Bowling centers not happy with state’s reopening plan

One center that has yet to reopen is Elk Grove Bowl, which has 40 lanes and has been in business since 1963. Owner Debbie Handler feels it’s not economically feasible to open with a 50-patron limit.

“I’m third generation, so we’ve been through recessions, we’ve been through everything, but obviously never anything like this,” Handler said. “I don’t get the feeling the people making these decisions understand bowling. I don’t think they understand the size of our centers and that we could easily separate people.”

Slowing the roll

There is reason to be optimistic about the future of bowling. The operators interviewed for this story said bowling was booming before the pandemic hit.

“I’ve been here 30 years and it was probably going to be our best year ever,” Saffold said. “It was projecting to be our best season ever, our September to August season. That’s a lot to be said. We work very hard and spend a lot of money keeping our place up.”

Independent bowling centers tend to rely heavily on leagues, which are popular in the winter months. Handler said Elk Grove Bowl spent more than a million dollars on renovations over the past four years.

“Our leagues, counting all the monthlies and biweeklies, we had about 1,800 league bowlers,” Zikes said. “Of those, about half were weekly league bowlers that we’d see every Tuesday night or Wednesday night or whatever for 34 or 35 weeks in a season. That’s what’s kept us going. That’s why we’ve been able to stay around has been our league base.”

Saffold is concerned because in the next 12 months, Stardust Bowl is scheduled to host two professional women’s tournaments, along with college sectionals and national championship. He pointed out that hundreds of students attend college on bowling scholarships.

“Don’t get me wrong, we fully understand that we have a problem with this virus,” Saffold said. “We get it. But we’re working just as hard, if not harder, than any other industry to make sure we keep it under control in our facilities.

“Something needs to change soon, otherwise we’re all out of business. They’re telling us that somewhere down the line, they’ll reassess the numbers. OK, what does that mean? Are we talking tomorrow, next month, two or three months? And what’s that number going to be?”

In the meantime, most independent bowling centers in the suburbs are open, scrambling to survive like every other business that relies on people walking through the door.

“I think the centers will survive it if we can go into the fall and resume close to a normal operation in terms of leagues,” Zikes said. “If we’re not able to, that could be very difficult, because if you don’t start off with normal leagues in September, you’ve given up a lot of the year, not just the month.”

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