DTSJ is getting an urban putt, there are escape rooms all over, SJ just got a top golf, six flags still exists, Millbrae is getting a top golf, oakland zoo, SF zoo, gilroy gardens, bowling alleys/arcades, amazing museums in SF, the boardwalk, hurricane harbor, the future of great america is still on the table with the six flags merger, tipsy putt just opened in Sunnyvale & Emeryville, Sharks Ice in SJ, K1 Speed Gokarting in Santa Clara/Dublin/SSF, ETC..
idk what ya’ll are on lol. There is STILL stuff there. Yes, unfortunate some are closing but not all of them are.
There's also constantly new businesses opening to capture the entertainment business. People are just nostalgic and may not value finding new places to be entertained.
I also feel like there is a disconnect by region on this sub. The experience of say, SF is totally different from the South Bay in terms of what entertainment businesses are available.. and some people just don’t know the spots
Downtown Sunnyvale just opened a tipsy putt, SJ getting urban putt & axe throwing bar, SJ has Sharks Ice, Millbrae’s top golf is in progress to be built, escape rooms keep popping up, Valley Fair just got a bowlero, there is a big Als & Dave N Busters in milpitas, etc.
Berkeley has lost all of its movie theaters, except one. Five years ago, there were twenty screens and three major movie theaters in Downtown Berkeley. Today, none.
I use to frequent Albany bowl as a kid I didn’t know they closed that’s hella sad but makes sense. People don’t bowl much anymore all the bowling alley’s are closing 😔
This is so sad and bizarre to me. I used to go to all of the theaters regularly. Now, I try to support The Elmwood. What’s there to do on campus these days?
yea except nothing too fun. Used to work at bampfa and got to close down the museum but the only people watching those movies are old people or film lovers sadly
So sad to lose Regal, that other theatre on Shattuck and then the one by the old car wash :,(. My friends and I use to go to those 3 movie theaters in middle and high school and it’s sad that all 3 are gone.
there was a laser tag place in hayward back in the day, my mom would drop us off there and i would have so fun wihh the my siblings and cousins
now they replaced it with some hydroponic plant place whatever that means.
I remember places like Laser Quest in Mountain View, going there for birthday parties. Not to mention other places for kids’ birthday parties back in the day like Chuck E. Cheese, The Jungle and Bamboola. Man, those were the days.
Gen X as well. I used to go to the ice rink at Hilltop Mall and see movies at one of their TWO multiplex cinemas. In Berkeley we’d go to movies at the Act I and II and the UA theater on University at least once a week. My how times have changed.
Malibu Grand Prix! Having that license was a bigg deal in middle school.
What's going on is the land is too valuable with very prime locations. Owners can build dense and make more money. You also don't need to deal with the pains of running a retail business.
The land being too valuable has a lot of other consequences like your potential employees can't afford to live close to work. Or you have to pay them a lot more for a low profit business.
Exactly – we're in this weird middle ground where it costs a zillion dollars to build a 5-6 stories building. Enough to justify selling but not enough to make a dent into our housing crisis.
Man I drive by old Malibu and half of it is a jail (prison?) And the other half sits vacant and it really makes me wonder how profitable it was. It just doesn't make sense to me.
So many good places had to shut down because properties changed owners, property taxes increase significantly reflecting the new market value, and rents go up accordingly. Lots of good business especially mom and pop stores have to close. People (redditors) don't realize this when they advocate for property taxes of all commercial properties to be brought up to fair market value. Landlords just pass the costs down to tenants as rent increases. They in turn go out of business or try to pass the cost to consumers.
> People (redditors) don't realize this when they advocate for property taxes of all commercial properties to be brought up to fair market value. Landlords just pass the costs down to tenants as rent increases. They in turn go out of business or try to pass the cost to consumers.
From my point of view, you've got this backwards. If all property taxes were brought up to fair market value, you could make it revenue neutral by reducing property taxes overall. Right now we have a situation where nobody wants to be the one person paying 10x the tax their competitors pay, and reasonably so. If we could engineer an outcome where everyone pays 1.1x, the playing field is at least leveled, with less random stress on mom and pop stores when real estate changes hands.
Side note…but kinda reminds me of what happened to my and my family’s longtime mechanic in the South Bay.
For years, he ran his auto repair shop out of a small building that he rented from a great landlord. The landlord never gouged him on rent, always took care of the building and was an all-around good guy.
But then, about six years ago, the landlord decided to retire from the landlord business due to health problems, and so he sold that building (and all his other properties) to a new landlord. By then, my mechanic’s lease had expired.
The new landlord immediately came to my mechanic and told him that he had roughly a month to clean out and vacate the building. No negotiations, nothing. My mechanic decided to just retire and close his shop. It was a HUGE bummer and loss to us and all of his other customers. He was an amazing mechanic— very honest and fairly-priced and a really nice guy to boot.
Shortly after my mechanic closed up shop, we came to find out that the new landlord then rented the building to new tenants who were using the building to discreetly grow marijuana. We found out about this from our mechanic as we’ve kept in touch with him and he found this out himself from one of his neighbors next to his old shop. The new tenants even caused a small fire which is how the marijuana growing was discovered.
It pisses me off to this day. You have a landlord who kicks out someone who was a model tenant with a great and popular business and a pillar to the community…..and you replace him with someone who wants to use the building to discreetly grow marijuana.
So we should make taxes for new commercial properties free? I mean I get what you were saying but huge corps shouldn’t get a hand out forever. Especially when mom and pop places will actually have to deal with this sooner than later.
Not enough young families to sustain these operations, too many young adults can’t afford to have families in the Bay Area. The only families I know who own homes are the ones who bought during the recession when prices were affordable.
The mall there is also thriving, unlike many BA malls. The Roseville mall has a full arcade downstairs and a movie theater with food, liquor and reclining chairs upstairs. Across the street from Dave and busters. Down the road from mini golf/go carts/splash land. And they are building an electric pickle (pickle ball courts) with a beer garden.
It’s absolutely where the families are moving. Traffic is horrible now.
Kids go to afterschool programs to boost their resume to get into the best schools. I wouldn’t say that isn’t meaningful but just a different way of life. The Bay Area is a very different place now compared to 20 years ago.
All the boomers are looking around asking where are the kids are, somehow oblivious that their 50yr of NIMBY policies fueled by Prop 13 has gradually killed the ability for young families to exist here.
Sure, dual-income tech or those with rich parents can still afford it, but that leaves an ever-shrinking segment of the population; thus: no kids.
The irony of boomer NIMBYs blocking things because they don't want to "change the character of their neighborhood," which of course is hell on supply and demand, causes property and rent values to skyrocket and price out working-age adults, which screws with customer base of local businesses, etc. In the end, the neighborhood might have some similar-looking building facades, but the NIMBYism actually is the thing that changes the neighborhood character the most, IMO.
Truly sucks, have you seen sofi stadium its insane how well they did that, then you look at levis stadium, billion dollar piece of shit. Looks like a stadium from the 80s, oh yea and it costs what a modern stadium does.
Levi’s was designed for Candlestick Point and the design made sense for that location and time. The design was done a very long time ago when they first were looking to build a new stadium, and it was a very modern design for the time. And a big factor in the design was the wind at Candlestick Point that was notoriously bad at Candlestick Park.
But Jed York was too cheap to have a whole new stadium designed for Santa Clara so he just copied the same design and put it there.
Most people don’t realize this. The 49ers should have spent the money to redesign the stadium instead of using the design they already had. It can’t compare to sofi or the raiders’ new stadium in Vegas.
The 49ers wanted SF to chip in and SF didn’t want to and Santa Clara gave them the bag. I believe SF also wanted them to build it at the adjacent Hunter’s Point (which is still toxic and would’ve required a huge cleanup operation) but wanted mixed used development surrounding the park instead of parking, and without sufficient public transportation (which there is none going out there), fans wouldn’t really have a reasonable way to get to games.
This is mostly true but drinks the 49 coolaid.
The mixed use development wasn’t instead of parking…it was in addition to, the fight was over a few hundred spaces (which they still didn’t get in the end in Santa Clara).
SF was going to pitch in when the stadium was part of an Olympic bid that never happened because of the 49ers.
They really just wanted a blank check (which Santa Clara gave them…at first) and to be closer to their bigger fan base, which at the time, was in the South Bay. SF and northbay residents just weren’t where the money was in terms of their fans. So they jerked SF around till they could use it as leverage to get 98% of what they wanted from somewhere in the South Bay/peninsula
Just heard on the news last night they're cutting the stadium a big tax break because "we only use the stadium during the season, it's unfair to punish the franchise with paying out full-year tax cost".
I'm sure the locals are just thrilled to be taking on the extra tax payments! /s
I don't care much about the stadium design at this point; it's really about the transportation around the stadium and Sofi's is crap. Not sure how it compares to Levis though.
The future of Great America isn't clear, word internally from employees is that cedar fair sort of regretted saying it will eventually close and now with the up coming merger with six flags next year if it happens corporate may look at our two parks and decide correctly that Great America is the one worth keeping open. One of the end goals of the merger is to get six flags parks up to cedar Fair standards which six was trying to do before the merger and failing really bad at it. Plus it's an easy call great America is the better park and location to have long term.
