Board of Trade and New York Stock Exchange, decided a few years ago to purchase a bowling alley while visiting his parents in South Carolina.

That decision led Siniscalchi to launch 810 Billiards & Bowling, a three-unit franchise that offers bowling, billiards, a full-service bar, arcade games, mini golf and more.

Fast-forward a few years, and Siniscalchi will open the company's first franchised location of 810 Billiards & Bowling with franchisees Ronak and Poonam Manek at Chandler Fashion Center in May.

From there, 810 Billiards & Bowling plans on opening a location inside the former Lucky Strike location inside CityScape in downtown Phoenix.

The latter location's opening date is still to be determined, though Siniscalchi is excited to grow within the Grand Canyon State.

Patch talked with Siniscalchi about his decision to move 810 Billiards & Bowling into the Grand Canyon State and more.

Below is a transcript of that conversation, edited for brevity and clarity.

Q: Take me through your decision to open locations in Arizona in particular. Why Arizona?

A: It was pretty organic in the sense that, we started the business in South Carolina, opened our first three corporate stores here, and began the franchising process as we were kind of getting the third one online.

And then we've marketed nationally, because, I think one of the strongest points of our concept is that it's not regional. It's not based on specific regions, cuisines or anything else. It's universal.

Everyone in the country wants family entertainment and nighttime entertainment with quality food and beverage. So we really were agnostic in terms of looking for our first franchisees.

And it just so happened that the first folks that came on board were the Maneks. And at the time they were in Chicago, but they knew that they were intending to move to Phoenix in the coming year.

And that's where they wanted to open the business. So that got us into the Chandler location, which we're building out as a franchise, our first franchise location, and then as a byproduct of that, we started talking to that same landlord, who was the landlord for the former Lucky Strike space, in downtown in CityScape, and ended up working out a deal with him to for us to take that one over as a corporate store.

And so that's kind of how we wound up in Arizona and ended up having Arizona being the first place we went after South Carolina, which doesn't make my travel easy, but it's alright.

Q: What excites you about opening these locations in Arizona, in particular, and how does that fit into your growth strategy going forward?

A: I think it's often the way that a franchiser really goes with a very geographically focused growth strategy. We really haven't really needed to do that, because our supply chains are simple.

And our vendors are national, and it's really a much larger kind of more real estate-centric investments.

So we just try and find the right people, and then go to wherever they are. But as far as Phoenix, I had never spent much time there. I think I've been there once or twice, previously, but I love it there.

The city's booming and it seems to be well-rounded and business-friendly, relatively speaking. And they want new businesses coming there. And they've got lots of young and growing demographics to help support us.

So there's certainly plenty of competition in the broad Phoenix market. Main Event is kind of a scaled-up concept that's similar to us.

But overall, it's such a large market, there's just so many people that move in there every day. So we're really excited to get the grand opening in the state and specifically in the Phoenix area where, I don't know how it compares to the rest of the country, but it sure seems like it's got to be one of the fastest growing areas in the country right now.

Q: Take me through how you're how 810 Billiards & Bowling got started in the first place, and kind of how do you guys got here?

A: So I'm a New York guy went to school, originally for mechanical engineering, moved into finance, and got my CFA after school and got into equity options market making. So the proprietary trader for a small group called Group One Trading that had me in Chicago and New York.

I did a couple years on the Chicago Exchange, and then the last few years in the New York Stock Exchange. And for there was other concepts similar Brooklyn Bowl, which was a big one when I was in New York, and we just always had a great time there.

But they really only existed in those types of incredibly dense population centers with high incomes and an incredible density.

And I just thought, 'why can't we figure out how to make this model work so that everyone in America can find it accessible and affordable and get a ton of value from it?'

Because everyone clearly loves the experience, we just need to figure out how to make the model work in smaller areas.

And I was down in South Carolina visiting my folks who had retired here and came across the North Myrtle Beach Bowling Center, which was a traditional 32-lane league center that was in need of repair and some TLC.

Turns out it was available, and we actually had kind of a weird moment where I gave her an offer on that property, and the owner declined. And we kind of moved on with our life and time to start a family. So I had been looking to get out of the city anyway, and was taking a job up in Rochester with doing portfolio management for an asset management firm if they're in, and then she called me back when we were on our way up to go house-shopping up in Rochester. And she said that she changed her mind kind of three or four months later to sell to us. And we said, 'Hey, let's do it.'

We jumped in and closed on that place at the end of 2014 and started a wall-to-wall renovation. We took out 12 lanes, created a six-lane back alley for events and 14 lanes up front and that store and the concept was born.

And then we spent a couple of years fiddling with it, fixing it, figuring it out. And now we feel pretty good about the solutions we have in place and have been able to support our franchisees. And so far, so good.

Q: How would you describe how 810 Billiards & Bowling kind of differs from competitors, and how it can kind of make its own mark in a market like Phoenix?

A: There are definitely some similarities between us and some other concepts. But we are a bit different in terms of the demographics and what we focus on.

So where others will have a very large portion of their floor space dedicated to arcade and gaming, or family entertainment. And we do absolutely draw families and love having kids birthday parties and family business during the day. We do have an arcade, but it's a small arcade that you see when you first walk into the space, so that kids can have a place to have some fun while mom and dad go get a beer at the bar.

But that way, we keep the arcade very separate from the rest of the space. So we have a upscale dining sports bar atmosphere in the rest of the space that doesn't feel like a restaurant or sports bar, rather than it kind of becoming a giant, oversized fun park.

And so we're much more food and beverage focused. We're very proud of our food offerings. We do a lot of things from scratch. And a big part of what we've developed as the brand as we've grown is our signature food items and we really look forward to kind of bringing that higher quality food into the the entertainment space out there in Phoenix.

I think it's a good fit. But But we definitely are more young adults in the evenings and groups of friends. It's much more of a bar or restaurant setting in the evening, while being more younger family driven in the earlier days.

Q: What do you see as the future for your Phoenix location, especially in that downtown Phoenix corridor?

A: Right now, we've got to keep our focus on what's in front of us, getting these two stores open successfully and make sure our first franchisees feel completely supported through that process.

But, zooming out a little bit, I think it does work out nicely. Whether it's with the Maneks out there, if they go on to build additional units, or for other franchisees in the market, that downtown store kind of sets us up nicely.

For spoke-and-wheel or hub-and-spoke type models where we've got the corporate downtown presence to be able to kind of anchor the market. And then we can also get some good people on the ground there that can help any franchise operations that do start to get built out in that market or that area of the country.

Q: What else would you like people read this story to know about your operation?

A: Well, we certainly want to be the value position players in our industry, but we think we offer a ton of value with our food offerings and entertainment offerings. We've got more things under one roof than anybody in our industry can compete with.

And when it comes to those that do offer similar type venues, we intend to win on service and creating value for the customer.

A lot of our competitors have always struggled with service. And that was what I learned as I got into the industry, and it is a unique challenge.

But we've come up with pretty dynamic new platform solutions that have allowed us to execute the kind of level of customer service that we expect to see, while also making it efficient and cost effective for our franchisees and ultimately for our customers.