Five Alleys to go to for 10-pin fun

Since the close of the Pike Creek Bowling Center, where bowlers threw their last strikes in June after 21 years of business, Pike Creek residents were left to look elsewhere for 32-lane fun.

Last June at the Pike Creek Valley Civic League meeting, a 42,000-square-foot grocery store plan was introduced for the property. Bill Rhodunda, the attorney for bowling center owner Capano, said “Economically, bowling is just not a feasible option anymore.”

Nationally, bowling centers have seen an average decrease of more than 25 percent in the numbers of games bowled since the 1970s.

But the decline is due to a decrease in league bowling. There are actually more casual bowlers now than thirty years ago, with casual games exceeding league games for the first time in 2001.

The loss of Pike Creek has not left area residents with nowhere to go. There are five other bowling centers within a 15-mile radius of the vacant Pike Creek Bowling Center.

Pleasant Hill Lanes, in Newport is the closest to the Pike Creek Center about 5.5 miles or a 12-minute drive away; Brunswick Blue Hen Lanes is less than six miles away in Newark; AMF Prices Lanes on Kirkwood Highway is about an 11-minute, 6-mile trip from the New Linden Hill Road; Bowlerama, in New Castle is about 10.5 miles or 20 minutes from the closed center and First State Bowling in Edgemoor is the farthest, a mere 13 miles away.

General Manager of AMF Prices Lanes Kevin Sass said they have people from the Pike Creek area that go to Prices Lanes.

“Most people come from a 10-mile radius,” he said. “We get clientele from Hockessin, Pike Creek and even Kennett Square.”

Sass said Prices has been open since the late 1950s and he has seen an increase in clientele just about every year for past 10 years.

Manger of Pleasant Hill Lanes Charles Woodward, who has been there 10 years, said they see people from Elkton, Md., to Kennett Square, Pa.

“Some people come here, some go to Prices Lanes and some go to Bowlerama,” he said. “Most of the people we get are from about a five-mile radius.”

Improvements go a long way

At the Pike Creek Valley Civic League meeting last June, when the 42,000-square-foot grocery store plan was introduced, many residents accused Capano of intentionally letting the bowling center go.

“When they bought this place (in 1999), I think they were unaware of how bad some of the equipment really was,” Dan Sandridge, who was general manager of the Pike Creek Bowling Center for a decade, said last June. “They put in new synthetic lanes and that cost about $60,000, but the exterior and the parking lot, that’s another story.”

Sass said his Prices Corner bowling alley did some upgrades a couple years ago to keep customers happy and the bowling alley modernized.

“It’s painted it’s colorful, it glows in the dark,” he said. “The upkeep is constant. People like to see where their dollar is going.”

Sandridge also said other local bowling alleys, like Bowlerama and Prices Lanes, recently spent millions to update their look and equipment.

Manger of Pleasant Hill Lanes Charles Woodward said his location is a family owned business, not a big corporation, but wanted to keep up with other bowling facilities.

“We did some upgrades about five years ago,” Woodward said.

Frieda Stephenson, general manager of Brunswick Blue Hen Lanes, said the Brunswick Corporation decided to upgrade their facilities as well.

“Five years ago we did a complete upgrade,” she said. “Most of our clientele is from Newark, but we have a lot from Maryland, some from Pennsylvania and a lot from Wilmington – people from a 15-mile drive. There’s a lot of competition in a 15-mile radius.”