Dinner’s On!

Focus: Sun Valley Beach, Powder Springs, Ga.

Wayne Powell was helping put on the Family Night Dinners at Sun Valley Beach long before he and his wife owned the waterpark, which is about 20 miles west of Atlanta in Powder Springs, Ga.
“We were friends with the previous owner,” says Powell’s wife, Ann. “My husband would come out and flip burgers. If he had a big party and was short a cook, Wayne would help him out. I would sit on the beach and daydream about what I would do if I owned this place.”

Two years ago, ready for a change from their careers in banking, the Powells did become the owners of the park, not to mention the Family Night Dinners, which were too popular to give up.

Patrons who come in after 4 p.m. on Thursdays only pay $10 to use the waterpark and enjoy the all-you-can-eat hamburger and hot dog buffet, complete with potato salad, baked beans, drinks, and all the fixings.

The dinners are held at a large pavilion on the grounds. “We have two big grills up at the pavilion,” Ann says. “We start grilling at 3:30, and we start serving at 5.”

Family Night Dinners are held on Thursdays because it is usually a slow night at the waterpark and a popular night with youth sports teams. “A lot of football and baseball teams use this for their team banquet. We also use it for smaller groups who want to have catered events without a major expense. And we have a church group that comes out every year for their church picnic.”

The park’s previous owner started the dinners about 10 years before the Powells bought Sun Valley Beach. “He was just trying to draw people into the park, which it does,” she says. “In the evenings, people can come home from work and come to the park. The kids can play and they can all get dinner. It draws people to the park during a slower time when they might not otherwise come, but since they know they can eat they are more likely to come.”

The 40-acre park has a large wave pool, 10 slides, a zip line, a Tarzan rope, a log rope, volleyball and tennis courts, a horseshoe pit, and Frisbee golf . . . but no booze. “We’re very family oriented,” Ann says. “We don’t allow any alcohol in the park.”

On a typical Thursday, the park will serve 200. They have served up to 1,000 people in a single night, Ann says. Large crowds are not a challenge for the Powells. “We have a big catering business here. We cater parties for 1,000, 2,000, even 4,000, and we normally know if we’re going to have a large group. We have the families come in without a reservation, but most of the ball teams call ahead as a courtesy to let us know they’re coming so we have enough. You know they’re coming so you just get ready.” Ann says they are always prepared in case a huge group comes in at the last minute. They prepare all the food on the property, so they can “just whip something together.”

Dinner is served from 5 to 7:30 p.m., and the park closes at 8 p.m. on Thursdays. Because it is an all-you-can-eat buffet, the park has guests eat in the pavilion. Guests receive an armband that allows them to eat, leave to play in the waterpark, and then return to munch some more. “But most people don’t do that,” Ann says. The park calculates how much food to prepare by multiplying the number of guests by 1.25.

The park also accommodates spur-of-the-moment guests who may have been at the waterpark all day and get the urge when they smell the grilling hamburgers: For an additional $5, they can attend the buffet. “A lot of our season pass holders will spend the day out here and then pay the $5 to eat dinner,” she says.

Last year, the Powells added a new twist to Family Night Dinners—they tied it in with a 12 Days of Christmas promotion they hold in July. “Our Thursday night dinner is a holiday feast,” Ann says. “We have turkey, green beans, macaroni and cheese, corn on the cob, baked beans, potato salad, pumpkin pies, and all the holiday foods. We do that twice. People get a kick out of it. We have palm trees that are decorated like Christmas trees, and we have Santa Claus on the beach. We even have a snow-blowing machine blowing fake snow across the beach.”

Although the Family Night Dinners require a lot of preparation, they continue to be worth the effort, Ann says. “It’s a marketing tool for us. People come out and they have a great time and they tell others about it. And the people on these sports teams come out and have a good time and then they come back. It’s a draw to get them into the park the first time.

“When we bought the park we wondered if it would be worth the effort. But we ran everything that first year the way it had been run the year before, and the things that were successful we continue to do. The dinners have been a major success.”

—Frank Elliott