When one bowling alley closes, another opens.
Mission Bowling Club, a six-lane boutique bowling alley that will also offer food from prominent local chef Anthony Myint, is scheduled to open Monday in San Francisco.
The lanes are owned by San Francisco small businesswomen Sommer Peterson and Molly Bradshaw, who jointly own Mini Bar, a lounge in the city’s North of Panhandle neighborhood.
The lanes will operate with limited hours for their first week–from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.–before launching into regular hours on March 26.
The bowling club will be open Monday through Friday 3 p.m to 11 p.m., Saturday noon to midnight and Sunday noon to 11 p.m., with some restrictions on when bowlers under 21 years of age can enter, because, in addition to serving food, the club plans to serve cocktails.
Peterson and Bradshaw plan to donate afternoon bowling and a portion of proceeds to local youth organizations, and, like at Mini Bar, exhibit rotating shows by local artists.
The property at 3176 17th St. that the lanes will call home is an industrial building clad in corrugated metal siding that formerly housed Centennial Distributors, an electronic equipment and supply company, although Mission Bowling Club’s owners plan to renovate the outside space to make it more welcoming to bowlers.
“Outdoor green space will be crucial to welcoming the community to Mission Bowling Club,” reads an owner-written description on the crowdfunding website, indiegogo.com, where the club owners raised $5,600 dollars toward a $12,000 goal to create a bike parking and green space.
Bradshaw and Peterson said they envision converting the current concrete driveway into a “well-designed green space that complements our neighborhood” that would include a vertical garden and patio enclosure.
The news of the Mission lanes’ opening comes on the heels of word that Serra Bowl, a beloved Bay Area bowling institution that has been in operation for 51 years, has until April 15 to vacate its Daly City premises because the property’s landlord declined to renew the bowling alley’s lease.
Even as the number of bowling alleys around the Bay Area dwindles, the industry is seeing something of an upscale revival in San Francisco, with SoCal-based Lucky Strike launching its South of Market outpost across from AT&T Park last Friday.
Like Mission Bowling Club, Lucky Strike–which has locations in 11 states, Washington, D.C., and Canada–offers gourmet bites and operates as a “bowling lounge.” Unlike its smaller competitor, the Lucky Strike on King Street is an exclusively 21-and-over venue.
That sort of restriction seems to buck Mission Bowling Club’s mindset. According to the business’ website, Mission Bowling Club is “exclusively, non-exclusive.”
Patricia Decker, Bay City News
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