This is the sign of a smart business owner.
" Saturday, Spoons, is Shabbos, the Jewish day of rest. That means that I don’t work, I don’t get in a car, I don’t fucking ride in a car, I don’t pick up the phone, I don’t turn on the oven, and I sure as shit
DON’T FUCKING ROLL!
Shomer fucking shabbos."
In the LA area, there were a rash of alley closures 5-10 years ago. Those that survived seem to flourish, though. There are lots of older lanes, and lots of newer, “trendy” places to bowl. They appeal to different types of bowlers, of course, but both seem to make money.
Personally, I’m a bowling fanatic, but I don’t know if I qualify as being Joe Average. Hell, I was president of my league for a couple of years. I take my bowling gear with me when I travel so I can say I’ve bowled in different states. And I watch bowling on TV. So…yeah, I’m not really the norm. 
Bowling doesn’t quite fit in with those other activities. Bowling is an “average urban guy” thing, unlike hunting and fishing, which are for average small-town and rural guys. Archie Bunker and Ralph Kramden are quintessential bowlers.
Obviously there are bowling alleys in rural areas, and guys in big cities who hunt and watch NASCAR. But there are more of the reverse.
This is an interesting thread.
I bowled a few times as a teenager and younger, but then didn’t bowl for about thirty years.
Just last year, me and a few friends decided to go to a bowling alley. It was almost entirely on a whim, we’ve been going once a week since. The alley we go to is in Richmond, and there are many active leagues that play out of it.
It’s pretty common that it’s packed, and usually we have to call ahead to reserve a lane.
There’s a pretty wide variety in who you will see there, I see a ton of college kids–most of whom can’t bowl very well at all, and seem to come mostly for the beer. There’s a lot of people you wouldn’t expect to see.
There’s one group of black guys who come dressed like they’re in a rap video who we’ve gotten to know pretty well. These guys were bowling here long before we started and all of them are extremely good–way better than any of us.
So it’s not just the stereotypical overweight and balding middle aged guy who is at the lanes.
If you couldn’t get beer at bowling alleys you probably wouldn’t see a lot of young people there.
This thread sort of reminds me of the guys that explore abandoned buildings, specifically this site: abandoned Hillcrest (Hafner's) Bowling Alley | Action Squad urban exploration They farked up the picture browsing but it’s still a fascinating photo essay.
It’s amazing and a bit depressing how so many of my friends who only bowl occasionally seem to look forward more to the drinking aspect than anything else. Although I suppose that goes to bowling being a social activity.
Drunk league bowlers, however, are not fun people to deal with.
I used to live in the Buffalo area where bowling is very popular (I once read that Buffalo has more bowling lanes per capita than any other city on Earth). But overall, I’d have to say that my personal experience is that bowling has declined in popularity. I think that golf has replaced bowling as the first choice for “sporting activity that functions as a social gathering for a small group of people”.
Last time I went bowling was a few weeks ago, and we should go again soon.
Actually, we left the strippers to go bowling because it was more fun.
My Grandma and Aunt bowl every Thursday night in a league.
I should point out that I was part of a Bowling Dopefest a few months back, so I know the Doper crowd is wise enough to enjoy the king of sports. 
So your grandma and aunt aren’t big on the strippers, either?
Mr J and I were on a bowling league last year. It was fun for a while but there were a few too many jackasses on the league. That killed the fun. We still bowl occasionally.
This may be true, but I’ve lived in some small cities, where I knew a similar cross-section of people and didn’t know any serious bowlers. It’s entirely possible that my sample is just skewed.
But that’s just it–Ralph Kramden was 50 years ago, Archie Bunker was 30. Is bowling as popular among the Ralph Kramden and Archie Bunker equivalents of today?
‘Appletini’ and ‘effete’. Two words that just sound right together. 
Naw, not after that one time when…
[slight hijack]This cool bowling ball had a prominent role in a recent episode of Reaper.[/slight hijack]
Well, there is Homer Simpson, and he bowls!
But seriously, no. Ralph and Archie’s grandchildren have gone to college and moved to the suburbs and gotten into more upscale sports like golf, and their place on the economic ladder has been taken by non-European immigrants not into bowling.
In high school and for a few years after I got out of the Army (late 80’s - early 90’s) I hung out at the bowling alley in my hometown playing pool. It always seemed to be the same group of bowlers every night, and they averaged 45 or 50yo. Young people would occasionally bown also, but not often enough to keep the place open. That bowling alley as well as the one in the town I currently work in have closed and been converted to dollar stores. I suspect home videos and computer games killed them just like they did most drive-in theaters.
Though I like to think of myself as anything but Joe Average, Joe Six Pack or whatever, I seem to have some bowling gene. When my brother and I were tweens and young teenagers, the family used to go bowling together. If I managed to break 100 for a couple of frames I was doing great. By the time I was in high school, we had stopped going.
Fast forward to about three years ago, when my office department had a bowling party. Once I got the feel of it back, I was easily breaking 100, and once hit 165. Other than that, I have no aptitude for physical games or sports of any kind. Far from it; I’m rather clumsy if anything. True, there’s debate about whether bowling is a sport, but it certainly is a physical game.
I guess this makes me some sort of bowling-savant!
On the nose, Freddy. (Or maybe I should say .) 
The concentration of bowling alleys in Owensboro, KY might be explained by its unusually large Catholic population (see burgoo). Then again, it might not.