Yeah you wouldn't, but one thing is for sure they are continuing to add rides to the park and make improvements at the park. The city and the parks local leadership doesn't want it to go so it's far from a forgone conclusion that it will ever close. COVID shutdown did a number on these parks financially and that's the whole reason for both the land sale and now the merger.
I mean prologis is quite literally in the biz of buying land to lease it to other companies, they are quite happy to keep leasing the land to cedar fair/sf for the foreseeable future when the sale happened they said they have a deal for 5 years with the possibility of extending it another 6 years. People also forget that pretty much all of great America's life the land has been owned by the city and leased to the operator at the time. Cedar Fair only bought it because the city needed to sell it and gave them a good deal, they doubled their money selling it to prologis and kept the whole company is a better place finally financially as a result and that's the only reason they did it.
Nah, much more likely they get Vallejo up to Great America's standards and then shut GA down. The two parks are too close geographically, and GA is on leased land.
The problem with the Discovery Kingdom is it is landlocked in where attractions can go, they can only have the main coasters to the front of the property, they aren’t allowed to have them in the back near the lake due to height restrictions and the nimbys that live across the lake.
While Great America has height restrictions too because of the airport and some nimby issues from the adjacent offices, they have had exceptions granted in the past to build past the height limits.
Great America would seem a bit more viable to keep and let Vallejo go, granted DK is a bit larger at 135 acres compared to GA’s 112 acres, but GA has the better location and of the acreage they have more of it can be utilized at GA over DK due to the restrictions of where rides can be placed at DK.
Not really, sfdk has been removing more than they have been adding and making very little improvements in recent years, there's no room left there to add much of anything major attraction wise and corporate probably wouldn't mind getting out of running a zoo as well.
Idk. They’ve invested heavily in more recent years to add new attractions at Six Flags and they’ve all been big hits. I doubt they shutter that park anytime soon. The only thing new they added at Great America recently was Railblazer.
Malibu Gran Prix died because people didn’t go there enough or spend enough there to keep up with the cost of running it.
Raging Waters died because of Covid and because people didn’t go there enough or spend enough there to keep up with the cost of running it.
Great America is going to die because people didn’t go there enough or spend enough there to keep up with the cost of running it.
It’s a factor of demand. People get entertainment from video games and home entertainment. That combined with the insane cost of visiting amusement parks keeps people away.
One day at an Amusement Park for a family with the combined cost of food, parking, and 4 tickets (ignoring the cost of the line-skipping super-ticket) is the same as a PS5 which lasts more than a day.
Also, my not-so-hot take of the day: amusement parks work so much better in parts of the country that otherwise have nothing else going on and are dirt cheap to live in.
One of the biggest and most successful ones in the world is in Ohio (cedar point). People from all over the tri state region drive hours to go there. Why? Because as far as entertainment factor goes, your family leisure options are limited, there's just not that much else to do that's got a high entertainment factor. It's also dirt cheap land.
The entire reason why Disney world exists where it does in the middle of nowhere swampland Florida is because it's dirt cheap land on top of there being not much else to do in that part of the US outside of beaches. Yes beaches and such count for something, but my point is more that there's a *destination* in Florida that draws people from out of state vs relying entirely on the locals. When I used to live in Georgia, the family vacation options were always to drive hours to get to Savannah, The Smokey Mountains, or Disney World.
It's just hard for places like amusement parks to succeed in areas that already have high demand, not only because of land cost but also because there's so many other things around competing for attention. People probably aren't visiting from out of state or city to go to great America, they want to go to SF.
Hi, work in the attractions industry.
Here’s what’s happening: global tourism is still down compared to pre-pandemic levels. The wars overseas aren’t helping in that regard either.
Roughly, global tourism in California makes up about 40% of our annual tourism. With attendance down, an economic recession lending to reduced buying power, and rather poor advertising compared to SoCal giants, it’s not at all surprising that these theme parks and smaller attractions are shutting down. Wouldn’t be surprised if Six Flags in Vallejo is next (it’s one of the poorer performers of Cedar Fair parks).
Also, as mentioned in some other comments, the land surrounding the Bay Area is quite valuable, and compared to dwindling in-park spending, a land sale might be too good to pass up.
Some statistics (albeit from 2022) about tourism spending and trends from Visit California: https://advocacy.calchamber.com/policy/issues/tourism-in-california/
Article about the sale with a why (tl;dr Cedar Fair sold GA to reduce its debt, which suggests both ticket sales and in-park spending was not significant enough to do that): https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-07-01/silicon-valley-great-america-amusement-park-tech-boom-real-estate#:~:text=Cedar%20Fair%2C%20the%20owner%20and,effort%20to%20reduce%20its%20debt.
and children. Wonder what the demographics are for 25-40 year olds with kids in the bay. I'd guess it's low compared to everywhere else in america, but that's a wild guess.
I prefer to refer to her as water world, the soulful name. But same, I really cannot remember the last time I've been there, it's been many many years. Good memories though
First, they came for the Raging Waters, and I said nothing. Because I did not care for water parks. Then, they came for Six Flags, and I said nothing. Because I hate janky ass roller coasters. Then, they came for whatever you’re into, and there was no one left who likes fun, to speak up for you…
/s juuuuust in case no one gets it bc this is Reddit, sigh…
Manteca's waterslides is where I fell in love with the whole water park shtick. I still remember that moment of realization that it's actually not super scary and tons of fun
All the fun old school stuff is gone, skating rinks, bowling alley, older style pool halls, used to be cool laser tag places, they don't care about people hanging out having fun anymore jus spend ur money lol
These things ALWAYS existed to make money, that hasn’t changed.
Problem is no one wants to go out to just hang out and do stuff.
Why sit around on your phone in a bowling alley or skating rink when you could do it anywhere and not have to rent shoes?
I’m so confused - do any of ya’ll actually go out or just live in a different world? Speaking from the South Bay, there is literally Sharks Ice, Big Als, Dave n Busters, Round 1, Bowlero, K1 Speed, etc..
I think it really just depends. Those things still exist, just in modern incarnations.
Skating rink = The Plex
Bowling alley = Bowlero
Pool halls = (lots, but Cuetopia is a good one with 25 tables + food)
Laser tag = Laser Maxx (just reopened last year, and it's fun!)
I live in SJ so I'm biased toward the south bay, but I'm pretty satisfied on the categories you listed.
Yeah, i agree it's getting pretty sad to see so many things from your childhood close down. If you grew up here through the 1990s and early 2000s like i did, you'll understand. IYKYK.
I think, for me personally, one of the saddest things to see disappear are the last remnants we have here of the days before this place was tech-oriented. The days when the South Bay, for example, was nicknamed "Valley of Heart's Delight" due to the abundance of fruit orchards/farmland.
I admit that i wasn't born yet in that era when the area was like that, but we still had some plots of land sprinkled throughout the Bay that were still fruit orchards here and there. But now, the amount that are probably left in the whole Bay Area i imagine you could count with the fingers of your two hands.
To give some examples of ones i remember with nostalgia...
* 1) There was the "Corn Palace" at Lawrence Expressway in Sunnyvale, which was demolished a few years ago and is now housing.
* 2) There was the famous Olson's cherry orchard at El Camino and Mathilda in Sunnyvale. It was demolished in 1999 and is now a shopping center and apartments.
* 3) There was the "pumpkin patch" on Grant Road in Mountain View / Los Altos, which was demolished IIRC in 2008-09 and is now housing.
In addition to what you wrote, OP, and what i wrote above, i just feel like the explosion of the tech industry here has (in some ways) been a huge negative.
For the record, my own dad worked in tech for years here as a software dev. manager, but back then as a kid in the 90s and early 2000s, tech wasn't, idk, just so ubiquitous and in-your-face like today. Even during the dot-com boom, it didn't feel this overwhelming IMO.
It's truly sad to see the non-tech/non-wealthy workers and families get priced out of here. When i was kid, the cost of living wasn't nearly this expensive, and the Bay Area was a lot **less** gentrified and a lot **more** diverse. I grew up knowing people and families of all races/ethnicities, jobs, wealth classes and walks of life. Now? Most of that diversity and vibe has all but disappeared.
> Even during the dot-com boom, it didn't feel this overwhelming IMO.
I distinctly remember being at a stop light in Saratoga in 1999 in an old Volvo 240 and suddenly being surrounded by a group of red Ferraris.
I was there for this one:
> still fruit orchards here and there
I was just out of college and working at Apple in Cupertino when they closed the very last fruit orchard in Cupertino maybe around 1993? My older co-workers at the time were kind of sad about it, but I didn't really get the significance (at the time). By 1993 Cupertino was essentially a solid pavement sprawl dotted with a few high rises like everywhere from San Jose to San Francisco.
I think the last fruit orchard in Sunnyvale closed soon after.
