METRO DETROIT — It’s early Sunday evening on the last weekend of April, and I’m perched beside a currently-out-of-use lane in a dimly lit section of Thunderbowl Lanes in Allen Park, Mich. On this particular weekend, Thunderbowl was the site of the Professional Bowlers Association’s Battle of the Brands, and after a raucous finale, the hubbub has subsided. The crew members are switching off the bright lights that illuminated the lanes for TV. Pro bowlers quietly weave in and out of the event zone to collect their ball bags. Most of the adoring fans who packed the stands have headed home. A few remain, eagerly waiting along the edge of barricaded lanes with signs and jerseys, hoping for a parting memory with their bowling heroes. Then there is my mother, sunken into the bleachers, heart heavy with history as she takes in the scene. But we’ll get back to that.
My gaze wanders across the massive bowling center—in modern-day bowling parlance, bowling alley is out, and bowling center is in. Thunderbowl Lanes is a curious convergence of future and past. The laneside computers are up-to-date, the screens work, the place is clean and more than equipped to host events like Battle of the Brands. But the carpet has a busy retro pattern, the bartop tables whisper echoes of the 70s, and the lettering out front eschews modern minimalism for a nostalgic chunky design.
The place feels like a cross between the old guard of bowling alleys and the new era of bowling centers, and for good reason: Thunderbowl Lanes was the largest privately-owned bowling alley in the United States until it was sold to Bowlero Corp. (now called Lucky Strike Entertainment) in 2024. Prior to the sale, it had been owned and operated by the Strobl family, who first entered the business in 1942. For more than 80 years, Thunderbowl stood as a family-owned landmark and a pillar of Metro Detroit’s bowling community. Now, though, its life rests in the hands of a publicly-traded corporation that owns around 350 bowling centers and also the PBA.
Thunderbowl’s transition feels personal—not because I have a particular connection to the center or the original proprietors, but because of how it echoed my own family’s experience, some twenty years earlier.
My favorite fun fact about myself is that I spent a considerable amount of my childhood at a bowling alley—I didn’t call it a center—in Canada. Rose Bowl Lanes, opened in 1962, was built by my great-grandfather, Archie Rose, and maintained by my grandfather, David Rose, until his death, after which it was run by my mother, Wendy Rose (Bice). Rose Bowl Lanes defined our family until late 2007, when we had to sell the business. The decision was difficult and devastating, driven largely by financial pressure and the added complication of my mother having to commute across the border from the Detroit suburbs to Windsor every day.
After the sale, we stopped going to Canada, and the only bowling I did was the occasional birthday party or night out. The bowling alley became nothing more than lore—an origin story that faded as my siblings and I grew up.
But in adulthood, I wanted to resurrect history. I hoped to know more about the place, the people, and the sport so deeply ingrained in my DNA. So the same weekend as Battle of the Brands, my Mom and I returned to the Rose Bowl. I hadn’t been back in over 15 years.
Crossing the border via the Detroit-Windsor tunnel, a commute that used to be a daily routine for my Mom now felt like a nostalgic road trip. As we made our way through Windsor, she wistfully pointed out various landmarks—the cemetery where Grandpa was buried, the former site of Rose Furniture (another now-gone family business), the riverfront street where her grandparents’ house used to be. The visit quickly became bigger than just the bowling alley: It was a window into her world, a rare chance to see my Mom’s childhood through an adult’s eyes.
The stories continued spilling out when we met up for a noisy lunch with Doug Clarke, the beloved “brother my mother never had.” Doug began working at the Rose Bowl as a teen and rose through the ranks to become the general manager. He spent more than 35 years at the 50-lane center, and it was there he met the love of his life, Stephanie.
After a hearty meal of poutine and chicken wings, we headed over. My stomach churned—probably from the nerves, but the gravy-laden fries and cheese curds making their way through my system likely didn’t help.
“Are you sure your Mom wants to go back? She’s not going to like it,” Doug had warned me when I asked him to join for the day. He’d been back to the center—renamed REVS Rose Bowl under new ownership—and said he had seen it fall into disrepair. I assured him we were ready.
In hindsight, I don’t know if we were.
In the mid-20th century—spurred by the industrial boom, a league push from the UAW, and post-war economic expansion—bowling was a staple of working-class recreation, and its popularity coincided with the rise in bowling alleys across the country. It was a sport for workers blowing off steam after a shift, couples on their night out, or mothers looking to socialize during the day.
Brunswick and AMF, the two bowling industry leaders in both machinery and equipment, offered young entrepreneurs no-interest or low-interest loans, making it feasible to open and run a bowling alley. The demand was there, the clientele was consistent, and the return on investment was impressive. For a time, it was the American (and Canadian) dream realized: a place of one’s own that could be passed on and provide security for future generations. But in the ‘80s and ‘90s, as league play dwindled and costs to run a center rose, it became harder for owners to keep the sport inexpensive while also maintaining profitability.
