Small town centers find ways to survive amid the pandemic

By Mark Miller

With or without a pandemic, small-town bowling centers face their own unique challenges and reap their own sets of rewards not usually found in their larger city brethren. Small town centers are where people gather not only to bowl in leagues, attend parties, and dine, but to get to know and engage their neighbors to build a stronger community. International Bowling Industry magazine learned about three such places: one in Idaho, one in Wisconsin, and one in Illinois. Each has a unique combination of challenges and successes before and during COVID-19.

The Bowling Alley, Homedale, Idaho

Opened in 1958 as Owylee Lanes with a restaurant added in the 1960s, this eight-lane center in Homedale is a town of 2,700 people, about 10 minutes east of the Oregon border and 45 minutes west of Boise. Donna and Mike Marese originally bought it in 2006 strictly as an investment, a bowling version of a house flip.

Both Donna and Mike worked for many years for WinCo Foods located 45 minutes away in Donna’s hometown of Meridian, ID, where Michigan-native Mike was working at Meridian Lanes.

Proprietors Mike and Donna Marese

“Mike has always loved bowling. He’s always been a big bowler recreationally and in leagues,” Donna said. “We had just finished a house that we were putting on the market to flip. My sister lives in this area and saw [Owylee Lanes] for sale and thought it would be a good project. The physical building was run down and the bowling business was slow. Like their residential project, Donna thought, “We could do some upgrades and sell it. We didn’t expect it to be the huge, viable business it ended up being in a quick time.”

Despite not being Homedale natives, the Mareses soon felt part of the community due to their niece, Ginger Loucks. “We didn’t know anything about bowling or restaurants, so Ginger helped us get started,” Donna said. “People in the [Homedale] community trusted her, and I think that helped us get a foot in the door.” The Mareses understood immediately how important it would be for the town to have the bowling center up and running again. They needed a place to gather together, play, and eat. “The timing was just right,” said Donna.

Renovations were widespread throughout the alley. In the kitchen and dining areas, an upgraded kitchen hood system, double ovens, refrigeration/freezer units, and new flooring were installed. In the bowling area, new coolers, a furnace, scoring system, Brunswick Anvil lanes and four lanes of bumpers completed the upgrade.

When the Mareses sold their upgraded center in 2012, they thought they would move on to the next project. Fate had another ending: the business was returned to them when it foreclosed in 2015. They haven’t looked back since, and the business has taken off. “We have great community support,” Donna said. There were only 15 league bowlers When they took back the center, league business was down. Up until the impact of the pandemic, league play had wildly expanded to Tuesday and Thursday nights, with a youth league in place and additional leagues on the horizon.

Though newly renamed, The Bowling Alley still has its vintage feel, with above-ground ball returns and the famous restaurant with home-style food which was featured in the January 2020 issue of Only in Your State. The restaurant opens for a classic country breakfast at 6:30 a.m. and features prime rib on weekends. Among its specialties is lemon meringue pie. “People look forward to the food because we put out good, quality food at the best possible price we can afford to do it,” Mike said. “It’s definitely not bowling alley food,” Donna said. “And the recipes we use are recipes that have been here for years, even before we bought the center. The clam chowder recipe is the same recipe that has been used for at least 40 years.”

The Bowling Alley closed for 30 days, from the end of March to the end of April, when the pandemic hit. Once Idaho deemed bowling centers safe to open, The Bowling Alley needed to

The restaurant is a well known and loved business in the region.

implement safety precautions. The restaurant reopened with carry out orders at first, then later with limited dine-in. Tables inside the restaurant have been spaced out to comply with appropriate physical distancing and single use utensils and condiments. Bowling is spaced out to every-other lane, and rental shoes are brought to customers in a designated tote. “We ask them to leave their balls and shoes on the return and we sanitize everything on the lane,” said Donna. “It’s not a lot different, just a little different,” Mike said. “People have been good about doing what we ask them to.”

