Willowbrook Dave & Buster's gives millennials a reason to go to the mall

The Willowbrook shopping center in Wayne just gave millennials a reason to come to the mall, by installing a Dave & Buster's bar, restaurant and game arcade in space carved out of a downsized Sears store.

Dave & Buster's is the chain that claims it invented the "eatertainment" genre. At its restaurants, patrons can have a meal, have a drink, watch sporting events at the bar, or play video games, Skee-Ball or an electronic version of beer pong.

While the chain also draws families, the games, the menu and especially the specialty cocktails are designed to appeal to twenty- and thirtysomethings looking to party. The drink menu includes the Coronarita — a frozen margarita with a bottle of Corona beer perched in the margarita slush — and adult sno-cones, frozen drinks in neon shades with the choice of vodka or rum.

Menu items include items that call for a millennial-strength metabolism to burn off, such as the "Caveman's Combo" — ribs, four mini cheeseburgers and fries — or the chicken and waffles sliders with bacon.

Now legal in New Jersey

The 48,000-square-foot Wayne location, which opens Wednesday after a 10:40 a.m. ribbon-cutting, is the second Dave & Buster's in New Jersey. The chain was blocked from opening here for more than three decades by a 1959 state law prohibiting businesses from mixing alcohol with amusement games.

That law, originally intended to keep boardwalk arcades wholesome, was overturned by the Legislature in 2015. The first Dave & Buster's in New Jersey opened in Woodbridge last year.

Before the law was changed, the closest the Dallas-based Dave & Buster's could get to North Jersey was the Palisades Center mall in West Nyack, New York. That restaurant opened in 1998.

Adults and kids

When the West Nyack location opened, the chain's founders, Dave Corriveau and Buster Corley, emphasized that they were trying to create "an adult environment" even though they were offering the arcade games that kids love. Now the chain tries harder to keep families and adult fun-seekers happy. The bar in the Wayne location is positioned at the front of the space, with a greater degree of separation from the gaming areas than in West Nyack. The restaurant also has brighter, more colorful decor. And employees proudly show off the family restroom for parents with young children.

"We want to make it really family-friendly," said Bruce Crane, regional operations manager for Dave & Buster's, one of the company representatives who oversaw a media preview at the Wayne location Tuesday. "We want it to be a place where families can eat, play, watch the Olympics or games on TV, and let the kids go play while the parents eat."

The restaurant is expected to draw more families during the day and millennials at night. It will be open until 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays; 1 a.m. on Thursdays, and midnight the rest of the week.

Retail makeover

Dave & Buster's is part of a retail evolution at the 49-year-old Willowbrook Mall. The Sears store, one of the original anchor stores at the center, gave back half of its space to the mall and remodeled, eliminating some departments. The mall also is adding a movie theater in a space previously occupied by a Sears Auto Center.

After New Jersey passed legislation that paved the way for Dave & Buster's in the Garden State, company officials said they hoped eventually to have about five locations in New Jersey.

Crane said four or five New Jersey locations still is the company's goal but the next locations have not been finalized. He said it is too early to say whether another Dave & Buster's is in the works for Bergen County or elsewhere in North Jersey.

A mini version

One option that might allow Dave & Buster's to open more locations in North Jersey is the chain's new mini prototype. The company last week opened a 15,000-square-foot Dave & Buster's, about a third the size of a typical location, in Rogers, Arkansas. The mini version devotes less space to the bar, with a higher percentage of the space used for games.

The Rogers location in its first week has been a success, and if the company expands the concept "it will allow us to get into smaller markets," Crane said.

The Wayne location employs about 270 workers.

A place to do more than stare

Dave & Buster's was founded in 1982, and it was born of a collaboration by Buster Corley, who owned a restaurant and bar in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Dave Corriveau, who owned a gaming arcade next door to the restaurant named Slick Willy's World of Entertainment. Corley and Corriveau decided to create a combination restaurant, bar and arcade, and opened the first Dave & Buster's in Dallas.

When the West Nyack Dave & Buster's opened in 1998, Corriveau told The Record that the philosophy behind the chain was to create a place "where adults could do more than eat, drink and stare at their dates."

The chain is now a publicly traded company with 109 locations. The founders are no longer directly involved; Corriveau died in 2015, six months before New Jersey passed the so-called Dave & Buster's bill.