Sad day, our amf is closing it's doors may 10!!

[Hammer]

I think part of the reason is the price per game for open bowlers. The price is something like $4.00 a game You go in with a family of four
and bowl 2 games each that is $32.00 not counting snacks. The only time you get a price break is if you are on the house league. With the way the economy is folks are getting their entertainment at home. That is like movie theaters also. A ticket price is like $9.00 a person. Then when you go to the snack bar look at the rediculous price of popcorn or soda. They don't sell the candy bars that you get out of a vending machine for .85. They sell the bigger sizes that they sell for $5.00 for a box of candy. A lot of folks sneak in their own treats so they don't go broke going to the show.

[MICHAEL]

I think part of the reason is the price per game for open bowlers. The price is something like $4.00 a game You go in with a family of four
and bowl 2 games each that is $32.00 not counting snacks. The only time you get a price break is if you are on the house league. With the way the economy is folks are getting their entertainment at home. That is like movie theaters also. A ticket price is like $9.00 a person. Then when you go to the snack bar look at the rediculous price of popcorn or soda. They don't sell the candy bars that you get out of a vending machine for .85. They sell the bigger sizes that they sell for $5.00 for a box of candy. A lot of folks sneak in their own treats so they don't go broke going to the show.

It doesn't stop people from going the show, sometimes over 4 times a month.... high ticket prices, popcorn 14.00 bucks a small one, small drink 6 bucks.

I do bring my own Stevia Sweetened drinks with me! they don't sell them, and I don't drink sugar drinks! I rarely eat at the lanes, but do once in a while. I am not sure its the price of bowling, and treats ect.

But I agree, with the huge middle class we used to have in bowling's hay day, rapidly diminishing ,and more and MORE low paying go no where jobs being the only choices out there,,,, (I am sure that a big part of it!) many, now days need their paychecks to pay the rent, food and utilities.

[mike_thomas93]

Boy I remember when they shut down this AMF bowling alley that was down the street from the local bowling alley I go to. It was terrible. I remember they had a discount of 2 hour fee bowling on saturdays. I sure missed those days. And I used to bowl so well over there. I actually ended up shooting my highest score there. ;/

[ALazySavage]

Sorry to hear about the bowling center issues Iceman.

Over here in Arizona bowlers are about to have a rude awakening to what is about to occur with a fair amount of our centers. We haven't had the "closing of doors" issues just yet with AMF houses, but I can see this starting soon. With our Brunswick houses the trend has become to replace former GMs (who understand bowling) with Restaraunt managers in an attempt to pump up the bar and arcade revenues. As you can imagine this transition has not been the best and the centers are filled with staff who don't bowl and have difficulty with simple bowling requests.

In the past month this is what occured at one of our prominent Brunswick houses:
-The determination was made that a laser tag arena needed to be installed in early April; they required that certain leagues had to buy out teams before the end of the season because Tuesday nights had all of the lanes filled with leagues and they needed lanes 1-6 to start construction.
-My league was told on Sunday that the alley decided that they would not pay for sweeper week (as previously determined) and that if we wanted to bowl all teams would have to pay lineage. This was an issue because the championship match was going to be conducted on the sweeper weekend.
-The center is setting out 4 lanes with the Nationals pattern on Sunday mornings (understandably charging at a premium) and then immediately puts a family on some of the lanes who are all using plastic equipment when other options were available. I don't know if this has happened multiple times.

[tccstudent]

Me and a friend decided to practice today and we called Broken Arrow lanes and asked them to set up the National pattern for us and they said what time do you want it we will have it ready for you. This is an example of a good bowling alley AMF you need to take lessons from Andy B. all his centers are successful. Yes he does have some of that cheesy crap too like go cart track and laser tag but they still take care of bowlers.