July/Aug 2003
MARKHAM ROLLER RINKMarkham, ILTHREE DECADES OF BLACK OWNERSHIP Black owned skating rinks are a rarity in America and estimates are that there are less than 15 of them in the entire country. One of those few is Markham Roller Rink in Markham Illinois which has been family owned and operated for 30 years. Steve Miller is very proud of the rink his father started decades ago and is not far out of touch with day to day rink operations. Many times you will find him working the cashier window, greeting customers as they pay to enter the rink and if you call for information or assistance during a session, his is the voice you will often hear answering the phone. That’s part of the dedication he has towards the business and doing what it takes to keep it successful. His schedule is quite full because in addition to having charge of the rink, he has a successful law practice with his sister and also serves as the City Attorney of Markham “It’s just a matter of organization. You’ve got to be very organized to do what I’m doing, practicing law for 20 years, doing the rink 30 years, you’ve got to be really disciplined...you can’t waste any time, “ he said. TRAITS OF SUCCESSFUL OWNERS Other qualities he believes are necessary to run a successful rink are dedication, patience, strength and perseverance, because a person cannot decide to quit after a few weeks, years or decades. Many black owned rinks have gone out of business over the years and Steve thinks the main reasons for that are owners lacking the above traits, under capitalization, bad location, poor product or horrible service. “A lot of things factor into it, but you have to have a desire that cannot be deterred in any way. You have to make the business work.” Even though he has been the primary decision maker at Markham the last few years, it is still a family business and his 70 year old parents still come in to help out occasionally, as well as his wife and other relatives. They have no interest in expanding to a chain of rinks and Steve can’t imagine doing so mainly because the thought is completely unappealing to him. He also knows that it would take away the little bit of time he has to spend at home. He sees little reason to expand as long as Markham continues to improve. GREAT LOCATION Markham is blessed to be located near Chicago and in relatively short driving distance from places like Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. The populations of those combined areas is in the millions and that produces a large market of skaters. Chicago is known for its large number of R&B skaters who can take advantage of opportunities to skate most any morning, evening or night of the week. Steve feels that the climate is one of the biggest reasons why roller skating is so popular in the Chicago area. “We have fairly mild winters and short summers, so people are not away from [the rink] so much. They are away from it for enough time to do some other things, but before you know it, Labor Day is here and people are back inside...Anytime you keep them inside, that is good because the business is weather driven.” He hopes the industry continues to grow and that there will be increased promotion of the sport inside and outside the Black community. A push from a few high profile celebrities is what is needed in order for that to happen. “There has never been anybody to push it - a big name. If you could get Michael Jordan on a pair of skates, Tiger Woods or Beyonce, people that kids look up to, you would have kids running all over trying to buy skates,” he said. Q&A WITH STEVE Q. What sets your rink apart
from others?
Ideas such as the Midnight Ramble, which was a Friday Midnight skate. No one in the country was talking about midnight skating, most Chicago rinks thought it was ungodly to be skating after 10:00 at night. We took it to the next level and went two nights, Friday and Saturday Midnight Ramble was a staple, we had most of the Chicago DJs at that time spinning for us. They’d leave the radio station and come work for us because the radio stations went off at dark back in the day. You didn’t have 24 hour FM radio, you had daylight radio. It got so big that we used to go until 4:00 am and after that we stayed open until 5:00 am, this was back in the 70s and 80s. Everybody enjoyed it including the businesses who benefitted as a result - gas stations stayed open 24 hours, White Castle, all the food places benefitted from it. Many of the people who skated have gone on to be successful, a lot of them are doctors, lawyers, TV personalities, ball players- they all grew up and skated at Markham Roller Rink. If you come to Chicago and ask people what they did when they were kids, the first thing they will tell you is ‘we used to take a bus out to Markham.’ School busses would pick up kids at the big intersections in town and bring them out. It was a big thing. We drew from Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, they came from everywhere and many nights we had to turn them away, we just couldn’t get them all in. Other unique things, we had a live DJ when most rinks didn’t have that, they had hokey-pokey and a woman playing the organ or they had tapes. No other rink ever had 2 floors until we came along, we started off with the birthday parties at the rink, back then we had separate rooms set aside for a child where nowadays we can have up to 5 different parties throughout the building. We started the morning session for adults. Most people have to go to work during the day but we have enough of a market that we have skating for the adults. We had ladies morning for a long time, nothing but the women who would bring their kids, park the strollers and skate. We were the first rink to successfully have busses coming out and schools booking on a regular basis. We had schools who booked once a month for 2-3 years in a row and that was a big deal. We never really advertised but we always seemed to get people to come by. We’ve had everybody from the Vice President, Jesse Jackson, all the way down to Muhammad Ali and just about anybody who came through town has been here. When Jesse ran for President he gave a speech here, we held a Jesse-for-President Day. Lil Bow-Wow was here just last year. Every now and then we get people to call and sometimes we turn them down just because of the logistics or the time they want to come. We have a disco, which goes on while skating goes on, so we have a disco going full of kids, a floor full of kids and a small rink full of kids, separate concession stands. We’ve got two wide screen TVs when most rinks don’t have one, people who don’t’ want to skate can watch TV. Just a number of things that seemingly started with us. Q. When did your Sunday morning,
25+, set start?
We moved from a lot of young and middle aged people who had all that
energy to be out late, to people who now were more middle aged and did
not desire to be out late at night, so we found a way to accommodate those
people. In other words, the session grew and matured just the
way people did.
RINK LOCATION/DETAILS Markham Roller Rink
OTHER CONTACT INFO: Miller & Ellison Law Firm
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