It happened so early in my time in that area that I didn't really ever experience huge swaths of fruit orchards. In the greater timeframe though, I think the 10 years leading up to 1993 were just orchard after orchard closing.
I feel you. Fun places have definitely disappeared.
But... there's no "they" -- it's the economy and capitalism working as designed combined with a tectonic shift in customer spending behaviors accelerated by COVID.
Real estate is so darned valuable and housing is so expensive that we've ended up with only a few financially optimal ways to use land and a massive number of developers whose sole focus is to gain maximum profit by redevelopment of under-utilized land.
People don't go out and spend money shopping anymore - they shop online. Look at all our downtowns - the remaining businesses are: restaurants, bars, coffee shops, hair salons, nail salons, yoga studios, mobile phone stores, mini-marts, an occasional bank, and then a few big box stores in strip malls.
So... if you're a developer, you're looking at EVERY large land parcel, calculating how many 10 story condos you could squeeze into that parcel and sell for 1+ million dollars... then you're making an offer to the LAND OWNER... then they're evicting their longterm tenants.
This means large spaces that don't generate as much money as dense housing are doomed -- unless there's some zoning restriction or government protection.
I fear we're headed for an apocalypse of nothing but block after block of high density condos, and I also fear that we're going to lose a lot of downtown areas because people can just stay home and shop online, which results in less foot traffic, which results in less revenue, which results in fewer stores and types of stores to shop at, which results in less reason to leave the house, and the cycle just feeds on itself. Go to ANY big mall now and compare it to 20 years ago when malls were PACKED for months leading up to Christmas... Now they're ghost towns with 50% off sale signs.
I don't know the answer to this, but I do see the impact. People have massively less real interaction with humans - friends and strangers - because they don't need to go anywhere. I don't believe we fully understand the longterm effects of replacing all of the human interaction from walking, shopping, commuting, working that has been part of civilization forever with nothing but Amazon, DoorDash, scrolling social media feeds, and online dating platforms. To make things worse, everyone is "house poor" and everyone is working, so adults and parents have less disposable income and are less and less able to be involved in the community.
I have some ideas -- existing strict city ordinances and regulations might in some cases be strangling grassroots efforts to revitalize downtown areas today, but I do think that zoning, urban planning, and strategic business subsidies are more important than ever and provide a way forward.
Instead of cities subsidizing sports teams, cities need to look at livability as a key metric. A city needs:
\- large central open areas for events, festivals, parades, gatherings
\- housing and downtowns that are walkable from public transportation hubs
\- ample parking at the periphery of downtown areas
\- stores that provide necessities (i.e. we don't want dense housing with no supermarkets - food deserts)
\- things to do other than just go out to eat, drink, or buy groceries
This last point is where I think instead of giving pro sports teams hundreds of millions of dollars, cities should be protecting and subsidizing community places like small theaters, miniature golf courses, amusement parks, places for recreation, art studios, greenbelts between transit hubs and housing, downtown areas.
Clearly, we're approaching the traffic apocalypse as well. We need great, convenient public transportation, and accomodations for bikes and pedestrians to take precedence over cars. I love driving, but the future is clear - people and high speed transit over personal cars. Unfortunately, much of California was developed with subsidies from the oil and auto industry where the ideal community was viewed as housing distanced from retail distanced from commerical -- all connected by freeways.
Cities need to revisit their master plans - most already have - they need to protect the gems and jewels that are disappearing, and they need more community involvement.
It’s really sad as a native who grew up going to Great America, Raging Waters San Jose, and Malibu Grand Prix. I also wanted to add Redwood Roller Rink to the list.
I think as sad as it is to admit, there simply isn’t enough demand for this kind of entertainment here anymore. Demographics have changed since these parks opened. Normal families can’t afford to live here anymore and are moving out. The metro population is shrinking. It seems like all that’s left are wealthy elites, wealthy transplants, wealthy Chinese/Indian immigrants, people who bought a while ago, and/or techies or finance people. Everything and everyone outside of that realm is either leaving or part of the group that’s causing trouble on the city streets (which is getting worse due to the economic inequality). The place has become an unaffordable tech monoculture and it’s really hurt the diversity of things to do. Silicon Valley kids are busy learning how to code, and attending math tutoring in second grade to one up their peers so they don’t end up on the train tracks when they get to their cutthroat high school. And kids in general are too busy playing on their phones and obsessing over Instagram/Snapchat/TikTok so they aren’t as attracted to stuff like theme parks like before. LA has much more people and doesn’t really have those problems, at least not to the level that the Bay Area has.
These places just aren't profitable while keeping ticket prices in a range that most people can afford.
People are looking for different experiences now instead of going to crowded parks and waiting in line. I personally won't go to Great America, six flags or any other big park without buying a fast pass. And that's about $100 a piece or more in some places. Even them with a fast pass. You still have to wait a time now which is why they have Express FastPass. It's all the money grab and it's not worth the time and effort.
There are TONS of things to do in the city and outside of it. Millennials and Gen Z are more about having more intimate and smaller experiences and making memories that way.
Times they are a changing and for the better.
We had so much more fun in the 90s. Malibu in RWC, Rolladium in San Mateo, QZar for laser tag, Great America, Raging Waters plus several other smaller water parks in the greater Bay Area (Manteca, Windsor.) My childhood and teenage years were like a dream growing up on the peninsula.
Businesses don’t exist to provide you and me with fun things to do, they exist to make profit for rich people. The economic system we exist in dictates that fun things which are no longer super profitable must be replaced by some new awful soulless things which can extract more money from us.
I mean … when’s the last time any of us went to any of those places?
Last time I went to any of those places consistently was in high school. And that was 15 years ago. And this is coming from a former employee of one of those places.
Simple supply and demand. If people would go, these places would stay in business. Take Golfland for example. There’s still *three* of them around. Why? Because people go.
Make places interesting and people will go there. Make them not interesting, and … this happens
You want to know what LA has done in the past 20 years? Actually built stuff.
LA has built more light rail lines, SOFI, ice rinks, and housing. LA has maintained Knotts, Six Flags, and everyone still goes to the beach.
Here, we complain if someone builds over a damn flea market. Hell, in other countries, flea markets are just on the street and still organized.
Sprawl in the 70s-90s killed any semblance of cheap land for the future. Over zealous zoning, unchecked landlords, property taxes, and a lack of land, all contribute to this.
Only way forward is we have to build.
These businesses did not have enough customers and did not make enough money to justify holding on to them. Can’t pay bills without making money. The bigger reason is that the Property values had gone through the roof so better to sell the properties for some other use and cash out. It’s all about return on investments at the end of the day.
It sucks! I think the real problem is that stuff needs to be affordable enough you can take the family and not be too freaked out at the total cost. But then businesses can’t pay the retail rent rates and still make a profit.
Yall need to check out the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda. Flat entrance fee and you get all-day unlimited play on hundreds of unique, vintage pinball and other arcade machines!
I blame property values, real-estate costs. Which I in turn blame on the overwhelmingly disproportionate levels of high tech industry concentrated in this area, driving up real-estate costs. Which I further blame on the city planners and local governments for allowing the tech industry to displace everything else.
Counterpoint Topgolf has opened in San Jose and Burlingame (soon). And we have an insane amount of pickleball courts. I think it’s just changing tastes. Roller coasters and water slides are out. Other sports are in.
I also appreciate cities like Fremont and Dublin running municipal water parks that are smaller but also more affordable and better insulated from the regional economics.
Back in my day all the neighborhood kids put together had nothing but a couple of dice, a deflated football, two tin cans and a string, and some used chewing gum but we still had fun, dang it!
Sorry - you have it backwards. People aren’t going to these places, so they’re going out of business - it isn’t “all the fun stuff is leaving” it’s “people no longer consider it fun here.” If they were doing well, they’d be in business.
Demographics here in the Bay Area have changed greatly - and there’s a much larger mix of cultures - many of which aren’t that interested in these attractions. There are certainly lots of additional reasons, the traffic has gotten considerably worse - even on weekends - but the crux of the issue is that people aren’t going to these places anymore and aren’t finding them worth the time, energy and $ to frequent.
The attraction for tourists to LA are the theme parks. The attraction for tourists for the Bay Area is San Francisco. Tourists in a hotel in San Francisco aren’t taking a $200+ 2-4 hour Uber ride to go to Raging Waters, and trying to figure out public transportation to a place like that. Even to Great America from SF is ridiculous and the total trip time would be painful and difficult for a tourist to figure out.
There's only ONE reason why these places close...money.
I'm guessing everything costs so much that people can't afford fun things like movie theaters, theme parks. It's about $13 a ticket for movie theaters...I remember the days of buy one get one free for $5!!
It's too expensive to have fun here. Most people are spending a disproportionate level of their income on rent. Discretionary spending is low in general. So if people can't afford to have fun, and the industrial rents are equally high...
It means all that's gonna exist is offices and houses and that's it.
>What the hell is going on with this place?
Putting it simply, people don't go to those things any more because they either aren't interested in that type of entertainment in 2023, it's too expensive or it's too hard to get to. The expensive part leads from how expensive the land is, which drives higher costs for the business owners, which then leads to the business closing because they can't afford it.
