PLAYING FOR KEEPS\Fast-food restaurants finding kids' zones newest weapon in battle\to attract customers.

Byline: Deborah Adamson Daily News Staff Writer

Standing amid construction crews, Steve Teck laughingly said that he heard a loud voice one day telling him "if you build it, they will come."

But it's no joke that he and his wife, Donna, are spending "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to create the San Fernando Valley's largest McDonald's Play Place in West Hills.

"We sell a tremendous amount of Happy Meals," said Steve Teck, whose Play Place opens in late March. "That tells us that a lot of children come here."

The Tecks are confident that if they keep the children happy, they'll make the parents happy. And that should make for plenty more Happy Meal orders.

The 2,000-square-foot indoor play area will enclose a padded playground with tunnels, slides and a ball pit to accommodate 100 children.

McDonald's Corp. in Oakbrook, Ill. is one of several fastfood chains building two- to three-story playgrounds in Los Angeles and nationwide.

That's also the game plan of companies such as Burger King Corp. in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. and Carl's Jr. in Anaheim.

In the midst of a mini-baby boom, chains are spending as much as $100,000 for just the playground equipment plus thousands more for construction. The goal: Attract families drawn to other fastfood rivals and kiddie entertainment places like Discovery Zone and Chuck E. Cheese's.

Compared to family entertainment centers, fastfood places have this advantage: Pay for the food, but the play is free.

That's just fine for Janet Miller of Rosamond, who takes care of her two granddaughters in Granada Hills twice a week.

"It's a bunch cheaper than taking them to other places," said Miller, watching 7-year-old Elizabeth and 4-year-old Becki crawl through tunnels at McDonald's Play Place in Northridge. "I get them ice creams and turn them loose."

But it's a tougher fight for dollars than the fastfood chains might think.

Consider Clifton Porter and his 2-year-old son, Clifton II, of Agoura Hills.

The self-employed businessman brings his son to the Discovery Zone in West Hills almost daily. He avoids the quick-service chains as much as possible.

"I don't want my kid to eat fastfood," said Porter, knee-deep in the ball pit with three giggling children at the center. His son eats at home. At Discovery Zone, they usually order only lemonade and popcorn.

Chuck E. Cheese's is two-year-old Garrett's favorite hang-out, said mom-in-tow Pamela Brunsch of Northridge.

"He likes to see people live on stage," she said, adding, "he tells me what he wants to do. He's pretty much in charge."

Competition also is stiff among fastfood chains themselves.

"It's really a fight for customers," saidRon Paul, president of Technomic Inc., a restaurant industry consulting firm in Chicago. "It has become more difficult to find a basis on which to compete. For a while, competing on price was doing very well. The question is, what do you do beyond that?"

Two- to three-story, indoor, "soft" playgrounds is the new battleground.

Unlike traditional playgrounds that are made of metal and wood, these are made of foam-padded tubular steel and plastic. Nets encase the play area for safety. They typically have tunnels, slides and a pit of plastic balls.

Soft playgrounds - or play systems in industry jargon - were first designed by Jack Pentes, founder of Pentes Play Inc., a design firm in Charlotte, N.C.

"I was at a public park one day, looking at playground equipment," he said. "The stuff hasn't changed since I was a kid, and that was 50 years ago . . . and I remember my old playground giving me bruised knees and scraped fingers."

In 1982, he sold his first soft modular play system to Chuck E. Cheese's.

Design firms say that the price of the equipment favored by fastfood places average between $30,000 to $75,000, depending on the complexity of the model, with a capacity ranging from 30 to 75 children. The typical size ranges from 1,000 to 1,500 square feet.

The cost to construct or expand the restaurant's play room is extra.

McDonald's is one of the industry's most aggressive builders.

The chain has installed 600 indoor playgrounds out of 12,000 restaurants nationwide. The first Los Angeles area Play Place was built in April 1995. Since then, the company has added another 27 to the region and plans to build more, said Jeff Schwartz, regional vice president.

"The expense is considerable for us, but it's well worth it," said Schwartz, explaining that these Play Places boost sales between 10 and 15 percent.

Burger King spokeswoman Kim Miller said 100 of its 6,600 restaurants have big playgrounds. About a handful of them are in Los Angeles.

"They are a draw to families," she said. "One-third of our business comes from families with young children."

CKE Restaurants Inc., the parent of Carl's Jr., said 69 of its 665 eateries have big outdoor playgrounds. More are coming, said spokeswoman Suzi Brown.

"It's a place for the kids to blow off some energy while the parents sit and eat," she said. "If the decision (of where to go) is left up to the children, they will pick the place with the most appeal to them. If the place has a playground, it will win out."

But the trend puts pressure on franchisees to install a monster play area so they won't lose business.

One Burger King manager in the Valley is seriously consider an installation. His problem is that the restaurant has limited extra space.

"We're still thinking about it," he said.

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PHOTO

Photo (1--Color) A McDonald's in Van Nuys offers the largest playland in the Valley, as well as a full-time employee to keep an eye on children as they roam the maze. Dusty Locke/Special to the Daily News (2--Color) The Play Place at Roscoe and Topanga Canyon Boulevard. Tina Gerson/Daily News (3) Four-year-old Ashey Delaney makes the most of being the only one inside the ball pit outside Carl's Jr. in Simi Valley. John McCoy/Daily News