“Raising league prices was impossible,” Doug recalled. “You would think you were trying to steal somebody’s child if you told the league secretary or president that the price was going up. A nickel was the most we could ever go. Well, you can’t improve your bowling center with that.”
Not only did it become hard to make a profit, it also became difficult to keep the leagues full. In his groundbreaking book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Society, published in 2000, political scientist Robert D. Putnam pointed to the decline in bowling leagues as a marker for the decline of America’s social capital. According to Putnam, “Although the number of people who bowled had increased in the last 20 years, the number of people who bowled in leagues had decreased. If people bowled alone, they did not participate in the social interaction and civic discussions that might occur in a league environment.”
“There were more league bowlers in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s,” Tom Clark, longtime commissioner of the PBA, explained when we chatted after the Battle of the Brands. “Since then, the number has gone down. It’s mostly due to societal shifts and the amount of entertainment options people have.”
Andrew Anderson, a Michigan-born PBA Tour member and the second-youngest PBA Player of the Year, echoed the commissioner’s sentiment when we spoke at the center on Friday. “The ‘70s and ‘80s were prime time. The ‘90s and ‘00s put a stigma on us: beer, pizza, whatnot. And hey, those are things that you can still do … But I think bowling is on the edge of being very successful. Everything in general goes through youth movements, and we have gone through a massive one in the last three to five years.”
“Back then, if you built it, they would come,” opined my mother. These days, they still do, but it looks different. I know plenty of people in bowling leagues—it’s their Monday night chance to catch up with friends from college, co-workers, or family—but they’re more likely to play in a center with a distant corporate owner. The loss of family-owned alleys can mean the loss of the business’s soul—or more tangibly, a new threat to the players’ wallets. There are still inexpensive options, but the bowling centers in major cities often look and feel more like high-end cocktail clubs, and they can charge as much as $70 an hour for a lane rental alone.
But our old Rose Bowl, on the other hand, has the exact opposite problem—an alley seemingly left behind by the optimization that a company like Lucky Strike represents.
The first thing I noticed about my family’s old bowling alley, as we pulled into the sprawling lot, was how the front patio looked smaller than it had at age 10. The next thing, as we stood outside, was that the building was painted a jarring neon purple and yellow. “It used to be light blue,” my Mom reminded me. To the right, I saw the window to my Grandpa’s office. As a kid, the hallway to that room felt like a foreboding labyrinth, an endless stretch with an imposing wooden desk at the very end. The office, it turns out, was intentionally intimidating. Doug shared a memory of my grandfather once telling him “that he was going to build a platform that rigged his desk up so that when you sat over there, you were lower than him.”
On some level, I expected to be transported back to 2005 when I walked in—that the shoe counter clerk would still know my name. I used to delight in walking up there with a bratty smirk, telling Myrna, the welcoming face of the Rose Bowl, “Give me all the loonies and toonies you have, please.” She would slide over a mountain of Canadian currency, and I’d take it to the arcade, ready to acquire a bounty of tiny stuffed animals that would one day gather dust in my bedroom.
The center was busy—lanes at one end were occupied by a corporate event, the others filled with assortments of families, couples, and friends. As we wandered, I stared at everyone, by reflex expecting them to simply know:
We are the Roses. This is the Rose Bowl. This is our home.
But it wasn’t. Not anymore.
It was almost two decades later, and the checkered linoleum floors seemed dirtier. The ceiling panels were stained from lingering water damage. The arcade had been dismantled, replaced by a locker room with a few dilapidated video games. The old restaurant that Doug’s wife Stephanie ran had a new name. Vintage booths and wood paneling and a top-notch menu had been swapped out for frozen chicken fingers, soda, and folding chairs. Behind the shoe counter, the control panel was a relic in disrepair. The snack bar, which used to brim with enough candy to give a dentist a panic attack, was shuttered, a few trash wrappers scattered in the glass display case. The party rooms — also known as the smoking section in the early ’90s — were dark.
I scoured the walls and display cases for a trace of my childhood. Nothing. My heart sank. I felt like a stranger in a place that had always felt safe.
But then I saw the lanes. Above each synthetic, gloriously oiled alley, the words Rose Bowl remained. Balls spun down lane after lane, smashing delightfully into pins that were quickly eaten by the giant metal arm before being spit out for another shot. I looked to the far end of the bowling alley, by Lane 50, which was the spot near Grandpa’s office and where we typically set up camp to bowl. Suddenly, I could see it. I could feel it. A ramp to push the ball down. Grandpa coaching us as we tried our best. The squeak of shoes. The smell of pizza. The shouts of my siblings. The laughter of my Mom, my Dad, Doug, and Stephanie.
It felt like time travel, and it reminded me of a conversation I’d had with legendary bowler Jason Belmonte at Thunderbowl the night before. We were at the first event in the Battle of the Brands: the Pro-Am, during which amateurs can register to bowl alongside PBA pros.
