Have been reading here for long time, first post. Way in the loss column now. Not at all my desire to bring things down, but need to post this alert. My cash losses on this stock are not large since my initial was very conservative, but the drop has been drastic for me. Nothing more to lose, really. If I had more at stake, for selfish reasons perhaps would hold back on this dreary assessment.
Since I live in LA, I know well the locations of both UWinks. The one in Woodland Hills I saw once. In an unpopular mall that's being overshadowed by a very huge and successful one just next door. Business I saw there was good enough about a year ago to get me to invest. Haven't been back.
But THIS REPORT IS ABOUT HOLLYWOOD AND HIGHLAND location.
Went there about 2 weeks ago on a Saturday, late afternoon round 5pm. The center where it's located is right adjacent to the Chinese Theater, a huge draw for tourists and visitors, not so much for locals. There is a regular circus on the sidewalk in front of the place, since it’s tourist central for Hollywood visitors. Parking's a bit of hassle, it's crowded, deep down subterranean, and most residents don't go there unless for a special event like concert at the Kodak auditorium.
The mall itself is outdoors, about four stories high, with structure surrounding an interior plaza. It feels claustrophobic slighty, and kind of appocolypse Hollywood if you know what I mean. Splashy-trashy kind of. Tons of people when we were there. Might have been due to a big Celine Dion free concert scheduled for that evening.
When I and a friend entered UWink, it was very empty and dead feeling, sorry to say. In fact, I do honestly regret what I have to report here, but it's true.
The place felt neglected compared to the other tourist-oriented restaurants. Because of the wall projections, there are few windows and it's kind of dim. During daylight the wall projections are washed out.
They had a long bar-like eating area? that had a $30,000 kind of screen surface that you could touch and the pattern on the surface responds to your fingers or hand. But it doesn't do much exciting, graphically. No one there but me even approached it. An employee said, "can you imagine, $30k (it could have been $25k) for that thing and half the time it's not even working. Not good sign. Also not good for employees to pass on to customers neg info.
Employees were friendly, very helpful and engaging. Found that it took much longer for someone to get us up to speed on using the table terminal than it would have taken to take half a dozen orders.
I found the screen unit un-modern looking. A flat panel would have looked more cool. It wasn't particularly clean since it had greasy finger smears on both the metal and screen.
I wasn't thrilled w the idea to touching where who knows who else had touched, then picking up a sandwich or burger.
We were there during happy hour. Drinks were fair and $4. Normal price is about $8-11 and even more I believe.
Second drink ordered never came. Had to reorder, though didn't know if it was just late, and reordering would trigger an additional drink. Was told by employee that their bar tender had JUST WALKED OUT ON THEM and that's why the drink was delayed. Customers shouldn't be told this!!!
And what does it mean that a bar tender just walks out??? This is not a good sign, but provides good info that most customers would not know. But since I did, I'm passing on the info. What does this say about employee employer relations? Hard to say, but the restaurant was definitely NOT pumping. The bar tender couldn't have been over worked. Why'd he/she just walk in the midst of a shift?
Games were pretty lame. Was not able to figure out how to play one with my friend across the table, not to mention with anyone else there or elsewhere.
I am totally used to computers. Just couldn't make the games work well. Didn't ask for help.
Shared something called a brisket stuffed burger with friend, plus fries. Friend wanted this odd burger. Ate my half but didn't love it. Too salty. And what's with a brisket stuffed burger anyway.
Fires were good.
Paying check was easy. Split was easy. Tipping was easy. You can click the percent time you want to pay and it adds onto the bill. Easy just to adjust it up or down to get the exact tip amount you want. And you can also easily use the tip to round up the tab so that it comes out to an exact amount like $20, versus $19.25 or whatevs.
The crowd at the place was all over the place, which was prob due to the concert, which wasn't slated to start for a couple of hours. That the mall was buzzing with peops, of the perfect demo for UWink, with the restaurant pretty quiet, was not encouraging.
Other eating establishments were doing much much better. It was 5-530, dinnertime. Should have been stronger business. Part of problem is that during daylight it's dreary inside. No windows to speak of. Rooms look kind of unadorned. Maybe at night, better.
I can see why folks would be drawn to other places that looked and were much more happening.
Staff seemed somewhat jaded, and as mentioned, rather quick to share neg info with customer, which tells me that frustration and unhappiness are in the equation.
Also felt that the terminals were intrusive to across the table conversation. They just sit there, directly in front of your across the table date or friend. You could throw a napkin over it if you wanted not to be distracted. But you can't turn it off. In my opin, they should at least be able to slide to the side, or even better, to drop out of sight when not needed.
They also continually change display, which takes away from convo. Even found myself fooling with it for no reason, and even when didn't particularly want to. But it was there and my finger reached out to play with this or that till I finally stopped myself. It's distracting.
Also thought some of the graphics were kind of basic. However, the info on the dishes was helpful. Though I think I prefer a menu, because then you can just look over all the things available with a glance or two. With the terminal, you must click back and forth over and over again to figure out what you want, esp if you've never seen the menu before.
I can imagine if crowded, it would be loud. Music also playing in bg at times a little too intrusive. Flat screen TVs around are tuneable, but when friend asked for a unit near us on wall to show specific show (baseball game) they tried but couldn't make it happen.
I doubt I'd ever even think of going back even if there for an event. So many more places, some more sophisticated, some less expensive. And as said earlier, this is a place for one-timer tourist type folks. We were there mid summer, when that traffic is highest since Hwd and esp Hwd Blvd is jam full of visitors this time of year.
So if not now, height of tourist season, on a Friday (I bleeve) at dinnertime, with a club and concert crowed filling the place.... if not then, then when?
Also, it's on the third floor, so it's not exactly the first place you see, or easiest to find.
Based on my experience I'd honestly drop my few shares, if I weren’t down so low that it makes no sense to get out now. So I'm riding w you, amigos, and will now go back to weeding through the various irrelevant posts her re "click on this" or this dude's a dweeb buthole, for the relevance. Apologies for the less than positive review. I wanted to love it more.
But if I were on the other side, reading this I'd be grateful for some on the scene reporting, and I would dump if I could. Hope I'm wrong, and that the software play will being in some $, or that the Mountain View will do great, and that this may/could improve, but not seeing it from where I stand.
Final thought, though already stated. The terminal was unattractive and unmodern looking, distracting and hokey when not being used, with games that don’t amount to much, and somewhat unintuitive, esp if you want to compete with friend. And I didn’t like the idea that I had to touch where who knows how many others had put there greasy fingers. I saw the grease marks and it wasn’t appetizing. I found I thought about that a few times after, in a negative way. Hey, maybe it’s just me.
AI