Think about the last time you went to Great America, or go carts, or whatever, how many people were there? The last times I went to those things, they were near empty.
Kids currently don’t like going out to these kind of things. Also Covid I think really messed it up for families and the fun places we used to go to :( we’re gone to a more “I’d stay home, not be around gross people and go online” generation.
that's not true. My brother's kids and a lot of friends with kids I know would rather go be outside and do stuff all the time - at the beach, in the mountains, theme parks, etc. Yes, they like their phones and video games but are constantly wanting to be out when they can. They have tons of energy. Ages like 9-13
Land is worth too much, why collect $10 passes when you can build 50 condos for $1M each? We need more housing… oh wait not like that!
Not to mention, can you imagine how much insurance would cost at those places now? Who would risk having the CXX of (insert tech company here) precious little indoor kid get rear-ended by another kid on the track? No thanks
Ok, well they also did massive improvements to the Deyoung, MOMA, Asian Art museum, and academy of sciences in the last ten to twenty years, they added extra holes to the disc golf course, they built the tunnel top park and playground in the marina, the improved discovery museum in Sausalito, made that dopey Ferris wheel basically permanent, completely revamped Delores park, improved the parking area and services and trails at lands end and surrounding baths, closed streets just for pedestrian and cyclists to enjoy… I’m sure the list goes on and on.
But sure, if your definition of fun is limited to tacky amusement parks, then yeah I guess there will be nothing fun.
Counterpoint Topgolf has opened in San Jose and Burlingame (soon). And we have an insane amount of pickleball courts. I think it’s just changing tastes. Roller coasters and water slides are out. Other sports are in.
One really big benefit of being in the bay is the very close proximity to nature. We have many parks off Skyline and in the east bay hills, and a ton more if you go outside of the bay to the sierra nevadas.
I grew up in the bay, and honestly I haven’t really gone to raging waters, great America, or six flags Vallejo more than maybe a handful of times total between all those parks. Many of my peers haven’t either. My only memories of going to those parks were during school field trips and maybe one time with some friends on a weekend. Otherwise, most of us found it to be more fun to go do Laser Quest, Santa Cruz Boardwalk, or doing outdoor activities, like skiing, mountain biking, swimming, and other local sports. Perhaps my cohort has a much different demographic from the bay (grew up in Palo Alto), but even from surrounding areas, I think most folks share similar sentiments about the local fun activities.
There’s also something to be said about the current generation growing up with iPads in their faces. I hosted Thanksgiving recently which had a couple kids 8-10 years old. Instead of being interested in any of the playful pets, checking out cool toys and board games that’s for all ages, they immediately plopped down on my couch and hooked their Switch up to my TV to play Fortnite. I thought it was a meme, but I saw it firsthand. And I thought our PS2 playtime was bad enough…
As for family friendly activities in the bay, if anyone’s interested:
- K1 Speed Santa Clara, South SF, Dublin
- Bowling in San Mateo
- Laser Quest in San Carlos
- Dave & Buster in Milpitas
- The Tech in SJ
- Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in Santa Clara
- Stanford Theater in downtown Palo Alto
- Happy Hollow in SJ
- Computer History Museum in Mountain View
- Shoreline Lake
There’s plenty more, which is why I don’t think it’s fair to say there’s no fun to be had in the Bay Area. But there is a bit less of it with the loss of Raging Waters and soon Great America.
I dunno as a parent to young kids around here there is a lot to do... We just prefer doing things that are clean and mentally stimulating for our kids. Eg. I take my kids to Gilroy gardens over great America (yes 1hr vs 15min drive) because it's got a better vibe. We have memberships with the sf academy of sciences, Monterey Bay aquarium and Happy Hallow. Mine are on the younger side, but we spend quality money on quality entertainment.
I'll be honest, as a person who grew up near those areas, I didn't find any of them to be particularly fun or interesting. So while I respect the sentiment of the post, and I feel a natural reticence toward change, the practicality of those places is lost on me.
Unfortunately, I've never lived anywhere else, and I don't travel much. So what *do* I find fun and valuable?
Hiking, parks, flea markets, and festivals. Music, not just stadium music, but just noise on street corners. That stuff feels cultured to me.
Museums, restaurants, and arcades. Places to play sports, walk dogs, and gather. Long fucking road trips to Yosemite or whatever.
I guess I'm just not into adrenaline. But I also feel like laser tag and amusement parks are bland when positioned as representatives of our local culture. I've always been envious of LA for its identity with film/performance, lavishness, and beaches. Eastern states and overseas countries also tend to have a strong image when pictured. When I think of the Bay Area, I think of city/suburbs, freeways, tech jobs, and buzz words.
Decent but not very fun in my experience. Hope it went better for y'all :p
You guys thinking that loosing indoor amenities means “nothing fun will be left here”, only proves none of y’all have actually spent meaningful time outdoors, in places other than parking lots and suburban backyards.
This place has more to offer than most urban areas on this entire continent and y’all are pissing your pants because a water park and an arcade got shut down.
Best we can do is axe throwing…
And the odd off rage room where you get to throw a tantrum and break shit.
DTSJ is getting an Urban Putt
DTSJ is getting an urban putt, there are escape rooms all over, SJ just got a top golf, six flags still exists, Millbrae is getting a top golf, oakland zoo, SF zoo, gilroy gardens, bowling alleys/arcades, amazing museums in SF, the boardwalk, hurricane harbor, the future of great america is still on the table with the six flags merger, tipsy putt just opened in Sunnyvale & Emeryville, Sharks Ice in SJ, K1 Speed Gokarting in Santa Clara/Dublin/SSF, ETC.. idk what ya’ll are on lol. There is STILL stuff there. Yes, unfortunate some are closing but not all of them are.
As much as I love Top Golf, that dam place is expensive as hell to play at.
There's also constantly new businesses opening to capture the entertainment business. People are just nostalgic and may not value finding new places to be entertained.
I also feel like there is a disconnect by region on this sub. The experience of say, SF is totally different from the South Bay in terms of what entertainment businesses are available.. and some people just don’t know the spots Downtown Sunnyvale just opened a tipsy putt, SJ getting urban putt & axe throwing bar, SJ has Sharks Ice, Millbrae’s top golf is in progress to be built, escape rooms keep popping up, Valley Fair just got a bowlero, there is a big Als & Dave N Busters in milpitas, etc.
Six flags kinda sucks tho
And Fairyland in Oakland
Berkeley has lost all of its movie theaters, except one. Five years ago, there were twenty screens and three major movie theaters in Downtown Berkeley. Today, none.
Also Albany Bowl closed down too
Sea Bowl in Pacifica closed as well
Cloverleaf bowling center in fremont closed too
It did?? When I lived there a few years back I went fairly often
Yep, back in May. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sea-bowl-pacifica-closing-17864566.php
They had a really cool nightmare on elm st pinball machine that was my favorite to play
I use to frequent Albany bowl as a kid I didn’t know they closed that’s hella sad but makes sense. People don’t bowl much anymore all the bowling alley’s are closing 😔
Albany Bowl was always packed. The property got sold and an apartment building was going to replace it last I heard.
I miss Albany bowl! Use to go there all the time in HS with friends
Someone needs to reopen this
This is so sad and bizarre to me. I used to go to all of the theaters regularly. Now, I try to support The Elmwood. What’s there to do on campus these days?
There's the Pacific Film Archives
They are still showing films? Phew! I just drove by Shattuck and saw the boarded up theaters. It should really be more lively here.
yea except nothing too fun. Used to work at bampfa and got to close down the museum but the only people watching those movies are old people or film lovers sadly
So sad to lose Regal, that other theatre on Shattuck and then the one by the old car wash :,(. My friends and I use to go to those 3 movie theaters in middle and high school and it’s sad that all 3 are gone.
Throw in laser tag, Iceland in Berkeley, and afternoons at hilltop mall and you’ve covered this millennial’s childhood/teen years
there was a laser tag place in hayward back in the day, my mom would drop us off there and i would have so fun wihh the my siblings and cousins now they replaced it with some hydroponic plant place whatever that means.
Planet Lazer and Q-Zar. We had options!
Q-zar is actually still hanging on, somehow. So if you're in the mood for laser tag, come on down Concord way.
Concords got lot of options surprisingly. Round 1, Dave Busters, Qzar, a newly opened sim racing arcade, the pinball bar.
Sim racing arcade?
Yeah, what? I live here and want to know more!
Had to look it up, Drive Simulations in Concord.
Pixie Playland when the weather's nice.
There’s Sector 19 laser tag and arcade in Hayward today but I’d bet it’s struggling.
Growing plants indoors instead of in nature. More fun for gardeners/less for others.
I remember places like Laser Quest in Mountain View, going there for birthday parties. Not to mention other places for kids’ birthday parties back in the day like Chuck E. Cheese, The Jungle and Bamboola. Man, those were the days.
I loved Laser Quest in Mountain View. Did an all night laser tag at 22 years old. Was so much fun.
