Let me preface this by saying there's a chance that I'm a little spoiled. My hometown of a mere 60k people has two centers, both of which are very nice and one of which has nearly all the latest Brunswick furnishings and is maintained near perfectly.
Now, I go to college in Raleigh, NC. For those of you who don't know, Raleigh probably has a surrounding population of about 200,000 (not including Durham).
My University is literally right across the street from a bowling alley, and when I first came up here I thought "Oh, cool...I'll bet lots of college folks hang out and bowl here. That should be fun."
Guess what? They don't. As a matter of fact, I'm finding out that about the only reason that the house even stays open is because of the bowling fee that students in the bowling classes have to pay. I'm currently in one of these classes.
"Well why would a house that's right across the street from 28,000 college-age kids not flourish," you ask?
Where to start....
First, this house hasn't had ANYTHING new come in the door as far as equipment, house balls, rental shoes, lane prep/upkeep, or even pins since the 70's.
As far as oiling patterns, I don't think they have any. I think they just have JoeBob get out there with the old 1960's oiling machine and "do whatever." One of the supposed expert technicians actually furrowed his brow at me when I asked him if they had put down a Christmas Tree pattern and how far down it was.
Today when I was bowling I threw what looked to be a great pocket hit, but instead of that "clush" sound, I heard the "clud" sound of a ball hitting pins that have been broken and glued together. It sounded remarkably like the sound a baseball bat makes when it breaks.
The stake through the heart, though, is the management. One of the owners yelled at a ten year old kid one day because he threw at a pin that had fallen outside of the sweeper and was laying on the lane. I know that what the kid did was wrong, but geez...don't yell at him.
That's not all though. This management "team" makes you feel like it's some kind of burden for them to let you bowl in their house. If it weren't for the awesome cafe at this place, I'd never EVER set foot in there outside of class. For as bad as AMF houses can be sometimes, at least their employees (around here at least) fake caring. It's a lot more expensive there (4.50/gm as opposed to 2.50/gm), but the convenience is soooo worth it to me.
So I don't know. Is this typical of any places around you guys (and gals)? Am I just spoiled by a good house near my hometown? Maybe after I save and invest some money (we're talking 20 yrs here now) I could look into buying and revamping this alley. It just seems to me that there's no reason why all 24 lanes shouldn't be packed with so many college folks in the vicinity.
