How to start a bowling alley centre ?

[rileykathleen]

hi everyone.
we are actually really interested in opening an Arcade gaming centre along with a 4 lane bowling alley. We would like to know the initial investment involved and also the concerned company involved.

[Steve W]

A four-lane bowling alley? Doesn't that seem a bit small? You might want to consider enlarging your scope. Modern bowling alleys have dozens of lanes.

I wonder how difficult it would be to get the rights to salvage an old, closed bowling alley. I can think of a couple in different towns that are long dead, and how much cheaper it would be to reuse the old wooden flooring and lanes, and maybe the ball return equipment if it's not too ancient.

[Mianrtcv]

A 4 lane alley is tough. Leagues help sustain steady income for most bowling establishments. Leagues can't operate in 4 lanes. I understand parties can operate well on 4 lanes. However, how many parties can be booked and for what days/nights. The arcade potion would have to really be substantial and even then I don't know the revenue to offset overhead.

New businesses are tough to open these days. This sounds like a tough road. Just an opinion. if you want to include a bowling alley, I have seen 12 lane alleys work.

[Steve W]

I've only ever seen 12 lane bowling alleys work in little towns, not in a metropolitan area. Maybe just having four lanes is because the space she's looking at isn't all that large.

[Leo_A]

A four-lane bowling alley? Doesn't that seem a bit small? You might want to consider enlarging your scope. Modern bowling alleys have dozens of lanes.


Dozens of lanes in urban areas maybe. A dozen seems to be just about right around here in villages of 10,000 or so less people. There's no mention they even want to locate it in a metropolitan area anyways.


hi everyone.
we are actually really interested in opening an Arcade gaming centre along with a 4 lane bowling alley. We would like to know the initial investment involved and also the concerned company involved.

I can't imagine just 4. Are you looking to open it up in some seasonal tourist hamlet that never has more then a few hundred people at any one time? 4 wouldn't even be enough to support a viable project in a village of 4-5,000 people. You'd be turning away most customers and your clientele would never develop since everyone would quickly get discouraged from even bothering to drop by due to their never being enough lanes.

You'll never get a accurate estimate on the construction cost or a suggestion of a contractor at this forum. We don't even know where you're located for example. You got a ton of work to do before you ever get anywhere close to giving those two things serious thought anyways. You'll have to piece those things together on your own.

My advice is to go enroll in a entrepreneurship class or two at a local college before you give this thing any further consideration. And then try to get local advice from such things as your local chamber of commerce, other small business owners around you, friends and family members that have been down the entrepreneurship path in the past, etc.

Asking at a videogame forum isn't the way to go. When your further along with the process, I'm sure some of the current or former small business owners here would be able to give some helpful suggestions and advice on how to avoid pitfalls they discovered. But you shouldn't be using this place for anything except a bit of casual advice as you discuss your project when it starts to progress someday if everything works outs.

In the meantime, for something fun, purchase yourself a arcade cabinet. In between things like classes related to your project and research, you can have some hands on learning by maintaining a arcade cabinet (Not to mention, some relaxation playing it) which should come in handy if your project ever comes to fruition.

[Oobgarm]

We've had at least 2 24-lane-plus bowling alleys here in Cincinnati close within the past few years. Unless you're looking at hosting some PBA-type stuff, it's going to be a very tough job keeping one of them open AND profitable.

The planning and implementation of perfectly level bowling lanes will be expensive. Ball returns and scorekeeping devices will be expensive. Obtaining a small stock of good quality house balls will be expensive at first. All of the pinsetting equipment will be expensive. Upkeep on said pinsetting equipment will be very expensive, even with just 4 lanes.

Stocking your arcade with decent titles that people will actually WANT to play will be expensive. My local bowling alley had these games up when they closed: Final Lap 3, Crazy Taxi, NFL Blitz, Soul Edge, Cruisin' Exotica, and 3 other I can't remember. Those games did NOT draw people in and a similar grouping would only provide a small supplement to your income.

In short, there's gonna be a huge cost up front associated with your plan...good luck if you do put this plan into action.

[scooterb23]

In Columbus, we have a fairly successful new bowling place called Rule 3. They only have 8 regular lanes, and 4 mini lanes. What they do is make the place as full service as possible. It has a bar, a great restaurant, a decent sized arcade (redemption games = way to go, supplement w/ a few regular games). They also have a velvet roped off VIP area that's super swanky.

It costs money to keep going, but the place seems to be in very good shape, and they use social media outlets like facebook very well to get their name out there.

