Main Event set to join battle for Long Islanders' entertainment dollars

Main Event will bring its billiards, laser tag and bowling to New York State this spring, with the opening of a family entertainment center on Long Island.

The chain’s first venue in the state will open at Tanger Outlets Deer Park on May 18, according to a representative for the shopping center.

Main Event will occupy a 46,189-square-foot space at 1150 The Arches Circle, adjacent to Regal Cinemas, which Newsday reported in December.

Main Event offers bowling, laser tag, arcade games, billiards, gravity ropes courses and other activities, as well as food and drink.

Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Coppell, Texas, Main Event Entertainment Inc. operates 64 centers in 22 states.

Dave & Buster’s Entertainment Inc. has owned Main Event since June 2022, after buying it from Ardent Leisure Group Limited and private investment firm RedBird Capital Partners for $835 million.

Main Event is more family-oriented than arcade and restaurant chain Dave & Buster’s.

Neither Main Event nor Dave & Buster’s representatives responded to Newsday’s requests for comment.

There are 182 Dave & Buster's branded locations, including venues in 43 states, Puerto Rico and Canada. That number also includes a few franchise locations in India and the Philippines.

Challenges hit profits

Dave & Buster’s Entertainment, headquartered in Dallas, has been dealing with financial challenges due in part to the growth of competitors, such as Topgolf and Round1 Bowling & Arcade, according to a December note from Jake Bartlett, senior equity research analyst at Truist Securities, the investment banking arm of Charlotte, North Carolina-based Truist Financial Corp.

The company's has had declines in net income — sometimes losses — for the last five consecutive quarters.

Dave & Buster’s reported a net loss of $42.1 million in its fiscal 2025 third quarter, which ended Nov. 4, compared to a loss of $32.7 million in the same period a year earlier.

Sales at locations open at least one year fell 4% in the company’s most-recent third quarter compared to the same period a year prior. That was a smaller decline than the 7.7% dip between the third quarters of 2023 and 2024.

In April, Dave & Buster’s announced a strategy, called "Back to Basics," to improve its financial picture. That plan included returning popular items to Dave & Buster’s menus in October, introducing new games more frequently and revamping its building remodeling process to make it more cost effective and successful.

Last July, the company hired Tarun Lal, who had been president of KFC U.S., as its CEO to lead the turnaround.

The changes have led to some progress, Lal told analysts during a December call about the company’s third-quarter earnings results.

"This work bore fruits over the course of the third quarter as we saw sequential improvement" each month at locations open at least one year, "with the final month of the quarter down only roughly 1%," he said.

Dave & Buster’s improved results are a positive step against a backdrop of a slowdown in restaurant spending, Bartlett wrote in December.

Looking into 2026, "we are encouraged by management's renewed focus on new game investments, adding [about] 10 new games in '26, same as '25, but ... more integrated marketing," as well as improved food and beverage options, he wrote.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.comToryParrish1

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.