THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 58 NOVEMBER 13, 2019
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HangoutsPeak TV as Pop-Up Eateries:
‘It’s a Whole New Business Model’
Fans quaffing the ‘Rachel’ latte, snacking at Fleabag’s cafe and consuming Breaking Bad Heisenburgers
are part of a trend capitalizing on millennial nostalgia to drive millions in revenue By Lindsay WeinbergW
hen Warner Bros.
teamed with Coffee
Bean and Tea Leaf this
summer to turn two Los Angeles
coffee shops into the Friends cafe
Central Perk for the show’s 25th
anniversary, the lines were out
the door for 12 hours a day of the
weeklong experience.
Fans snapped selfies
on the iconic orange
couch and ordered
“The Monica” mocha
cold brew or “The
Rachel” matcha latte. (For the
monthlong Friends pop-up in
New York City, the waitlist saw
150,000 people.) And ahead of
season three of Stranger Things in
July, Netflix and Baskin-Robbins
transformed a Burbank ice cream
store into the show’s retro Scoops
Ahoy eatery, where fans waited
for three hours to enjoy a USS
1 Breaking Bad
Experience in
WeHo.
2 ”The One
Who Knocks”
cocktail
with Aaron
Paul and Bryan
Cranston’s
Dos Hombres
mezcal.
3 Show
references in
the decor.4 Baskin-Robbins
partnered with Netflix
for Stranger Things
pop-up Scoops Ahoy.
5 USS Butterscotch
sundae.Butterscotch sundae. The shop
sold more than 34,000 scoops of
ice cream over 12 days.
Such pop-ups — which
bring to life a beloved televi-
sion show through a restaurant
experience for mostly millen-
nials and Gen Zers — have been
deployed by a growing number
of networks and studios to
create buzz around such series
as CBS TV Studios’ Beverly
Hills, 90210, NBC’s Saved by the
Bell, Amazon’s Fleabag, Sony’s
Breaking Bad, Nickelodeon’s All
That and Pop TV’s Schitt’s Creek.
It turns out that capitalizing
on generational preferences
for Instagram-friendly experi-
ences not only fuels anticipation,
but also generates revenue and
awards conversation.
Derek Berry is the creator of
pop-ups Saved by the Max (Thewith $30 tickets, covering entry,
a drink and a food item (like the
Heisenburger Sliders or Loaded
SAULsa Nachos). Says Berry:
“We’ve been sold out since open-
ing night, and guests are staying
longer [for] the interactive side of
the food and beverage program.”
Berry, who outsources some of
the pop-up execution to a builder
and a chef (Eggslut’s Alvin Cailan
for Good Burger, Michelin-starred
Brian Fisher for Saved by the Max),
is seeing a big uptick in interest.
“In [recent] months, Nickelodeon,
Fox and Sony reached out and
said, ‘We have these really cool
IPs. Would you be interested in
[doing] a pop-up?’ ” Berry says.
The event marketer pays a modest
licensing fee to the network and
later shares in the revenues. “We
win or lose together if the concept
is a dud,” Berry says. He retains
an “open-ended partnership” withMax was a cafe on Saved by the
Bell), Good Burger (name of the
All That experience, based on a
comedy sketch) and Peach Pit (the
hangout on 90210 ). Though Berr y
declines to provide any metrics,
his company, also called Saved
by the Max, likely hosted about
200,000 people (given a capac-
ity of 356 people six days a week)
over two years starting in 2016,
first in Chicago then in L.A. At
$40 per ticket, that would mean
as much as $8 million in ticket
sales. This summer, Good Burger
hosted an estimated 15,000 fans
over three months, which would
net about $450,000 in sales with
a $30 ticket price. And while
the Friends and Stranger Things
experiences were free, Sony
Pictures Consumer Products
teamed with Berry to create a
Breaking Bad Experience, which
opened Oct. 16 in West Holly wood$8M
Estimated ticket sales for the
Saved by the Bell pop-up150,000
People who were on the waitlist
for the NYC Friends pop-up34,150
Scoops of ice cream sold at the
Stranger Things pop-up600
People per day expected at
Schitt’s Creek pop-upBY THE NUMBERS
THE LUCRATIVE APPEAL
OF FAN-FAVE T V POP-UPS$$$
Berry1324
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