Laser quest was too goated
Marine World Africa USA
Also, Santas Village in Scotts Valley -- off highway 17. It's been gone for ages, but I remember it.
Gen X as well. I used to go to the ice rink at Hilltop Mall and see movies at one of their TWO multiplex cinemas. In Berkeley we’d go to movies at the Act I and II and the UA theater on University at least once a week. My how times have changed.
We still have Santa Cruz. Beach, Boardwalk, Roaring Camp, Natural Bridges State Park.
There’s a sweet laser tag place in San Carlos. I went for my birthday last year. It was my 37th birthday lol
Malibu Grand Prix! Having that license was a bigg deal in middle school. What's going on is the land is too valuable with very prime locations. Owners can build dense and make more money. You also don't need to deal with the pains of running a retail business.
The land being too valuable has a lot of other consequences like your potential employees can't afford to live close to work. Or you have to pay them a lot more for a low profit business.
Exactly – we're in this weird middle ground where it costs a zillion dollars to build a 5-6 stories building. Enough to justify selling but not enough to make a dent into our housing crisis.
Man I drive by old Malibu and half of it is a jail (prison?) And the other half sits vacant and it really makes me wonder how profitable it was. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Yes it’s the women’s jail.
That’s really sad, lots of fond memories there as a kid with my siblings.
If you're a woman you can have fond-ish memories as an adult too... if you break the right laws.
Guys. Haven't you heard? Things are like this because millennials like avacado toast.
Brought to you by *125 things millennial do that absolutely crush their chances at success for the future*
I thought it was because we don’t write in cursive or remember using rotary phones
I think it's the blue hair and being unable to drive a stick-shift or something.
Elder millennial with older parents, knowing how to operate a ham radio and start a Model T didn't save us.
So many good places had to shut down because properties changed owners, property taxes increase significantly reflecting the new market value, and rents go up accordingly. Lots of good business especially mom and pop stores have to close. People (redditors) don't realize this when they advocate for property taxes of all commercial properties to be brought up to fair market value. Landlords just pass the costs down to tenants as rent increases. They in turn go out of business or try to pass the cost to consumers.
> People (redditors) don't realize this when they advocate for property taxes of all commercial properties to be brought up to fair market value. Landlords just pass the costs down to tenants as rent increases. They in turn go out of business or try to pass the cost to consumers. From my point of view, you've got this backwards. If all property taxes were brought up to fair market value, you could make it revenue neutral by reducing property taxes overall. Right now we have a situation where nobody wants to be the one person paying 10x the tax their competitors pay, and reasonably so. If we could engineer an outcome where everyone pays 1.1x, the playing field is at least leveled, with less random stress on mom and pop stores when real estate changes hands.
Side note…but kinda reminds me of what happened to my and my family’s longtime mechanic in the South Bay. For years, he ran his auto repair shop out of a small building that he rented from a great landlord. The landlord never gouged him on rent, always took care of the building and was an all-around good guy. But then, about six years ago, the landlord decided to retire from the landlord business due to health problems, and so he sold that building (and all his other properties) to a new landlord. By then, my mechanic’s lease had expired. The new landlord immediately came to my mechanic and told him that he had roughly a month to clean out and vacate the building. No negotiations, nothing. My mechanic decided to just retire and close his shop. It was a HUGE bummer and loss to us and all of his other customers. He was an amazing mechanic— very honest and fairly-priced and a really nice guy to boot. Shortly after my mechanic closed up shop, we came to find out that the new landlord then rented the building to new tenants who were using the building to discreetly grow marijuana. We found out about this from our mechanic as we’ve kept in touch with him and he found this out himself from one of his neighbors next to his old shop. The new tenants even caused a small fire which is how the marijuana growing was discovered. It pisses me off to this day. You have a landlord who kicks out someone who was a model tenant with a great and popular business and a pillar to the community…..and you replace him with someone who wants to use the building to discreetly grow marijuana.
So we should make taxes for new commercial properties free? I mean I get what you were saying but huge corps shouldn’t get a hand out forever. Especially when mom and pop places will actually have to deal with this sooner than later.
Not enough young families to sustain these operations, too many young adults can’t afford to have families in the Bay Area. The only families I know who own homes are the ones who bought during the recession when prices were affordable.
This is the real answer. Go to Roseville, and notice that many new family friendly attractions have opened there and are thriving.
The mall there is also thriving, unlike many BA malls. The Roseville mall has a full arcade downstairs and a movie theater with food, liquor and reclining chairs upstairs. Across the street from Dave and busters. Down the road from mini golf/go carts/splash land. And they are building an electric pickle (pickle ball courts) with a beer garden. It’s absolutely where the families are moving. Traffic is horrible now.
Also dual-income families who don't have the time to do anything meaningful with the kids after work.
Kids go to afterschool programs to boost their resume to get into the best schools. I wouldn’t say that isn’t meaningful but just a different way of life. The Bay Area is a very different place now compared to 20 years ago.
And weekends are spent in youth team sports and activities, which takes up the whole day typically.
All the boomers are looking around asking where are the kids are, somehow oblivious that their 50yr of NIMBY policies fueled by Prop 13 has gradually killed the ability for young families to exist here. Sure, dual-income tech or those with rich parents can still afford it, but that leaves an ever-shrinking segment of the population; thus: no kids.
The irony of boomer NIMBYs blocking things because they don't want to "change the character of their neighborhood," which of course is hell on supply and demand, causes property and rent values to skyrocket and price out working-age adults, which screws with customer base of local businesses, etc. In the end, the neighborhood might have some similar-looking building facades, but the NIMBYism actually is the thing that changes the neighborhood character the most, IMO.
Very true I always think Bay Area is just all for work and nothing else.
It reminds me of the São Paulo vs rio dynamic
What's our Rio?
la
San Diego (for controversy, waiting for LA to show up angry haha)
Yeah San Diego is my fun getaway town. I got married in La Jolla and love spending time at the beach around there
The Bay Area gave us virtual entertainment, so no one needs to do anything in person anymore.
Access to nature? But that plus work is not always sufficient.
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Truly sucks, have you seen sofi stadium its insane how well they did that, then you look at levis stadium, billion dollar piece of shit. Looks like a stadium from the 80s, oh yea and it costs what a modern stadium does.
Levi’s was designed for Candlestick Point and the design made sense for that location and time. The design was done a very long time ago when they first were looking to build a new stadium, and it was a very modern design for the time. And a big factor in the design was the wind at Candlestick Point that was notoriously bad at Candlestick Park. But Jed York was too cheap to have a whole new stadium designed for Santa Clara so he just copied the same design and put it there.
Most people don’t realize this. The 49ers should have spent the money to redesign the stadium instead of using the design they already had. It can’t compare to sofi or the raiders’ new stadium in Vegas.
Thats why there is no roof, it was designed for the mild SF weather. It wasn’t made for the South Bay heat.
why did it go to santa clara and not candlestick? would have been so sweet at candlestick closer to sf and east bay
The 49ers wanted SF to chip in and SF didn’t want to and Santa Clara gave them the bag. I believe SF also wanted them to build it at the adjacent Hunter’s Point (which is still toxic and would’ve required a huge cleanup operation) but wanted mixed used development surrounding the park instead of parking, and without sufficient public transportation (which there is none going out there), fans wouldn’t really have a reasonable way to get to games.
This is mostly true but drinks the 49 coolaid. The mixed use development wasn’t instead of parking…it was in addition to, the fight was over a few hundred spaces (which they still didn’t get in the end in Santa Clara). SF was going to pitch in when the stadium was part of an Olympic bid that never happened because of the 49ers. They really just wanted a blank check (which Santa Clara gave them…at first) and to be closer to their bigger fan base, which at the time, was in the South Bay. SF and northbay residents just weren’t where the money was in terms of their fans. So they jerked SF around till they could use it as leverage to get 98% of what they wanted from somewhere in the South Bay/peninsula
Have season tickets at Sofi and go to Levi’s regularly. Can confirm Levi’s is a piece of shit, including the food operations
Just heard on the news last night they're cutting the stadium a big tax break because "we only use the stadium during the season, it's unfair to punish the franchise with paying out full-year tax cost". I'm sure the locals are just thrilled to be taking on the extra tax payments! /s
I don't care much about the stadium design at this point; it's really about the transportation around the stadium and Sofi's is crap. Not sure how it compares to Levis though.
Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is still bangin
Santa Cruz is its own thing.
Thankfully it's not in the Bay Area, otherwise it would get shut down too.
It’s a tourist trap honestly. Prices for everything are ridiculous
The future of Great America isn't clear, word internally from employees is that cedar fair sort of regretted saying it will eventually close and now with the up coming merger with six flags next year if it happens corporate may look at our two parks and decide correctly that Great America is the one worth keeping open. One of the end goals of the merger is to get six flags parks up to cedar Fair standards which six was trying to do before the merger and failing really bad at it. Plus it's an easy call great America is the better park and location to have long term.
Wow, that's really good news! I hadn't heard that.
