Todd Britton Ups His Game

Upping The Game Todd Britton pulls out all the stops at Uptown Alley in Winnipeg

innipeg, Canada, has had its ups and downs. In the late 1800s, it was one of the most successful cities in North America, a major rail center with more millionaires per capita than New York City. Then the First World War, the Great Depression, and plummeting wheat prices began a long economic slump that only began turning around in the last 10 years.

As witnessed by the strong growth of its entertainment sector, life in Winnipeg has gotten much better of late. Winnipeggers once again have an NHL hockey team (the Winnipeg Jets redux) in a fancy hockey arena, and brew pubs and foodie havens are proliferating. Now they can also enjoy the city’s first modern bowling entertainment center, Uptown Alley, thanks to local proprietor and former Bowl Canada president, Todd Britton.

Todd grew up in a bowling family. His father Brian Britton operated Winnipeg’s iconic Academy Lanes, located in a converted Moorish-style 1930s movie palace with an architecturall-significant exterior. “Like many kids that grow up in the industry, I hung out with my dad,” says Britton. “I think I started going to work with him when I was 12 doing odd jobs. I was lucky that I felt passionate about the industry at a young age.” By Robert Sax W

Todd, 42, now runs the family’s three local bowling centers along with his dad Brian, mother Heather, and brother Jay. Those include two traditional centers, Academy West Bowl and Billy Mosienko Lanes, and, as of December 2018, their brand-new flagship operation Uptown Alley. It’s located in Polo Park just north of downtown Winnipeg in a big retail and entertainment area. How it came to be is a story of turning challenge into opportunity. A few years back, the owner of the building that housed Academy Lanes informed Todd that was he was not going to renew their lease.

Uptown Alley went to town designing and installing a new arcade designed by Pinnacle Entertainment Group

Todd describes the decision as “reasonably mutual,” since he had already been considering making a move. While Academy Lanes was a much-loved institution in the community, Todd didn’t see a big future for the traditional bowling center.

Through his work with Bowl Canada, Todd developed an excellent overview of the bowling industry and in the direction it was moving. He felt the future lay with the modern bowling entertainment center, and that he and his family had the opportunity to build the first one in Winnipeg.

It wasn’t the first time that the Brittons had gambled on something new. In 1995, their league play had fallen off and business was down significantly. Glow bowling was a hot trend, and Brian Britton invested big on the new technology. Academy Lanes became the first bowling center in Winnipeg–and possibly in Canada–to offer glow bowling and a fancy music system.

“Glow bowling was sold as this thing to make your bowling center more appealing to people in their teens and 20s,” Todd told the Winnipeg Free Pressin 2015. “But after offering it for only two weeks, we started getting all these phone calls from moms wanting to book us in the afternoon for their five

year-olds’ birthday parties. It was something we hadn’t counted on, but after 10 or 15 (calls), we looked at each other and said, ‘OK, let’s figure out a way to do this for kids, too.’ We haven’t really looked back since.”

For Uptown Alley, they sought a large building with an exclusive parking lot in an area with lots of people in search of entertainment. The answer turned out to be a vacant, big box store, a former Cabela’s sporting goods location just a few blocks from Polo Park Mall, Winnipeg’s major shopping area. “The traffic in the area is extremely high, and we felt that [unlike] most older bowling centers in a neighborhood that became residential, we were more in a retail space and we felt like that would help us [to] drive traffic,” says Britton.

Uptown Alley’s retro-sounding name was inspired by the Uptown movie theatre that occupied the old building before it became a bowling center in 1960. When Brian Britton eventually took over the center, he changed the name to Academy Uptown Lanes to emphasize its location on Academy Road.

The core of the new 43,000-square-foot, C$7 million BEC

Uptown Alley’s Bistro Lounge boasts 20 high definition TVs and 12 beers on tap

is thirty bowling lanes set up for 5-pin bowling, the predominant format in Western Canada. However, Todd designed part of Uptown Alley to facilitate a future conversion to 10-pin, because the bigger format was becoming increasingly popular in the bigger Canadian markets of Toronto and Montreal. “Todd is a very innovative person. He has another center that is a split 5-pin and 10-pin house,” says Mark Buffa of Buffa Distribution, who supplied the capital equipment for Uptown Alley. “He appreciates the synergy that both games bring to one place. I believe that 10-pin will continue growing across Canada.”

More Ways to Play

Todd’s customers have a wide range of play choices at the new center. While there were a few pinballs and a crane game or two in the old Academy Lanes, for Uptown Alley, he’s seriously upped his game with a big arcade and the first full redemption Group in Winnipeg.

The gleaming, new redemption center

The arcade, designed by Pinnacle Entertainment, has 50+ games, including some that are brand new to Winnipeg; 80% of the games are redemption. “The new arcade is a 180 degree change from the old Academy Lanes,” says Pinnacle’s George McAuliffe. “It was a great space to work with and that made it a fun project.”

Another popular feature is a 3,500-square-foot laser tag attraction with equipment from Zone Lasertag and an arena designed and built by IAAPA award-winner Art Attack of Edmonton, Canada. Britton says he chose a space theme because, “There’s a reason why Disney bought Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy. Space is always cool.” For Earth-bound traditionalists, there’s also a ping-pong room.

Food, Drink and Music

Hungry and thirsty customers can satisfy themselves at Uptown Alley’s Bistro Lounge. It has 20 high-definition TV screens, room for more than 90 people, and 12 beers on tap. The diverse menu ranges from burgers and sandwiches to steaks to poutine and perogies, and even a pulled-pork pizza. Late-night bowlers (and early ones too) will love the all-day breakfast service. A wide variety of party and banquet dishes are available as well and are served in the center’s modular party rooms that can host up to 100 people. Several of Canada’s most successful rock bands came from Winnipeg, including the Guess Who, Bachman Turner Overdrive, and Crash Test Dummies. So it’s no big surprise that Uptown Alley presents local bands in the Bistro two or three nights a week. The Bistro is located right behind 14 of the lanes so bowlers can enjoy the music too. “Having live music was definitely something that people weren’t expecting, and it added value to the experience,” says

The arcade offers top-of-the-line games and experiences

Todd. “Mostly it’s duos and trios,” says Todd, “but we can accommodate a five piece band easily.”

The Future is Uptown

Todd sees the future of his family’s business as BECs. “Over the course of the next probably five to ten years, I would imagine we’ll be out of the traditional bowling business and looking to transition our centers into this type of concept,” he says. With lessons learned from building Uptown Alley, he’s confident that they can repeat the process, closing down the older centers and

Winnipeg’s famous Moorish-style 1930s Uptown movie palace inspired the name for Uptown Alley

setting up brand new ones.

Todd hopes to have a second Uptown Alley up and running within the next three years. However, at the moment there’s no competition, although he expects a Rec Room to move into Winnipeg in 2020. The national chain’s concept offers little or no bowling, so Uptown Alley looks to have the upscale BEC segment to itself for some time. ❖

Management and POS system: QubicaAMF Conqueror Pro Scoring system: QubicaAMF BES-X Lanes and pinsetters: Brunswick Pro Anvil 1 and SW-1 Furniture: Venue Arcade design: Pinnacle Entertainment Group Arcade games: Shaffer Distributing Card system: Embed

Robert Sax is a writer and PR consultant in Los Angeles. He grew up in Toronto, Canada, the home of five-pin bowling.