We're staying open as we are located inside a farmers market known for selling food/groceries. Machines are disinfected 1-2 per day and we have sanitizer readily available. Business was down 50% last week and I expect it to be worse this weekend.

Question for other operators. I was just notified by my landlord that the 'mall' will be entirely closed as part of the state ordered shut-down. In such circumstances, should the landlord expect to continue to receive rent payments from their tenants/merchants during the time the mall is closed?

Our plan is to reopen as soon as we can and hope for the best. No loans necessary but I do hope I won't have to carry rent payments for weeks while no revenue is coming in. We'll have signage regarding our expanded cleaning/disinfection program and containers with disinfectant wipes in a couple locations along with hand sanitizer. I'm afraid the psychological damage that we're all enduring will manifest itself with people being very reluctant to touch things in public places. Frankly, I'm not sure if this is a viable business anymore and am starting to prepare for life after the arcade; it might not even be something we can sell. It's really a shame as this was turning out to be our best year -- the point where we turned the corner with this business and were looking at finally lower expenses and higher revenue.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/20/coronavirus-retailers-grapple-with-closed-stores-and-paying-rent.html

Our little arcade, closed down and very dark... Hoping we can get back on track soon....

Arcade-Kiddie Rides-2020-03-24-12-03-49 (resized).jpg

Much of all that reminds me of my first divorce...

I did the EIDL the day it was available. FAIL. Opted for the $10K EIDL loan to get me through paying bills. Application was submitted properly but I've not even received an acknowledgement from the SBA, not a single dollar in almost a month. And you don't create an 'account' as part of the application to see your application or the status of the processing steps. I'm not sure how else to get money back into the hands of small businesses, but the SBA organization/technology was definitely not prepared to have this rolled-out. No answer on phone lines and emails have also gone unanswered. Suggestion - when you get to the last screen saying your application has been submitted, at least take a screen shot. Debating whether to leave it alone at this point or try another application.

Been closed 4 weeks now with this weekend being week 5. For some reason, I don't even want to go there to work on any of the machines that need some maintenance.

Failure of epic proportions.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/15/these-sba-emergency-business-loans-hit-by-delays-and-funding-issues.html

Our landlord was proactive and came to us with their proposal of cutting rent by 50%. That seems like a reasonable approach at least for now. Not sure if that works for 6+ months however.

The problem is indeed a mess and is focused on the three essential factors: time, emotion and money.

Time, as stated above... can we hold out for 18 months? A couple of months... sure, 6 maybe... but we don't know how long this will last, additional waves, failed vaccines, etc. We're no longer at the point in human evolution where we can wait FOR ANYTHING...

2nd...the emotional factor, specifically.. FEAR. If the thought of playing a game at an arcade or throwing a ball down a wooden floor will create the emotion of FEAR in a percentage of people, well, that's tough to overcome.

And lastly, financial resources are always limited and won't go into ventures that can not be supported. The lack of business investment will lead to a decrease in taxes paid AT EVERY LEVEL, which will lead to higher taxes and inflation.

The ONLY way out has been clear to me from the beginning... we need science to come through and figure out a therapy asap that will cut into two of the three factors: Fear and Time. A FDA approved therapeutic regimen that is adopted within the next 8 weeks and is proven to cut the incidence of death and hospitalizations down 90%. We've got some really smart men and women working like crazy along with amazing technology to prove out their ideas and study participants eager to help. I'm betting on the big brains here. I was hoping the president would have pulled together the best virologists, scientists, etc. weeks ago and put them in a lab somewhere ala Manhattan project and told them that Failure is NOT an option.

A long term disinfectant solution that doesn't damage the machines AND proper Signage will be key to opening our arcade and hopefully having people not be too afraid to touch anything. Wondering if the pinball community or an arcade trade association has given its endorsement to any product yet.
Here's another found via google: https://germfreeinnovations.com/

Here's some info from one of the most successful pinball shops near me:
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The Pinball Gallery provides over 65 pinball machines and video games you can play in clean, comfortable, family-oriented environment (see our Game List).

Admission to the Pinball Gallery provides access to most of our games, which are set on free-play (no coins required!).

Admission rates are increasing for 2020 and are as follows:

$10 - one hour of play ($8/hour until 1/1/2020)
$18 - two hours of play ($16/hour until 1/1/2020)
$25 - play all-day ($20 until 1/1/2020)
$20 - group rate (3 or more) for play all-day ($15 until 1/1/2020)
$2.50 - Non-player admission
We also sell the following extended passes:

$70 - monthly pass ($50 until 1/1/2020)
$300 - yearly pass ($250 until 1/1/2020)
If you purchase a monthly or yearly pass, you receive a free Pinball Gallery "Player Card" that can be used for free admission anytime during that period, including our monthly tournaments, and weekly league.

We also offer the following reduced admission passes:

$7 - "Lunch-time special": On weekdays, anytime during the period from 11:30am-1:30pm, admission is reduced to $7/hour ($5/hour until 1/1/2020). Bring your lunch (we also sell drinks and snacks). Bring a friend. Have some fun playing plnball and classic video games!
If you are in hurry and only have time for a game or two, we also have something for you. There are a few games at the front of the store that are available for coin-play (no admission necessary).

To Clarify. Some of the disinfectant solutions out there (vaporization) use a mild chloride alkaline solution that would damage many metals including stainless steel... I'm not worried about the flippers or 'wear and tear' type of damage. I want customer to know that the machines are clean and that we're using the best localized disinfectant available.

We're down about 50% over the 2019 July 4th weekend. Have already located a warehouse to store our machines should we have to pull the trigger but we really don't want to go there until at least Q4. I'm trying to prepare myself for some dismal financials for the rest of 2020. I've realized that no matter what I do, It's really up to our community at the end of the day.

So our preliminary financials for 2020 are in... Revenue down approx. 45% from 2019. Gross Profit down approx. 65%. I haven't tallied all the expenses yet but I think we about broke even for the year. Our landlord reducing rent by 50% during the time that the entire county was in shut-down mode really helped... as well as a surge in business just this past weekend.

Not sure where this leaves us with this business longer term but for now, we'll just keep moving forward and hope for a better 2021.

(We're a small arcade with 25-30 machines...only 5 of which are pinball machines. Being able to do 100% of the repairs myself has been, and continues to be, a huge financial advantage for making this work. )

I also want to mention one other thing in this thread... one of the reasons we love this business is to see the amazing number of smiles and laughs our customers have in the arcade, especially the kids. It's really a fun place for kids and it brightens-up their day for sure to see the lights, rides, prizes and games. There's no other business in the farmers market where we operate that can claim to have non-stop cameras being used to photograph their time there like we have in our business. It's a cool part of operating this kind of business, vs selling cheese or cabbage or candles.