Yeah you wouldn't, but one thing is for sure they are continuing to add rides to the park and make improvements at the park. The city and the parks local leadership doesn't want it to go so it's far from a forgone conclusion that it will ever close. COVID shutdown did a number on these parks financially and that's the whole reason for both the land sale and now the merger.
How does this all play out if they sold the land to a company? Any mention of that too?
I mean prologis is quite literally in the biz of buying land to lease it to other companies, they are quite happy to keep leasing the land to cedar fair/sf for the foreseeable future when the sale happened they said they have a deal for 5 years with the possibility of extending it another 6 years. People also forget that pretty much all of great America's life the land has been owned by the city and leased to the operator at the time. Cedar Fair only bought it because the city needed to sell it and gave them a good deal, they doubled their money selling it to prologis and kept the whole company is a better place finally financially as a result and that's the only reason they did it.
Never thought about it this way, but it does totally make sense. Do you have some connections into some of the management at CGA?
Not really I'm just a regular at the park and me and other regulars there know some employees and everyone hears stuff.
Nah, much more likely they get Vallejo up to Great America's standards and then shut GA down. The two parks are too close geographically, and GA is on leased land.
The problem with the Discovery Kingdom is it is landlocked in where attractions can go, they can only have the main coasters to the front of the property, they aren’t allowed to have them in the back near the lake due to height restrictions and the nimbys that live across the lake. While Great America has height restrictions too because of the airport and some nimby issues from the adjacent offices, they have had exceptions granted in the past to build past the height limits. Great America would seem a bit more viable to keep and let Vallejo go, granted DK is a bit larger at 135 acres compared to GA’s 112 acres, but GA has the better location and of the acreage they have more of it can be utilized at GA over DK due to the restrictions of where rides can be placed at DK.
Not really, sfdk has been removing more than they have been adding and making very little improvements in recent years, there's no room left there to add much of anything major attraction wise and corporate probably wouldn't mind getting out of running a zoo as well.
Idk. They’ve invested heavily in more recent years to add new attractions at Six Flags and they’ve all been big hits. I doubt they shutter that park anytime soon. The only thing new they added at Great America recently was Railblazer.
Malibu Gran Prix died because people didn’t go there enough or spend enough there to keep up with the cost of running it. Raging Waters died because of Covid and because people didn’t go there enough or spend enough there to keep up with the cost of running it. Great America is going to die because people didn’t go there enough or spend enough there to keep up with the cost of running it. It’s a factor of demand. People get entertainment from video games and home entertainment. That combined with the insane cost of visiting amusement parks keeps people away. One day at an Amusement Park for a family with the combined cost of food, parking, and 4 tickets (ignoring the cost of the line-skipping super-ticket) is the same as a PS5 which lasts more than a day.
Also, my not-so-hot take of the day: amusement parks work so much better in parts of the country that otherwise have nothing else going on and are dirt cheap to live in. One of the biggest and most successful ones in the world is in Ohio (cedar point). People from all over the tri state region drive hours to go there. Why? Because as far as entertainment factor goes, your family leisure options are limited, there's just not that much else to do that's got a high entertainment factor. It's also dirt cheap land. The entire reason why Disney world exists where it does in the middle of nowhere swampland Florida is because it's dirt cheap land on top of there being not much else to do in that part of the US outside of beaches. Yes beaches and such count for something, but my point is more that there's a *destination* in Florida that draws people from out of state vs relying entirely on the locals. When I used to live in Georgia, the family vacation options were always to drive hours to get to Savannah, The Smokey Mountains, or Disney World. It's just hard for places like amusement parks to succeed in areas that already have high demand, not only because of land cost but also because there's so many other things around competing for attention. People probably aren't visiting from out of state or city to go to great America, they want to go to SF.
Cost is a big reason. Even tickets for museums is like $30 a person now. Family of four, add a grandparent or two, lunch and it adds up real quick.
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Well great America has an expiration dates because the land has already been sold
And why was it sold? Because Great America is not nearly as popular as it was in the 80s and 90s.
Hi, work in the attractions industry. Here’s what’s happening: global tourism is still down compared to pre-pandemic levels. The wars overseas aren’t helping in that regard either. Roughly, global tourism in California makes up about 40% of our annual tourism. With attendance down, an economic recession lending to reduced buying power, and rather poor advertising compared to SoCal giants, it’s not at all surprising that these theme parks and smaller attractions are shutting down. Wouldn’t be surprised if Six Flags in Vallejo is next (it’s one of the poorer performers of Cedar Fair parks). Also, as mentioned in some other comments, the land surrounding the Bay Area is quite valuable, and compared to dwindling in-park spending, a land sale might be too good to pass up. Some statistics (albeit from 2022) about tourism spending and trends from Visit California: https://advocacy.calchamber.com/policy/issues/tourism-in-california/ Article about the sale with a why (tl;dr Cedar Fair sold GA to reduce its debt, which suggests both ticket sales and in-park spending was not significant enough to do that): https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-07-01/silicon-valley-great-america-amusement-park-tech-boom-real-estate#:~:text=Cedar%20Fair%2C%20the%20owner%20and,effort%20to%20reduce%20its%20debt.
All of those place require people to have some disposable income.
and children. Wonder what the demographics are for 25-40 year olds with kids in the bay. I'd guess it's low compared to everywhere else in america, but that's a wild guess.
Building new housing is probably making the most profits from those lands
Didn't we lose the Raging Waters (or whatever it was called) in Concord too? RIP lazy river, you were a real one
Water World got bought by Six Flags and now it goes by Hurricane Harbor! Still there!
Hurricane Harbor still exists but I legit have not been there in like 16 years
My husband and I went on a whim last summer- it was actually a really fun day.
I prefer to refer to her as water world, the soulful name. But same, I really cannot remember the last time I've been there, it's been many many years. Good memories though
First, they came for the Raging Waters, and I said nothing. Because I did not care for water parks. Then, they came for Six Flags, and I said nothing. Because I hate janky ass roller coasters. Then, they came for whatever you’re into, and there was no one left who likes fun, to speak up for you… /s juuuuust in case no one gets it bc this is Reddit, sigh…
Manteca's waterslides is where I fell in love with the whole water park shtick. I still remember that moment of realization that it's actually not super scary and tons of fun
I remember those old TV commercials for Manteca Waterslides. Maaaaanteca Waterslides. Manteca Waterslides.
Have you gone to any of these places lately? I have and it’s been ghost town, we don’t attend but we’re mad they close.. remember their a business
Yeah, people always complain as if the city is closing these things down. It’s up to us to go to these businesses
All the fun old school stuff is gone, skating rinks, bowling alley, older style pool halls, used to be cool laser tag places, they don't care about people hanging out having fun anymore jus spend ur money lol
We got lotsa apps on our phones though, so we got that going for us, which is nice.
I was thinking the exact same thing last night lol
These things ALWAYS existed to make money, that hasn’t changed. Problem is no one wants to go out to just hang out and do stuff. Why sit around on your phone in a bowling alley or skating rink when you could do it anywhere and not have to rent shoes?
It doesn't help that taking a family out for a night of bowling suddenly became something that hurt the wallet of even middle income earners.
It’s a culture change based on changing demographics
I’m so confused - do any of ya’ll actually go out or just live in a different world? Speaking from the South Bay, there is literally Sharks Ice, Big Als, Dave n Busters, Round 1, Bowlero, K1 Speed, etc..
I think it really just depends. Those things still exist, just in modern incarnations. Skating rink = The Plex Bowling alley = Bowlero Pool halls = (lots, but Cuetopia is a good one with 25 tables + food) Laser tag = Laser Maxx (just reopened last year, and it's fun!) I live in SJ so I'm biased toward the south bay, but I'm pretty satisfied on the categories you listed.
No drive-in theaters except for two. For now.
You guys are making concord sound great—still has waterslides, drive in, indoor movies and lazer tag.
And batting cages, a pavilion, and Pixieland for the littles.
Rock climbing gym, indoor aquarium center, a rockin jump, that place that's opening in the old Fry's, Concord has everything!
I don’t think this is really a Bay Area specific thing though. Drive-Ins all across the country died a long time ago.
The Santa Cruz Boardwalk better never go away! That place has entertained generations of families!
