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cOlnman of the month
Business Booms
for New Operator
Plsy Meter talks arcades with
Kansas operator Bud Gettle
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Willard"Bud" Gettle of Wichita, Kan. was born
into the meat business. His father was in the meat
business, his grandfather was in it, and as far as
Bud knows, his great-great-grandfather was in it.
Bud worked for Boeing for a year after graduating
from high school and then he too went into the meat
business, for almost twenty years.
He got out because conflicting state, federal and
local regulations were taking the profit out of it,
and a little more than two years ago, at the urging
of long-time friend Jerry Monday of Leisure Sports
in Dallas, he opened his first fun center in Wichita.
Bud hesitated for quite a while, "a number of
months, " he told us, before taking the step. "Can
you make money in a nickel, dime and quarter
business?" he was asking himself. He was soon
convinced you could though, and that you could
have fun doing it. Now he has eight fun centers in
operation with two more in the works.
Wife Pat helps with the business. The Gettles
three girls, nineteen, seventeen and eleven years of
age. Active civicaUy, Bud is a member of both
Greater Downtown Wichita and the Chamber of
Commerce and has served on the Metropolitan
Transit Authority for three years.
We spent a day in Wichita with Bud and
right-hand man Dan Carson visiting two of the fun
centers--aU are called "The Good Times"--and
talking informaUy with managers Darrel McHarque
and Jack Owen and chief serviceman Ron Minnick.
Our interview took place in Bud's office at Jay
Hawk Distributing. Dan, a native of nearby Salina,
a father of six, and a?t automotive salesman before
he joined Bud in 1974, also took part in the
interview.
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14
"People that go into a maU to put in a recreation
center have a very large investment and yet they
will hire a $100/week man to run their business. I
think that's a mistake. "
PLA Y METER: What kind of problems do you run
into when you start an entirely new business,
omething you don't know that much about?
GETTLE: Well, most of the problems were due to
lack of knowledge of the business. The very first
fun center we started happened to be directly
acro
from one of the largest high schools in
Wichita, a chool which had a population of 50
per cent black, 50 per cent white. We opened the
fun center at eight o'clock in the morning and ran it
until midnight. We had a few minor problems,
fights between the blacks and the whites. After a
short period of time, the blacks took over and it got
to be unprofitable. It was the kind of situation that
even the be t management in the world wouldn't
have been able to overcome.
So that location wa closed down. Then, in
February of '75, I went to Haysville, Kan ., a uburb
of Wichita, a town of about 8,000 people and what I
would describe a a bedroom community, and I
lea ed a location in a shopping center and started a
econd fun center. At that time we owned our own
pool tables and our own foosball tables, but we had
our pins and arcades on the normal operator-
location of agreement of 50-50. The Haysville fun
center was very uccessful.
PLAY METER: Obviou ly one of the big problems
in getting tar ted i location, finding a good
location, one that can turn a good profit. What
makes for a ucce ful location? Do you have any
formula that you u e when you're looking for a
location?
GETTLE: We try to look in an area of good
average--I'd say average to better than average--
income, of good working cIa s people. We try to go