Dave & Buster's will be first to open in Rosemont's The Pearl District
The first piece of Rosemont's mixed-use complex The Pearl District will be unveiled Monday with the opening of a 40,500-square-foot Dave & Buster's — the fifth in the Chicago area.
It'll be the 112th location for the Dallas-based chain that mixes dining with arcade-style games and entertainment, and is part of a companywide expansion that proposes adding a dozen locations annually.
During a preview event for the media Thursday, company officials showed off the Rosemont facility, 9870 Berwyn St. It's located within the village's 16-acre The Pearl, south of Balmoral Avenue and west of the Tri-State Tollway.
The facility includes 155 arcade games, a sports bar, a billiards lounge, a dining room and four rooms available for private events, meetings and corporate team-building activities. The Winner's Circle prize store — where customers can redeem tickets they've won from games — features everything from a Chinese finger trap (15 tickets) to an iPad Pro (230,000 tickets).
An ode to the company's origin story is on the right wall upon entry to the venue: how a guy named Dave who ran a game parlor and a guy name Buster who ran a bar combined their concepts to open their first location together in 1982.
“It's kind of neat to see where it started from so many years ago to where we've come to now,” said Mike Vlachos, assistant general manager of the Rosemont location, who also was involved in the opening of the Vernon Hills Dave & Buster's.
The Rosemont Dave & Buster's is bigger than those in Vernon Hills and Orland Park but smaller than locations in Addison and Chicago.
Rosemont paid an estimated $5 million to build the shell for the restaurant, while providing $4 million for improvements inside, under terms of an agreement approved in September 2016 by the village board. Dave & Buster's is paying the village $1.6 million in annual gross rent over 15 years, after which the agreement calls for 10 percent increases every five years.
Still to come in The Pearl are two restaurants — Carmine's and Truluck's Seafood Steak & Crab House — slated to open late summer or early fall. A five-story, 165-room boutique hotel opening is expected in September or October. A 775-space parking garage has been completed.
Dave & Buster's will employ 240 full- and part-time workers.
A ribbon cutting with village officials is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Monday, after which the venue will open to the public.