Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
The strange thing about bowling is that I believe more people bowl than ever, they just don't bowl as much or in organized leagues. A lot more bowling in the dark with a craft beer in your hand these days. Just more evidence of the collapse of community in America. In fact, I think a guy wrote a book called
Bowling Alone about just that.
Look at all these places that have closed:
http://bowlinghistory.wordpress.com/cat ... ng-alleys/Yeah. The problem is that the more places like a Pinstripes Lounge that open, the more a Brunswick wants to compete with it. Brunswick changed the direction of their entire business plan when it came to bowling centers back in the late 90's. They created the "Brunswick Zone" concept, which not only focused on the leisurely weekend bowler, but did so at the expense of the league bowler. They renovated their bowlers' area to feature 2 separate tables, staggered on each pair of lanes, changing from a bunch of chairs facing each other. They've since changed the layout back to a traditional seating area, mostly because the tables were truly in the damn way; true story...the front table and scoring screen was so far up at the Brunswick in Palatine I used to bowl at that people that started at the back of the approach could actually lean on the damn thing before they started bowling; this house has subsequently closed. Brunswick can't compete with a Pinstripes setup. First off, the beer selection isn't nearly the same. Secondly, the attraction is that it's an experience at Pinstripes. Hell, at the place on 176, I think the bar is bigger than the bowling area.
What I'm really interested to see is this new place that Brunswick has opened in Buffalo Grove. From talking to my people at the center in Vernon Hills, it's aimed directly at the crowd that JORR is talking about; and they're going to try and do it without the leagues. All the way down to the lounge-y look inside. There was a place called Eskape in this space before Brunswick bought it, and they also opened with the intention of not having leagues. Within a year, they were bleeding so much money that they started leagues, but the management had no idea how to deal with leagues, so it failed. What you're looking at here is a 38 lane space that wants to charge $25 bucks an hour to bowl. Once the novelty wears off, coupled with the fact that it's pretty hard to find people that just want to go bowling at 7 on a Wednesday night, I'm guessing they will open themselves to leagues as well.
It's really hard to pass off the guaranteed money coming in. Couple that with guaranteed concessions and bar purchases, the leagues truly bring more money in. I think Brunswick shot themselves in the foot in regards to that, because they've turned off many bowlers.
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Darkside wrote:
Our hotel smelled like dead hooker vagina (before you ask I had gotten a detailed description from beardown)