Couple Brings Roller Skating Back to Fayetteville?s Future

Starlight Skatium

Owners: Neil and Tiffany Caston

Address: 612 N. College Avenue, Fayetteville

Phone: 479-444-STAR

E-mail: Through Web site

Hours: Wednesday 5:30-8:30 pm; Thursday 8-11 pm; Friday 7-11 pm; Saturday 1-4 pm & 7-11 pm; Sunday 1-4 pm

Web site: www.starlightskatium.com

Startup date: Dec. 26

If Tiffany Caston gets her way, roller skating won’t be just a fun, retro activity. It’ll be a permanent entertainment option for Fayetteville and the surrounding area.

Caston and her husband, Neil, have sunk more than $1 million into Starlight Skatium, an updated version of an old school-style rink in a building that’s housed everything from a grocery store to a nightclub to a video rental store complete with “special occasion” lingerie.

“For some reason, I was able to see past everything that was in here,” Tiffany Caston said.

The result is a family-friendly destination, complete with a 10,000 SF  hardwood skating floor as its centerpiece. There’s also a snack bar and plenty of hanging-out room.

The Castons employ 10, and might add more if they expand their hours, as already has been suggested by many patrons. The rink currently is open at different times Wednesday-Sunday.

“We had 380 skaters in here one Saturday night,” Caston said. “That’s just nuts.”

The rink also is available for private parties during non-operational hours, with rates ranging from $350 to $600. Birthday parties are offered during regular hours, and the cost is $100 to $250.

Caston said she started with 450 pairs of skates – both quads and inline – and now has about 500. Customers can bring their own skates, too, though fees remain the same.

Two roller derby teams, the Arkansas Killbillies and Backwoods Betties, also call Starlight Skatium home, as well as a speed-skating team called Arkansas Elite. That team is coached by Grant Epperson, a two-time national champion.

“We just really felt that Fayetteville needed something like this,” Caston said.

Small Business Center Offers Two Workshops

The Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center is offering a couple of sessions that might be of particular interest to new operations.

The first, a three-hour workshop focused on guerilla marketing, will be held Feb. 19. It will cover topics like mining customer lists for fun and profit and getting extra mileage from marketing and e-mail.

The second will be held Feb. 23, and will center on identity theft solutions for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Topics covered will include different types of identity theft, business liability, defense systems and the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act. 

Submit tips about new businesses in Northwest Arkansas to Rob Keys at [email protected] or 479-725-0394, ext. 323.