Tommy's Grandstand owners hack away at downturn

Tom and Michelle Newell's foray into a business that combines baseball with hamburgers and chicken wings showed steady gains for four years.

But as the housing sector began to decline in northern Nevada, the impact was felt in their business' batting cages and restaurant. They've sharpened their marketing and management skills as the recession has steadily taken its toll.

The Newells own Tommy's Grandstand, a collection of automated batting cages and practice tunnels that cater to everyone from beginning T-ball enthusiasts to aging, legends-in-their-mind adults.

Located at the east end of Glendale Avenue in a sprawling Sparks industrial area, Tommy's Grandstand is housed in a 17,000-square-foot building. Its arcade, big-screen TVs, bar with slot machines, grill and deli cater to a robust lunchtime crowd, most of them employed by the many businesses in a neighborhood whose fortunes are tied to the housing industry.

Newell and his wife opened Tommy's Grandstand in October of 2002. The business thrived, largely due to word-of-mouth from satisfied patrons who like the food or the opportunity to pay $2.50 for a token that gets them 20 pitches in the batting cages or $20 for a full half-hour of pitches.

Then the numbers began to sag. Fewer people came in for lunch. Gasoline prices rose steadily. The Newells' food costs and prices rose.

Tom Newell began to canvass his neighbors, companies such as Summit Racing, Bobcat, Victory Woodworks, and Pape' Machinery. The neighborhood's industrial companies which had once totaled 4,000 employees had dwindled to between 2,000 and 2,500 workers.

"We were getting around 10 to 15 percent of that workforce eating at the Grandstand before the recession hit the area," he says. "This meant in order to break even, I had to go out and bring in 30 percent."

He did it the hard way. He cut out traditional advertising to reduce expenses and now does more belly-to-belly selling, reaching out to organizers of major softball tournaments with copies of menus containing incentive coupons and visiting new businesses that open nearby.

In 2002 when the Newells bought what had been known as Sparks Indoor Batting Cages and Grandstand Grill and Deli, they financed the purchase with a seven-year bank loan to be paid off this month.

Newell says they have never missed a payment or even been late. Yet when they tried to secure a line of credit necessary to keep afloat during their off-season, it was denied.

"We paid out all that interest, and yet the bank was unwilling to help us out with a $20,000 to $30,000 credit line. That's what makes me mad. Perhaps their hands were tied, but they made no effort at all to help," he complains.

But one lender came through.

"Mountain America Credit Union which used to be the Sparks Credit Union really helped us out, and we will be able to ride out rest of the year," Newell says.

Until January, Tommy's had been open seven days a week. Now it is closed on Mondays. None of the six other employees lost their jobs. "Mondays were good dollar days for us from January through May, but when you look at the other six or seven months, it is really a break even point for us," says Newell. "Our job is to flow the Monday crowd into the rest of the week," Newell says. "And when we hit fall and winter time which are slow for us, we will save money on labor and power expenses.

"The sales will be down, but the net won't be as bad," he says. "We still have some rough times to go through. The banks are not knocking on our doors yet. But when things do improve and I believe they will banks will want to do business with those who pay their bills on time."