Amos Barshad at The Lever:
For the most part, Bowlero doesn’t build its own centers. Instead, it purchases existing ones and makes them over in the Bowlero style: dim lights, loud music, expensive cocktails. At Bowleros, bowling isn’t bowling. It’s “upscale entertainment.”
But for serious bowlers, the lived experience of Bowlero’s rise has come with a marked deterioration in conditions. Someone in Big Mike’s crew warns that lane 26 tonight is sticky right where you step up to bowl: “The approach! The actual approach!”
Someone else says it’s no surprise: “They spend a couple million dollars putting in screens but can’t clean the place.”
The bowlers say prices have gone up. They say the pinsetters keep breaking down, and since there are no mechanics on site, “then you’re just fucked.” They say all the bowling centers within reasonable driving distance are also owned by Bowlero, so “you’re just gonna have to put up with how they do things.”
It all feels thoroughly American: In the interest of short-term profit, a corporation goes about methodically worsening a beloved national pastime.
More here.