The business got an upgrade during the pandemic shutdown

Dogger’s Bar and Lanes, Wautoma, Wisconsin

Before becoming a bowling establishment in 1954, Dogger’s Bar and Lanes in central Wisconsin was a car dealership and garage. Natives Bridgette and Dean Tschurwald became the six-lane center’s fifth owners when they took over in 1999. Both were very familiar with the establishment; Dean, 52, bowled in youth leagues there and later worked part-time for previous owner, Jack Mares, as a bartender and lane mechanic; 54-year-old Bridgette, who was managing the local Subway, bowled for more than 20 years at the center.

“[Former owner] Jack called me and said, ‘Do you want to buy the place?’ ” said Dean, who was working at his parents’ lumber yard. “I talked to my parents [about a loan], but they were getting close to retirement age. Three banks in town told me no. Then, Jack and I went to a banker who we both knew.” Dean said. Jack vouched for Dean, the loan was processed, and the business transferred to Dean.

The mural at Dogger’s Bar and Lanes captures Dean almost perfectly

Dean had a steep learning curve as the new proprietor of Dogger’s. “I had never oiled a bowling lane in my life! Jack showed me how to oil lanes, but I didn’t know you had to strip them. He told me the profit margin you should have on your booze. That was my education in this.”

The lanes at Dogger’s

When the Tschurwald’s took over Dogger’s, league play was down and there was not much open bowling. In time, the leagues expanded, and the youth league grew from 95 kids to 160. “The schools bus the kids here for after-school leagues which is really nice,” Dean said. “We’ve had very strong league play.” Before the pandemic, Dogger’s had up to two leagues each night on two shifts.

“Usually this time of year, I’m worried if we’ll be able to fill our leagues. This year I’m wondering if we’re allowed to,” Dean said.

Dogger’s closed from March 17 to May 20. Because Dogger’s food offerings are more on the snack bar side, carry-out service was not a revenue option. Since Wisconsin’s reopening, business has been close to normal; Waushara county has pandemic recommendations with no mandates. Just to be safe, the Tschurwalds removed all barstools, and during open bowling, an empty lane is maintained between groups. The house balls and all tabletops are bleached as well. Staff wear masks and gloves. Many customers have told the Tschurwalds they are ready to come bowling. Unfortunately, the corona virus found Wautoma. “We’ve had a few customers come down with the virus,” Dean said. “In a small town, they came here, they went to the bar or supper club down the street,” and then the establishments were closed. These closures caused customer apprehension. But the Tschurwalds feel that the community supports them, and business will eventually stabilize.

With the Tschurwald’s only child Joe living hours away in Janesville and wanting nothing to do with the center, they likely will remain owners for quite a while. “The bad news is you don’t have a back up to buy it from you. But the good news is when we sell it, we don’t have to give a steal of a deal,” Dean said. “There’s no family discount.”

Front counter at Dogger’s

Logan Lanes, Lincoln, Illinois

Shawn Taylor, 51, worked for Brunswick managing centers in California and Washington before buying Logan Lanes in central Illinois in 2000. Two of his best friends from California who moved to the town of 15,000 people told him the 16-lane center was for sale and he and one buddy bought it. “When we bought the place, the thing I liked about it was there was a large league base,” Taylor said. “Other than that, the place needed to be completely renovated. There was no cosmic or glow bowling or anything like that. It was really a league-based center. They didn’t really push open bowling and birthday parties.”

Logan Lanes’ distinctive exterior

In 2003, Taylor and his business partner completed a large expansion, put in a sports bar, added a birthday party room and added two golf simulators. “These are same ones Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth have in their houses worth $100,000 each,” relayed Taylor. Everything on the property has been renovated. “Three years ago, we switched to Bes-X scoring units and upgraded the golf simulators,” Taylor said, making the renovation complete.

