Listen Up, Pinheads

GET YOUR MIND IN THE GUTTER: Bowling makes a comeback at Strikes, featuring lanes with computerized scoring and mood lighting. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Let the good times roll at West Philly's Strikes Bowling Lounge, even if you're not keeping score.

by A.D. Amorosi

Bowling. It used to be the province of white people and Big Lebowski fans (so, exactly the same person), a decidedly unhip "preoccupation" one did when all other human contact became moot. I hesitate to call bowling a "sport" in the same way I hesitate to call Be "beer." Bowling was a pastime for camp-meisters and the women who loved them.

Yet, somewhere in Manhattan, between the brief reign of The Bowling Club and its famed punk habitues in the '80s and the more recent Bowlmor Lanes, the beast with three finger holes became trendy.

So trendy that even the shoes now look better.

So trendy that they put the first new set of lanes, the just-opened Strikes Bowling Lounge, in the old Urban Outfitters warehouse spot.

So trendy that Philly has not only one new set of lounge lanes, it could soon have several more, including North Bowl Lanes at 909 N. Second St., one near the corner of Broad and Chestnut and

"We're looking at a location in Old City," says Mike Ellis, the native New Yorker who manages Strikes. In addition to making nips-and-tucks to designer Gary Ruff's vision of high-tech meets kitsch cool, Ellis says he pushed owners Scott Caplan and Matt Canno toward a clubby restaurant ideal for its menu.

"We could've done another bar or restaurant," says Canno, the 26-year-old owner/developer, known for his Coronado condos at 22nd and Chestnut streets. "But there's an energy in U of P, a level of sophistication between Ivy Leaguers, their parents and their kids that just lent itself toward something engaging; something that's as sleek as a nightclub but that offers something recreational — an actual activity."

Inside the Creamsicle-orange brick front and below the moving neon bowling motif are several floors of bowling. Yes, they charge $10 at the door. But this is only to keep kids from just hanging. The door charge goes toward food or activities, including knocking balls into one of Strikes' dozen blue-felt pool tables or kicking down pins. Once in, the 18,000 square feet of Strikes is a vision of high ceilings (30 feet at its highest), white brick, glass block enclosures and green-blue glass mosaic tiles. "We wanted something rustic due to its wide-open warehousey nature, but still techie," says Ellis of the match of glass tile and silver heating vents.

The first lounge area has a blue-green wooden floor with geometric-shaped couches and chairs and circular metallic tables that hold bowling balls. This surrounds four bowling lanes whose gutters are lined with changing lights. Red, green, blue — these florescent lights sputter and change throughout the game.

The game itself? Whether it's weekends filled with kids and families ("it's like Romper Room," says Ellis) or after-5 p.m. crowds of 25- to 35-year-olds, you don't have to worry about pressing the nub of a cheap pencil against yellowing scorepads. Your score is kept via computer on 21-inch LCD touchscreens, echoed by lane-top 27-inch monitors that display the scores for all to see. With more couches and tons of floor space between the lounge, circular bar and 16 alleys (including four for kids), hundreds of people could watch you bowl badly.

"People are a little intimidated by the scoring," says Ellis of the computer-screen setup and other new bowling accoutrements.

"Used to bowl; I hear that quite a bit," says Ellis of people who, once turned away from the cornball innocence of bowling, are now being lured back. "There hasn't been a new lane built in Philly in 20 years." There hasn't been bowling nearby since Oregon Lanes shut down. (Not everyone wants to trek out to Westbrook Lanes in Brooklawn, N.J.) "We just want you to be able to hang out and relax; chill with your friends," says Ellis. "We want you to bowl a few strikes, too, while you're thinking of it."

The Dude would love this.

Strikes Bowling Lounge, 4040 Locust St., 215-387-BOWL.