Good luck, it is doable, you just have to research ways to do it right.

[Gapporin]

Don't run a league on f'n Shabbos.

[dra600n]

From what I've seen (there are 5 bowling alleys all within 30 minutes of me, and one that is about 4 minutes from me), they have 32 to 34 lanes, except for 2 of them. Those 2 have huge bars attached to them and have the novelty lanes for duck pin bowling (like regular 10 pin, but the pins are shorter, and you use softball sized bowling balls, with 3 rolls per frame as opposed to 2), and one of them has candlepin bowling (same as duck pin, except the pins are tall and thin, and much much more difficult).

Anyways, before I derail off topic since I'm an avid bowler, here are some things to keep in mind with just 4 lanes:

- You won't be able to have any leagues play. 4 team leagues would be boring as you're literally playing the same teams every 3 weeks.

- The PBA most likely wouldn't show up. 4 Lanes = small space, and the PBA looks for large houses to have more than 2 games going at once for time constraints and restrictions. The only exception that I've seen to that is when they bowl at the casino's in my area, but I believe those are for special events and the PBA Championships (The Mohegan Sun Area holds 20,000 people, so they can get away with using 2 lanes and sell a butt ton of tickets).

- In terms of employment, you will need someone who can repair the bowling equipment, someone to run the front desk (it would be bad business to have nobody at the front desk because they're in the back fixing the pin setter or retrieving a stuck ball), most likely someone in the arcade (unless you're not having one of those prize booths/ticket redemption deals going on and if you're just sticking with quarters and not tokens, bar tender(s) if you're going to have a bar attached and so on.

As Mianrtcv said - leagues help pay the cost for the alleys. A lot of houses have 2 leagues going simultaniously during a 3 hour period, and that usually goes on daily (except summer time when it's limited due to vacations, kids, etc) up until 8:30 / 9:00 PM which is when open bowling happens and on weekends Rock 'n' Bowl (pay $18 to $20 from 11 PM til 1:30 AM).

As for the arcade portion - you'll need to get some of the more trendy "in" games as well as games that will draw people in. There use to be 2 HUGE arcades near me through most of the 90's, but they've been closed down for over a decade. The 2 bowling alleys I frequent on a weekly basis - I never see anyone in their arcades, besides maybe 2 or 3 people.

I'm not sure about other area's, so this may pertain only to where I live, but arcades are a dead fad, except for the 2 Dave and Busters around me (well, they're both 1 and 2 hours away from me), maybe someone can inform you of arcade statuses in other areas.

It sounds like a good idea - but for me, my arcade experience is kind of over unless I can find some place that has the games I enjoyed - pac man, mortal kombat 1 & 2 (3 was annoying on an arcade machine IMO), Ninja Gaiden (buying my cabinet today!!), some good pinball machines, etc. I wouldn't play the guitar hero arcade machine - mainly because I'm not going to spend $$ to play the same thing at home, which unfortunately is what happened to the arcades in my neck of the woods.

Now for the cost side of things:
I'm not sure about the cost of bowling equipment, but if you're going to get house balls new, you're looking at about $75 to $100 per ball, and another $35 to $50 for the drilling, unless you can talk to a wholesaler or reseller that has a large stock already drilled and ready to just get rid of. You'll also want various weights from 6 lbs up to 15 lbs. White Dot balls are the cheapest, and are what most houses use for their stock balls. If you're going to have 4 lanes, probably with a maximum of 4 to 5 bowlers, you'll want a range of balls like so:

10 balls of each of the following weights: 6, 7, 8, 9 lbs
And 6 to 8 for the following weights: 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

Lets say the average for the balls are $100, and we'll go with the lower number for the higher weight balls, that's $7600 just for bowling balls. This is essential because a lot of people take their children bowling, plus women will need a ball the right weight for them, and teen males tend to use 13 to 15 lbs the most, while teen females and adults tend to use 10 through 13. Adult males will usually roll 14 or 15 lbs balls.

Arcade machines:
I'm not sure about rental costs, but to purchase used games, they range from $200 up to $1000 per unit. You'll want at least 15 to 20 cabinets, and most likely an air hockey table or 2, so you're looking at anywhere between $10,000 and $25,000 if you were to purchase them outright.

Then you'll need to think of costs for advertising, wages for employees, hours of operation, electricity, water, heat (depending on if it's oil based or electric), rental of the building, taxes, etc.

Hope I provided some insight