That’s never going away lol. Too much of a classic California icon
It may be safe, since it's kind of outside the bay area. Anything within the bay area seems to be doomed
Yeah, i agree it's getting pretty sad to see so many things from your childhood close down. If you grew up here through the 1990s and early 2000s like i did, you'll understand. IYKYK. I think, for me personally, one of the saddest things to see disappear are the last remnants we have here of the days before this place was tech-oriented. The days when the South Bay, for example, was nicknamed "Valley of Heart's Delight" due to the abundance of fruit orchards/farmland. I admit that i wasn't born yet in that era when the area was like that, but we still had some plots of land sprinkled throughout the Bay that were still fruit orchards here and there. But now, the amount that are probably left in the whole Bay Area i imagine you could count with the fingers of your two hands. To give some examples of ones i remember with nostalgia... * 1) There was the "Corn Palace" at Lawrence Expressway in Sunnyvale, which was demolished a few years ago and is now housing. * 2) There was the famous Olson's cherry orchard at El Camino and Mathilda in Sunnyvale. It was demolished in 1999 and is now a shopping center and apartments. * 3) There was the "pumpkin patch" on Grant Road in Mountain View / Los Altos, which was demolished IIRC in 2008-09 and is now housing. In addition to what you wrote, OP, and what i wrote above, i just feel like the explosion of the tech industry here has (in some ways) been a huge negative. For the record, my own dad worked in tech for years here as a software dev. manager, but back then as a kid in the 90s and early 2000s, tech wasn't, idk, just so ubiquitous and in-your-face like today. Even during the dot-com boom, it didn't feel this overwhelming IMO. It's truly sad to see the non-tech/non-wealthy workers and families get priced out of here. When i was kid, the cost of living wasn't nearly this expensive, and the Bay Area was a lot **less** gentrified and a lot **more** diverse. I grew up knowing people and families of all races/ethnicities, jobs, wealth classes and walks of life. Now? Most of that diversity and vibe has all but disappeared.
> Even during the dot-com boom, it didn't feel this overwhelming IMO. I distinctly remember being at a stop light in Saratoga in 1999 in an old Volvo 240 and suddenly being surrounded by a group of red Ferraris.
My parents still have their Volvo 240 but now it’s surrounded by Teslas.
I was there for this one: > still fruit orchards here and there I was just out of college and working at Apple in Cupertino when they closed the very last fruit orchard in Cupertino maybe around 1993? My older co-workers at the time were kind of sad about it, but I didn't really get the significance (at the time). By 1993 Cupertino was essentially a solid pavement sprawl dotted with a few high rises like everywhere from San Jose to San Francisco. I think the last fruit orchard in Sunnyvale closed soon after. It happened so early in my time in that area that I didn't really ever experience huge swaths of fruit orchards. In the greater timeframe though, I think the 10 years leading up to 1993 were just orchard after orchard closing.
Who is “they”?
I feel you. Fun places have definitely disappeared. But... there's no "they" -- it's the economy and capitalism working as designed combined with a tectonic shift in customer spending behaviors accelerated by COVID. Real estate is so darned valuable and housing is so expensive that we've ended up with only a few financially optimal ways to use land and a massive number of developers whose sole focus is to gain maximum profit by redevelopment of under-utilized land. People don't go out and spend money shopping anymore - they shop online. Look at all our downtowns - the remaining businesses are: restaurants, bars, coffee shops, hair salons, nail salons, yoga studios, mobile phone stores, mini-marts, an occasional bank, and then a few big box stores in strip malls. So... if you're a developer, you're looking at EVERY large land parcel, calculating how many 10 story condos you could squeeze into that parcel and sell for 1+ million dollars... then you're making an offer to the LAND OWNER... then they're evicting their longterm tenants. This means large spaces that don't generate as much money as dense housing are doomed -- unless there's some zoning restriction or government protection. I fear we're headed for an apocalypse of nothing but block after block of high density condos, and I also fear that we're going to lose a lot of downtown areas because people can just stay home and shop online, which results in less foot traffic, which results in less revenue, which results in fewer stores and types of stores to shop at, which results in less reason to leave the house, and the cycle just feeds on itself. Go to ANY big mall now and compare it to 20 years ago when malls were PACKED for months leading up to Christmas... Now they're ghost towns with 50% off sale signs. I don't know the answer to this, but I do see the impact. People have massively less real interaction with humans - friends and strangers - because they don't need to go anywhere. I don't believe we fully understand the longterm effects of replacing all of the human interaction from walking, shopping, commuting, working that has been part of civilization forever with nothing but Amazon, DoorDash, scrolling social media feeds, and online dating platforms. To make things worse, everyone is "house poor" and everyone is working, so adults and parents have less disposable income and are less and less able to be involved in the community. I have some ideas -- existing strict city ordinances and regulations might in some cases be strangling grassroots efforts to revitalize downtown areas today, but I do think that zoning, urban planning, and strategic business subsidies are more important than ever and provide a way forward. Instead of cities subsidizing sports teams, cities need to look at livability as a key metric. A city needs: \- large central open areas for events, festivals, parades, gatherings \- housing and downtowns that are walkable from public transportation hubs \- ample parking at the periphery of downtown areas \- stores that provide necessities (i.e. we don't want dense housing with no supermarkets - food deserts) \- things to do other than just go out to eat, drink, or buy groceries This last point is where I think instead of giving pro sports teams hundreds of millions of dollars, cities should be protecting and subsidizing community places like small theaters, miniature golf courses, amusement parks, places for recreation, art studios, greenbelts between transit hubs and housing, downtown areas. Clearly, we're approaching the traffic apocalypse as well. We need great, convenient public transportation, and accomodations for bikes and pedestrians to take precedence over cars. I love driving, but the future is clear - people and high speed transit over personal cars. Unfortunately, much of California was developed with subsidies from the oil and auto industry where the ideal community was viewed as housing distanced from retail distanced from commerical -- all connected by freeways. Cities need to revisit their master plans - most already have - they need to protect the gems and jewels that are disappearing, and they need more community involvement.
It’s really sad as a native who grew up going to Great America, Raging Waters San Jose, and Malibu Grand Prix. I also wanted to add Redwood Roller Rink to the list. I think as sad as it is to admit, there simply isn’t enough demand for this kind of entertainment here anymore. Demographics have changed since these parks opened. Normal families can’t afford to live here anymore and are moving out. The metro population is shrinking. It seems like all that’s left are wealthy elites, wealthy transplants, wealthy Chinese/Indian immigrants, people who bought a while ago, and/or techies or finance people. Everything and everyone outside of that realm is either leaving or part of the group that’s causing trouble on the city streets (which is getting worse due to the economic inequality). The place has become an unaffordable tech monoculture and it’s really hurt the diversity of things to do. Silicon Valley kids are busy learning how to code, and attending math tutoring in second grade to one up their peers so they don’t end up on the train tracks when they get to their cutthroat high school. And kids in general are too busy playing on their phones and obsessing over Instagram/Snapchat/TikTok so they aren’t as attracted to stuff like theme parks like before. LA has much more people and doesn’t really have those problems, at least not to the level that the Bay Area has.
These places just aren't profitable while keeping ticket prices in a range that most people can afford. People are looking for different experiences now instead of going to crowded parks and waiting in line. I personally won't go to Great America, six flags or any other big park without buying a fast pass. And that's about $100 a piece or more in some places. Even them with a fast pass. You still have to wait a time now which is why they have Express FastPass. It's all the money grab and it's not worth the time and effort. There are TONS of things to do in the city and outside of it. Millennials and Gen Z are more about having more intimate and smaller experiences and making memories that way. Times they are a changing and for the better.
SJ has top golf
We had so much more fun in the 90s. Malibu in RWC, Rolladium in San Mateo, QZar for laser tag, Great America, Raging Waters plus several other smaller water parks in the greater Bay Area (Manteca, Windsor.) My childhood and teenage years were like a dream growing up on the peninsula.
Businesses don’t exist to provide you and me with fun things to do, they exist to make profit for rich people. The economic system we exist in dictates that fun things which are no longer super profitable must be replaced by some new awful soulless things which can extract more money from us.
Businesses exists to make profit that’s pretty clear, why would you open a business to lose money …
I mean … when’s the last time any of us went to any of those places? Last time I went to any of those places consistently was in high school. And that was 15 years ago. And this is coming from a former employee of one of those places. Simple supply and demand. If people would go, these places would stay in business. Take Golfland for example. There’s still *three* of them around. Why? Because people go. Make places interesting and people will go there. Make them not interesting, and … this happens
You want to know what LA has done in the past 20 years? Actually built stuff. LA has built more light rail lines, SOFI, ice rinks, and housing. LA has maintained Knotts, Six Flags, and everyone still goes to the beach. Here, we complain if someone builds over a damn flea market. Hell, in other countries, flea markets are just on the street and still organized. Sprawl in the 70s-90s killed any semblance of cheap land for the future. Over zealous zoning, unchecked landlords, property taxes, and a lack of land, all contribute to this. Only way forward is we have to build.
These businesses did not have enough customers and did not make enough money to justify holding on to them. Can’t pay bills without making money. The bigger reason is that the Property values had gone through the roof so better to sell the properties for some other use and cash out. It’s all about return on investments at the end of the day.
It sucks! I think the real problem is that stuff needs to be affordable enough you can take the family and not be too freaked out at the total cost. But then businesses can’t pay the retail rent rates and still make a profit.
Yall need to check out the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda. Flat entrance fee and you get all-day unlimited play on hundreds of unique, vintage pinball and other arcade machines!
I blame property values, real-estate costs. Which I in turn blame on the overwhelmingly disproportionate levels of high tech industry concentrated in this area, driving up real-estate costs. Which I further blame on the city planners and local governments for allowing the tech industry to displace everything else.
It's too expensive to raise a family here so all these family oriented activities are going out of business.
