Seattle Press on Line - Seattle's Amazing Bowling Boom

Seattle's Amazing Bowling Boom

By Tom Herriman

Ballard High's Bowling team came in 10th in the State Bowling Competition held at Leilani Lanes. (left to right): Rob Hartwig, Aaron Sanders, coach Steve Seter, Chrish Kirschner and Jackson Shiels. Tiya Mitchell and Tom Nicholson also play on the team.

Mar 22, 2001 -- In his recent book Bowling Alone, author Robert Putnam chronicled the decline of middle-class social and recreational groups such as bowling leagues and fraternal organizations. But in Seattle, even though there are only half as many leagues as there were 10 years ago, casual bowling thrives.

Over 250,000 people passed through the doors of Sunset Bowl in Ballard, the busiest bowling center in the U.S., according to promotion manager Gery Clinich.

While bowling used to be dominated by the Budweiser-drinking, embroidered-team-shirt crowd, Klinich says now people of all ages come in to bowl at all hours of the day. Sunset and its sister bowling center, Leilani Lanes in Greenwood, are open 24/7. At any given time you might run across a children's bowling birthday party, a laser light show or a karaoke party, along with plenty of drop-in bowlers.

Around nine o'clock every night you can watch the shift from team players to casual bowlers by observing the beer bottles lined up behind the bowling area, Clinich says. From six until nine p.m., when the leagues are bowling, the rail is filled with Budweiser bottles and paper coffee cups. After nine, when the league bowling ends and casual bowling starts, the bottles are all microbrews.

In another major cultural shift, bowling centers may soon be smoke-free. The Washington State Bowling Proprietors Association is lobbying hard for a new law to ban smoking in bowling centers (they are no longer called "alleys").

Recently, Sunset and Leilani hosted the state high school bowling championships, where hundreds of teenage bowlers--including a team from Ballard High School, which placed 10th--filled the centers for three days of intense bowling competition.

In May, Sunset will host an Amateur Open sponsored by Redhook Brewery and Southwest Airlines, with $250 cash awards and other prizes in each division.

Klinich, a wiry, energetic man, explained, "We started moving to open play, casual bowling around 10 years ago, and the strategy has been fantastically successful. We often have people standing in line waiting for lanes at two, three and four a.m. Sometimes I walk out of here late at night and I turn around and look, and I'll see the place is jumping, every lane in use, people pouring in and out the doors. I'll stop and scratch my head and think to myself, 'How did this happen? This is amazing.'"

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