July 7, 2021

Now hiring: Dave & Buster’s.

The national restaurant and entertainment business has posted openings in Sioux Falls for a general manager, assistant general manager, kitchen manager and amusements manager.

Its location at Lake Lorraine was built before the pandemic, with a planned opening of mid-2020.

All new construction was put on hold when the company was forced to shut down locations nationwide during the pandemic and gradually has restarted.

In its first quarter earnings released last month, the company said in a call with analysts that Dave & Buster’s plans to open one new location per quarter for the remainder of the fiscal year.

Locations weren’t identified, but typically jobs would not be posted in the restaurant industry unless the location was moving toward opening.

“Our brand is back. We have a solid financial foundation, and we are ready to move full speed ahead into summer,” CEO Brian Jenkins said on the call.

New initiatives are being implemented to modernize and enhance the food and beverage menu, service model, entertainment offerings and guest engagement, he said.

“With these initiatives and the steps that we took during 2020 to bolster our financial foundation, we are now a more competitive, more guest-centric company and positioned to be a more profitable business as our sales fully recover.”

The pandemic put the company back “a notch or two” in terms of its ability to build out stores, said Scott Bowman, senior vice president and chief financial officer.

“That’s about capital because our cash flow is now returning. We’re seeing a lot of strength in the business, and our financial foundation is getting stronger by the day,” he said.

“So I think we have flexibility to begin to reaccelerate the development. Our development team really is in place. They were heavily focused on lease negotiations. It was a complete pivot during COVID in terms of what the role was. But we have an incredible development team, and they … are in place, and we are pivoting their focus obviously now.”

One of the “pain points” is bench strength in the field, he continued.

“Just because we are operating at lower power levels post-COVID. We’ve had some people move on to other industries and move on to other companies. So that’s something that’s going to take some time to rebuild,” he said.

“The work that we have now to think about is the rebuilding of the leadership team that’s really going to fuel the stores. Every day that goes by and as our recovery gets better, our numbers get better, we’re adding back more powers, but that’s going to take a little time. So I don’t foresee — we’re not going to be in a position where we’re going to move back to 15 stores and kind of the numbers that we were running pre-COVID in the near term.”

Lake Lorraine developers aren’t able to confirm anything about the project but have been in regular communication with Dave & Buster’s, said Mike Van Buskirk of Van Buskirk Cos.

“We’re happy to see the jobs posted,” he said. “It’s a sign things are moving forward and an obvious positive development, but we don’t have any firm dates.”

In its earnings report, Dave & Buster’s reported it has reduced its menu by 33 percent and added some new items, including an IPA fish and chips, Hawaiian chicken sandwich and mushroom stout burger.

This summer is bringing seven new games on the entertainment side, Jenkins said.

“All of which launched exclusively at Dave & Buster’s, games like a life-size version of the classic board game Hungry Hungry Hippos and the arcade version of Minecraft Dungeons, which have already established themselves as two of our best performing titles in their categories,” he said.

They’re also testing themed trivia nights and have a number of initiatives coming designed to make Dave & Buster’s the “ultimate tailgate destination” for football season, Jenkins said.

“It is truly an exciting time at Dave & Buster’s as the strategy, the planning and the preparation that occurred during the pandemic are now coming together to accelerate our recovery,” he said.

Lake Lorraine offers growing number of on-the-water activities