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David McKillips

David McKillips

CEO of Chuck E. Cheese's

Oct 6, 2026

3:49
So six months now, where do you think you are in terms of having changed the culture, changed the product?
3:56
I think six months from now you're gonna s- hear a whole host of, of new news.
4:00
And, you know, we'll start with our, our core golfer.
4:04
I would love to be in a position that the golfer knows that every quarter we're gonna have a new virtual course, that we're gonna have a lineup of competitions that allow you, uh, you know, even to win a, a, a gateway to, uh, or a satellite series to a green grass tournament.
4:21
You know, we're doing that now with the World Series of Golf.
4:23
We've got a tournament next, next week.
4:25
It's in, uh, 11 states, 30 locations.
7:40
There's a lot to do, huh? Your plate is full?
7:08
And the real opportunity is with that everyday user.
7:14
It is.
7:15
The parallels are unbelievable, right? Because they have lanes, we have bays.
7:18
And, you know, they have corporate outings.
7:20
We have corporate outings.
7:22
And then, you know, there's a small percentage of those avid bowlers and avid golfers that come in and fuel your leagues.
7:27
But they're making their money on the social user that comes in, the big group.

7 MINS LATER

14:13
What's your sense on the consumer today? Consumer strapped.
26:28
Is something like this evidence that the future of growing golf isn't necessarily changing traditional golf, but creating different ways to experience it?
26:36
A- absolutely.
26:37
And if you look at who's playing golf, and golf has, has never been hotter, right? There's 49 million people that are playing golf, of which about 30 million of those are municipal players.
26:47
And if you keep looking of that, of which about 17 million people are coming to Topgolf, and they, and they love it.
26:53
So I, you know, I look at Topgolf as I onboarded on just about six months ago.
26:58
I understand the responsibility of Topgolf and the whole ecosystem of the game.
27:03
And, you know, we're really the gateway of golf.
29:57
Mm-hmm.
42:08
Would a restructuring have been necessary at some point? Or do you think you would have been all right if we hadn't been through COVID, which literally shut down your stores?
42:15
COVID was really tough.
42:16
We didn't have the balance sheet to survive COVID and being shut down, especially in an environment where we are a very high-touch area.
42:25
So, you know, who's to say if we were going to have to restructure now? We did carry a significant debt low, which we...
42:31
which we were able to relieve in 2020, went through restructuring.
42:34
And then what we did is we raised bonds in the early 21.
42:38
We deployed all that capital.
45:07
What can you tell us?

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