Holiday Bowl in Brainerd is now a construction zone - or, as its owners say, a "fun struction zone" - as it gets converted into a Sparetime Family Fun Center that will offer not just bowling when it reopens in the fall, but a laser tag arena, a 90-game arcade and a full-service restaurant and bar.
"We love Chattanooga, and to continue to be viable in that marketplace, we wanted to expand our appeal not only to our league bowler but to the community at large," said Heather Provost, spokeswoman for the Vermont-based Sparetime Entertainment, which owns 16 bowling centers around the country, including Holiday Bowl at 5530 Hixson Pike.
The remodel will put Sparetime in competition, locally, with Pin Strikes, a center about three miles down Lee Highway that says it's "not your grandparents' bowling alley." Pin Stripes boasts laser tag, a video arcade and 24 "state-of-the-art" bowling lanes that evoke a dance club more than a traditional bowling alley, with disco balls, black lights and music videos blasting.
League bowlers play at Pin Strikes. And they will be welcome at Sparetime in Brainerd when it reopens, Provost said.
But some Chattanooga-area bowlers feel squeezed out. Sparetime in Brainerd will have 25 bowling lanes, down from 40 before the renovation.
"We don't like it," said Randall Lockhart, president of the Chattanooga Area Bowling Association. "We just don't have bowling centers to go to anymore."
That leaves Holiday Bowl in Hixson, according to Lockhart, as the last bastion for league bowling.
Serious bowling gives way to 'family fun'
Chattanooga isn't alone. There's a national trend to convert traditional bowling alleys into what the industry calls family entertainment centers.
Bowling has the highest participation rate of any form of indoor recreation other than swimming, but there's been a big change in who bowls, says White Hutchinson Leisure and Learning Group, a Kansas City, Mo.-based business that helps design today's updated bowling centers around the world.
U.S. bowling once was dominated by blue-collar men who played at least once a week for most of the year in leagues, White Hutchinson says. But today's lanes tend to attract white-collar, casual bowlers with kids making up the largest segment and women and girls accounting for about half of all bowlers.
So White Hutchinson, whose motto is "match the product to the market, and the volume of business will expand," advises bowling lane owners to add new entertainment offerings and to improve the quality of their food offerings. White Hutchinson even suggests doing away with the standard 10-pin ball and pins in favor of duckpin bowling, which uses a ball about the size of grapefruit and pint-sized pins. It used to be the dominant type of bowling in Baltimore and other East Coast cities.
"Although 10-pin bowling has been around for over 150 years, it is not the friendliest form of bowling for casual play," White Hutchinson says. "The heavy ball with its three-finger holes is awkward to throw and not user-friendly, especially for occasional bowlers and women and children."
Boutique bowling also has grown in popularity, White Hutchinson says.
Chattanooga got its first boutique bowling alley last year when developer John Wise opened Southside Social, a new 10-lane bowling alley that's part of a multi-use entertainment complex on Chestnut Street across from Finley Stadium that includes the Jump Park trampoline park and Chattanooga Brewing Co.
"I did a little traveling and fell in love with the concept and decided to do it," said Wise, who has heard his bowling alley is the first in the center city in about three generations.
Pizza cupcakes, sparkling wine
Another trend in bowling is to make it an upscale, lounge-type experience, which is exemplified by Bowlmor, a company formed in 2013 out of the ashes of AMF Bowling Worldwide, which operated close to 300 bowling centers, but filed in 2012 for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Bowlmor, which has centers in such big markets as New York City's Times Square, Atlanta and Anaheim, Calif., has grabbed headlines after pop star Justin Bieber and other celebrities have been spotted at its lanes. Bowlmor's laneside dining menu has what one reviewer called "insane snacks" including pizza cupcakes, a 5-pound "Behemoth Burger" and a cast-iron skillet full of s'mores.
Pabst Blue Ribbon beer is served at Bowlmor - but so is Italian sparkling wine and fruit-based cocktails.
Likewise, when the Sparetime in Brainerd reopens, it will include a VIP Boutique Bowling Suite with five private lanes, a private bar and seating for up to 100 people.
"It will be great for corporate events, holiday parties, bar/bat mitzvahs, sports banquets, kid/adult birthdays, reunions, team building events, etc.," Provost said.
Meanwhile, league bowlers long for the days the sport was serious, and bowlers focused on competition and honed their skills.
"We still got some good bowlers - great bowlers - averaging 240 or more," Lockhart said.
But it's getting harder for league bowlers to find a place to play, he said. Some lanes have been lost to laser tag and other alleys here have simply closed over the years, including Star Lanes and Brunswick Lanes in Hixson, Fort Lanes in Fort Oglethorpe and Tri-State on Ringgold Road in East Ridge.
"We've lost a lot of membership," said Lockhart, who worries that Holiday Bowl in Brainerd may be the next alley to morph into a family fun center.
"If they start making money over there in Brainerd, then it probably will," he said.
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/MeetsForBusiness or twitter.com/meetforbusiness or 423-757-6651.