Canaan
On Thursday nights there was a cribbage tournament, Friday was set aside for karaoke and an all-you-can eat buffet dinner and Saturday night was when the bands showed up to rock the house.
And then there were the male strippers.
Alas, no longer. The Factory Fun Zone, a hangar-size building on Route 4 in Canaan and beacon of Grafton County nightlife that housed the entertainment and dining venues Mountain Meadow Funplex, Mountain Meadow Sports Bar & Restaurant, The Cool Zone and Pinnacle Room, has closed as its owner said she couldn’t sustain ongoing financial losses.
“Over the past year it’s just been everything,” said Jennifer Barton, the general manager who opened the Factory Fun Zone in 2009 in the 30,000-square-foot structure that had once been a valve manufacturing plant, about what led her family to shut the doors on May 28. “Expenses exceeded income, we had a limited budget, property taxes were increasing, the cost of advertising was rising. We just had to come together and make a decision that was best for the family.”
The building and 40-acre parcel is now listed for sale at $1 million — or $1.3 million when the facility’s equipment is included — through Century 21 Energy Shield Realty in Lebanon. Harold Sheeler, the agent representing the property, said that if the next owners do not want to reopen the business then the structure could be converted into a warehouse, office space or performance center.
The Factory Fun Zone is the second big leisure venue on the same stretch of Route 4 to be put up for sale this year as traditional location-based recreation continues to lose a younger generation of customers to entertainment offered through mobile phones and the internet. Four miles to the west, in Enfield, the future of Great View Roller Skating remains uncertain as the 16,000-square-foot structure and four acres are on the block with an asking price of $850,000. Both follow the closing of the bowling alley and video arcade Upper Valley Lanes and Games on Sykes Mountain Avenue in White River Junction in 2015.
Something for Everyone
Since taking over what had been called the Competition Complex eight years ago, Barton moved to expand a hodgepodge of activities all available under a single roof — one commentator on Yelp described the Factory Fun Zone as “a little Wally Worldish and over the top” — that featured miniature golf, a toddler play yard, a gyro machine, batting cages, a spiral slide, an activity field, a climbing wall, video arcade game machines, a mini movie theater and mini basketball court.
For the grownups, Barton opened a restaurant and bar lounge fitted out with four golf simulators with giant high-definition video screens programmed with 25 golf courses from around the world. She opened the 22-table Pinnacle Room decorated with reproduction of oil paintings in a “New York gallery style” motif for large-party events such as wedding receptions.
Scott Trombley, who worked as the head chef at the Mountain Meadow Sports Bar & Restaurant for three years, said the emphasis was always on home-style cooking and a typical Saturday night would have him and his assistant, Ryan Batten, of Canaan, prepare 30 or more meals. For the Friday night buffet, Trombley said, he made it a point to canvas customers beforehand to find out what they’d like, and he’d get back to the kitchen and make the dish.
“One night we had an anniversary and the family was Italian and they had their own homemade recipes they wanted me to use,” Trombley said. The recipe was for a stuffed pork loin and chicken dish that he later incorporated into a one of the buffet selections.
Customer favorites? “We had barbecue chicken nachos, that was big. The prime rib was always huge. And the buffalo chicken wings — we’d bake them first, season them with teriyaki, then before we’d serve them we’d fry them up — were definitely a big hit,” he said.
For karaoke, Barton turned to Green Mountain Entertainment, of Springfield, Vt., to provide the DJs, playlists on a laptop and sound equipment. Brad Aubin, a quality-control manager at glassware maker Simon Pearce who fields a team of three DJs at nights and on the weekends, said most restaurants and clubs that offer karaoke cannot afford to have their own in-house system, so they contract with an outside company provide the service.
At Mountain Meadow, Aubin said, he’d typically count about 25 singers on a Friday night, with their requests running to “mostly country and classic rock.”
“It was a very friendly place,” Aubin said. “We never had any issues there like you sometimes have, people rude from too much drinking. It was a good crowd. … I wish they were staying open.”
A Few of the Highlights
Explaining the Factory Fun Zone to strangers, with its menagerie of entertainment offerings, could present a challenge, said Jen Argent, who worked there for just over two years as the assistant manager.
“I always said the best way to describe it is it’s a little bit of everything,” she said. “There’s something for kids. Something for families. Something for adults. Anything you wanted to do, you could do there.”
Argent got her job at the Factory Fun Zone after she impressed Barton with her organization and people skills when making reservations for her daughter’s 13th birthday party. She did everything from “bookkeeping, marketing, managing social media, bartending, and waitressing,” and also was responsible for booking the bands on Saturday nights.
Some of the highlights, Argent said, included a live comedy performance by Gilbert Gottfried in November 2015, country singer James Otto in January 2016, and a holiday party with New England cover band Last Kid Picked in December 2016. “We got over 300 people. They brought one of the highest attendance we ever had,” she said.
For big music events, Argent said, the venue shifted from the Mountain Meadow bar and lounge to the Pinnacle Room and it was there that they would present “male review” striptease shows like “Magic Mike” and “50 Shades of Men.”
“Those were the funniest shows we ever did,” Argent said. “The ladies loved that. The last one we did in February. We found them online. It went over really well. … One lady grabbed the microphone and yelled, “My husband is not here! I’m going home!”
But, over the past year, Argent said she’s seen a decline in business, especially that aimed at younger customers. “Kids don’t like to do physical activities as much as they used to,” she said, adding they often appeared more interested in their phones than in playing on the equipment. “Their life is free Wi-Fi,” Argent said.
Barton, the general manager, called the Factory Fun Zone “a tight-knit community. People walked in there and felt at home.” The decision to close, she said, was strictly a financial one.
“Obviously, if we’d been making bank, we’d be open,” she said.
Barton, who previously managed the Chieftain Motor Inn in Hanover, said the hospitality business is demanding and she may take some time off before figuring out what she will do next. But it might involve some personal unwinding for a change.
“For 17 years I’ve not had a job where I could wake up on a Saturday morning and say, ‘Hey, let’s go to the beach!’ ”
John Lippman can be reached at jlippman@vnews.com.