For Taylor, the switch to a small-town center took some adjusting. “I was a big city person, go, go, go, go, and I always ran large bowling centers [with] 40-56 lanes,” he said. Running a large, urban bowling center with many employees, management doesn’t get to know the customers. Taylor knew his employees very well, and they in turn were the ones dealing with the customers. “Here, it’s a whole different world. I run the counter, wait tables, pin chase, and know every customer. The hardest thing is trying to remember peoples’ names. Everybody knows your name. It’s hard to remember 15,000 names!”

Making it easier for the recently divorced Taylor is his daughters Tonya and Ashley and his three grandchildren who live nearby and love to bowl. “I am a big fan of the bowling industry. I wouldn’t be where I am without the Brunswick Corporation,” he said. “They taught me everything I know. That’s the good thing about coming into this center; when we came here there was no bumper bowling. There was no restaurant. It was all microwave cheeseburgers and that was it. They had taken the restaurant out and we put it back in.”

Logan Lanes

In recent years, Logan Lanes has been hurt by the closing of businesses, including a developmental center that employed 400 people and a bottle factory with 300 jobs. “We’ve struggled like everybody else has. League bowling has been on the decline since Day 1,” he said. “I think this will be the last year we have a 9 o’clock shift. We’re still fortunate to have at least one league every day of the week. They are just not as large as they were before.”

To combat that trend and bring people through the door, Taylor has promoted birthday and corporate parties and fundraisers. “It’s been a very good business for me,” he said. “The last three years have been tough. It definitely had its ups and downs, and COVID-19 has had an effect on the entire industry.” Helping to make up for the lost business during the pandemic was a $25,000 Illinois Downstate Grant for smaller towns and businesses. In addition to the grant, Taylor negotiated a more manageable payment schedule — his bank agreed to a couple months of interest-only payments and a couple months of escrow-only payments.

Fortunately for Taylor and other proprietors, the Illinois State Bowling Proprietors Association lawsuit against Governor J.B. Pritzker and the state of Illinois was settled effective Aug. 3. It reclassified bowling from indoor entertainment to an indoor sport which changed the restriction of the lesser of 50 people or 50% capacity to 200 people or 50% capacity. “I don’t think anyone outside the bowling industry understands what this will do to us if we don’t put leagues on the floor,” he said. “If you are a center like Kingpin [in nearby Springfield] with 30 teams to put on the floor, [the 50-person limit] would have killed them. People don’t want to bowl at 9 o’clock. People don’t bowl four or five nights a week like they used to.”

This past summer was, of course, slow for Logan Lanes — the revenue numbers for June and July were down 50% from last year. “We’re lucky we got the PPP funding,” said Tayler, “so we brought back employees, first to repaint the building, strip and wax everything, and then prepare food for carry out or delivery.” Taylor also quipped that his center has never been cleaner. With the time and the manpower to attend to overdue projects, there was no twiddling of thumbs. But Taylor still needed help. “We took out a big loan, which is the last thing you need, but [you] have to survive. That’s the bottom line,” he said. Taylor normally hosts 1,000 youth in the Kids Bowl Free program, but this year Logan Lanes had only 420 kids register due to the delayed opening; the center was closed for 101 days. He started delivering food which he had never previously done. Taylor broke even simply to keep five of his people employed. Taylor reduced open days from seven a week to five. Most of the 17 laid off employees were either previously retired or had other jobs to rely on. “People always ask me what’s the hardest part of owning your own business and the answer has [always] been you are now responsible for other people’s lives,” he said. “If something happened to Logan Lanes, I could get another job in the bowling industry, but you worry about the people who work for you.”

Despite these uncertain times, Shawn can still smile

Taylor feels lucky his business is open at all since some states still haven’t allowed centers to re-open. Plus, ten centers within 30 miles have closed in the last 30 years. “The first 17 years were pretty golden. We just couldn’t miss,” he said. “The last three years have been a struggle, but nothing like it is now. But you can’t stop. You can’t quit. You have to keep on fighting. That’s what we’re doing.” ❖

Mark Miller is a freelance writer, editor, and public relations specialist from Flower Mound, TX. He's the author of Bowling: America's Greatest Indoor Pastime available at Amazon.com.