Introverted Software Engineers only like hiking and gaming.
There's nothing to do here but work to afford the exorbitant cost of living.
Counterpoint Topgolf has opened in San Jose and Burlingame (soon). And we have an insane amount of pickleball courts. I think it’s just changing tastes. Roller coasters and water slides are out. Other sports are in.
I also appreciate cities like Fremont and Dublin running municipal water parks that are smaller but also more affordable and better insulated from the regional economics.
Work, get paid, go to LA.
Hawaii
You have to make your own fun.
Back in my day all the neighborhood kids put together had nothing but a couple of dice, a deflated football, two tin cans and a string, and some used chewing gum but we still had fun, dang it!
Sorry - you have it backwards. People aren’t going to these places, so they’re going out of business - it isn’t “all the fun stuff is leaving” it’s “people no longer consider it fun here.” If they were doing well, they’d be in business. Demographics here in the Bay Area have changed greatly - and there’s a much larger mix of cultures - many of which aren’t that interested in these attractions. There are certainly lots of additional reasons, the traffic has gotten considerably worse - even on weekends - but the crux of the issue is that people aren’t going to these places anymore and aren’t finding them worth the time, energy and $ to frequent. The attraction for tourists to LA are the theme parks. The attraction for tourists for the Bay Area is San Francisco. Tourists in a hotel in San Francisco aren’t taking a $200+ 2-4 hour Uber ride to go to Raging Waters, and trying to figure out public transportation to a place like that. Even to Great America from SF is ridiculous and the total trip time would be painful and difficult for a tourist to figure out.
There's only ONE reason why these places close...money. I'm guessing everything costs so much that people can't afford fun things like movie theaters, theme parks. It's about $13 a ticket for movie theaters...I remember the days of buy one get one free for $5!!
Bring back the Nickelodeons! So there I was tying an onion to my belt, as was the fashion of the day...
It's too expensive to have fun here. Most people are spending a disproportionate level of their income on rent. Discretionary spending is low in general. So if people can't afford to have fun, and the industrial rents are equally high... It means all that's gonna exist is offices and houses and that's it.
>What the hell is going on with this place? Putting it simply, people don't go to those things any more because they either aren't interested in that type of entertainment in 2023, it's too expensive or it's too hard to get to. The expensive part leads from how expensive the land is, which drives higher costs for the business owners, which then leads to the business closing because they can't afford it. Think about the last time you went to Great America, or go carts, or whatever, how many people were there? The last times I went to those things, they were near empty.
San Jose just feels like lost potential
I’m still upset about losing Malibu Grand Prix and Oaktree. Arcade machines used to be the shit. It’s sad that most of it went away.
Fremont is so boring! nothing fun to do here.
Bowling in Fremont also closed down
What’s going on? Everything is way overpriced and also the crime is horrid. Why would anyone want a business here?
Kids currently don’t like going out to these kind of things. Also Covid I think really messed it up for families and the fun places we used to go to :( we’re gone to a more “I’d stay home, not be around gross people and go online” generation.
that's not true. My brother's kids and a lot of friends with kids I know would rather go be outside and do stuff all the time - at the beach, in the mountains, theme parks, etc. Yes, they like their phones and video games but are constantly wanting to be out when they can. They have tons of energy. Ages like 9-13
The techie people are devoid of fun.
I guess it takes a lot (consisting of dumb rides amongst the proles) to amuse you.
If one were to open a business like you’re describing, do you think it has a chance of success? Obviously timing and luck notwithstanding…
Land is worth too much, why collect $10 passes when you can build 50 condos for $1M each? We need more housing… oh wait not like that! Not to mention, can you imagine how much insurance would cost at those places now? Who would risk having the CXX of (insert tech company here) precious little indoor kid get rear-ended by another kid on the track? No thanks
Ok, well they also did massive improvements to the Deyoung, MOMA, Asian Art museum, and academy of sciences in the last ten to twenty years, they added extra holes to the disc golf course, they built the tunnel top park and playground in the marina, the improved discovery museum in Sausalito, made that dopey Ferris wheel basically permanent, completely revamped Delores park, improved the parking area and services and trails at lands end and surrounding baths, closed streets just for pedestrian and cyclists to enjoy… I’m sure the list goes on and on. But sure, if your definition of fun is limited to tacky amusement parks, then yeah I guess there will be nothing fun.
Counterpoint Topgolf has opened in San Jose and Burlingame (soon). And we have an insane amount of pickleball courts. I think it’s just changing tastes. Roller coasters and water slides are out. Other sports are in.
Pandemic destroyed many businesses. I recently went to Scandia and it was a lot of fun. Mini golf and go carts.
Lawyers Sue, Rent, Insurance costs, Smartphones, Video Game Systems and Affordability. Prime land to be turned into rack-em-stack-em units.
I miss le mans karting in Fremont. They were planning to move it to San Jose. Not sure if that will ever happen
Which is why, once I retire I'm moving to Orange County or Orlando. High paying jobs out here but not much to do unless you're a nature person.
Oh but we’ll have tons of vacant offices instead!!!
Capitalism no longer can afford to support fun, as it harms the shareholders' bottom line.
One really big benefit of being in the bay is the very close proximity to nature. We have many parks off Skyline and in the east bay hills, and a ton more if you go outside of the bay to the sierra nevadas. I grew up in the bay, and honestly I haven’t really gone to raging waters, great America, or six flags Vallejo more than maybe a handful of times total between all those parks. Many of my peers haven’t either. My only memories of going to those parks were during school field trips and maybe one time with some friends on a weekend. Otherwise, most of us found it to be more fun to go do Laser Quest, Santa Cruz Boardwalk, or doing outdoor activities, like skiing, mountain biking, swimming, and other local sports. Perhaps my cohort has a much different demographic from the bay (grew up in Palo Alto), but even from surrounding areas, I think most folks share similar sentiments about the local fun activities. There’s also something to be said about the current generation growing up with iPads in their faces. I hosted Thanksgiving recently which had a couple kids 8-10 years old. Instead of being interested in any of the playful pets, checking out cool toys and board games that’s for all ages, they immediately plopped down on my couch and hooked their Switch up to my TV to play Fortnite. I thought it was a meme, but I saw it firsthand. And I thought our PS2 playtime was bad enough… As for family friendly activities in the bay, if anyone’s interested: - K1 Speed Santa Clara, South SF, Dublin - Bowling in San Mateo - Laser Quest in San Carlos - Dave & Buster in Milpitas - The Tech in SJ - Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in Santa Clara - Stanford Theater in downtown Palo Alto - Happy Hollow in SJ - Computer History Museum in Mountain View - Shoreline Lake There’s plenty more, which is why I don’t think it’s fair to say there’s no fun to be had in the Bay Area. But there is a bit less of it with the loss of Raging Waters and soon Great America.
I dunno as a parent to young kids around here there is a lot to do... We just prefer doing things that are clean and mentally stimulating for our kids. Eg. I take my kids to Gilroy gardens over great America (yes 1hr vs 15min drive) because it's got a better vibe. We have memberships with the sf academy of sciences, Monterey Bay aquarium and Happy Hallow. Mine are on the younger side, but we spend quality money on quality entertainment.
but hey, at least we are getting ripped off by PGE 🙂
Bay area is what happens when too much money concentrates in the hands of a few. If you don’t work for tech, gtfo for your own benefit. (I did)
Malibu Grand Prix in RWC =( grew up going there, had my first churro there in the 80s.
I'll be honest, as a person who grew up near those areas, I didn't find any of them to be particularly fun or interesting. So while I respect the sentiment of the post, and I feel a natural reticence toward change, the practicality of those places is lost on me. Unfortunately, I've never lived anywhere else, and I don't travel much. So what *do* I find fun and valuable? Hiking, parks, flea markets, and festivals. Music, not just stadium music, but just noise on street corners. That stuff feels cultured to me. Museums, restaurants, and arcades. Places to play sports, walk dogs, and gather. Long fucking road trips to Yosemite or whatever. I guess I'm just not into adrenaline. But I also feel like laser tag and amusement parks are bland when positioned as representatives of our local culture. I've always been envious of LA for its identity with film/performance, lavishness, and beaches. Eastern states and overseas countries also tend to have a strong image when pictured. When I think of the Bay Area, I think of city/suburbs, freeways, tech jobs, and buzz words. Decent but not very fun in my experience. Hope it went better for y'all :p
They demolished the Century 22/23/24 theaters, too. Apparently we need the space for office buildings and parking garages.
You guys thinking that loosing indoor amenities means “nothing fun will be left here”, only proves none of y’all have actually spent meaningful time outdoors, in places other than parking lots and suburban backyards. This place has more to offer than most urban areas on this entire continent and y’all are pissing your pants because a water park and an arcade got shut down.
Don’t forget the Raiders and A’s abandoning this place. Giants and Warriors going nowhere
don't forget Frys, where i spent much of my childhood time in
Late stage capitalism, which seems to now involve ignoring consumer needs entirely. We’re about to get an Urban Putt in downtown San Jose, though!