“I’ve been coming to this place for 15 years,” Belmonte told me as he laced up, tossed street shoes into his bowling bag, hoisted it over his shoulder, and headed toward the fray. A bright-eyed teen wearing a Belmonte jersey nervously stepped up to go frame-to-frame with his hero. Nearby, a wizened older woman held a beer in one hand and a ball in the other as she prepared to play the PBA’s best. And off to the side, a college-bound local with dreams of going pro herself watched each throw with a hawk’s eye, studying form as she tried to perfect her own.
“There aren’t very many sports in which one of the best in the world, a 75-year-old person, and a three-year-old can all enjoy it in the same vicinity at their own pace all together,” Belmonte had told me.
He’d gotten his start at his family’s bowling business in Orange, New South Wales and gone on to become one of the most decorated players in PBA history. I came from Windsor and went on to once bowl a game so dismal my date asked “Is this your first time?”. But at both Rose Bowl and Thunderbowl, the alley and the center, I felt like bowling had welcomed me back.
That Saturday at the Rose Bowl, my Mom and I rented shoes and a lane—less than $20 total CAD—and played a game. Our skills were lacking but, sipping on beer and chatting with Doug, we weren’t worried that our scores didn’t even scratch 150.
As I watched my Mom awkwardly toss the ball down the lane, I thought of the stories she’d told me. Her hours spent hanging with the “boys in the back,” a.k.a. the mechanics (Doug included). Handing out reservation tickets when she worked behind the counter in her own childhood. Sorting through endless rows of stinky, sweaty shoes.
As her ball crashed into the pins–-a strike!—I saw myself in this same place decades earlier, a little girl racing across carpeted floors to fling open Grandpa’s office door and say hello. After the big metal arm swept away the game, my heart burst with pride over the legacy my family built.
And when I looked around, I realized it’s still alive, even if on the surface, the story appears different. The Rose Bowl was filled with families making memories, the next pro bowler practicing, a couple falling in love, and an unenthusiastic teen working their first job. Able-bodied, disabled, white-collar, working-class, big, small, old, young, mean, kind, ambitious. Generations of Canadians and Americans had shared laughter at a gutter ball, breathless cheers for a spare, a disappointed ack after a miss, cheesy pizza with Canadian bacon delivered straight to the lanes on paper plates, and car rides home in a backseat full of stuffed animals from the play-till-you-win machine.
“We should do this again, with the whole family,” Doug proposed as we packed up. I could see the history in his eyes, too. “All the kids and grandkids, let’s come back and bowl. It’ll be fun.”
We agreed to return to the Rose Bowl this November.
But there was one last stop on my trip home, for both me and my mom: Sunday’s Battle of the Brands finals back at Thunderbowl Lanes. Pop music blared and a strobe light danced as fans packed the bleachers. Bright lights beamed down on four lanes. Sportscasters sat nearby, poised for the action. A FOX Sports x PBA logo hung above the lanes, and, to the left, each brand’s banner was displayed. The TV crew was focused, the teams were locked in, and the spectators were ready.
The first match was Brunswick vs. 900 Global. Fans raised signs into the air as the first ball was thrown. Oohs and aahs echoed as it barreled down the lane—
SMASH! Not a strike, but the first pins were down, the show had begun.
Brunswick took the first win and 900 Global walked off. The PBA uses a step ladder format, so the next round was Brunswick vs. Motiv. With each match, fans leaned in closer and the intensity grew. But the bowlers took their time, focusing with a keen precision. The whole arena, it seemed, waited with baited breath at the wind up and release, the silence suddenly broken by the bang of the ball on the lane.
Andrew Anderson’s day was over after the first match, but he stopped to meet fans lining up by the ball bags. At the Pro-Am, we’d spoken about why he loves the sport. “There’s going to be people sitting five feet away while I’m bowling on TV. How many other sports get to say that? We are the most inclusive. I always thought that was the most underrated part of our game.”
His comment stayed with me as one spectator in particular caught my eye: a tween boy with chubby cheeks and glasses. I spent a considerable amount of time trying to spot his parents before I gave up on an interview and observed instead. I was mesmerized as he carried around an “I Love Thunderbowl” sign and took in the day with the brightest eyes and a smile the size of a league trophy. You could see that, for this kid, today was a core memory. This was it. And the bowlers knew it, too. Pro after pro worked to make him feel special and seen.
By the time the showdown between Storm—the top seeded team—and Motiv began, I was on the edge of my seat. As Belmonte and his Storm teammates hit strike after strike, I was caught up—how could you not be? It was fun as hell.
And then, after Swedish bowling star Jesper Svensson capped off an impressive streak for Storm with two strikes in Frame 10, the team basked in its title win. The giant screen showed a graphic of Storm’s logo, a backdrop for the boys as they posed for their victory shot. They gripped a trophy and grinned for the cameras, reveling in the reward.
Thirty minutes later, the arena held an eerie, calm silence. The few remaining pros packed up their balls and headed out. These lanes had been everything, and now it was on to the next city.
I found my way back to my Mom. While I had been in the crew section, she was watching from the bleachers, chatting with spectators and cheering with the crowd. Her eyes were watery and she had a distant smile on her face. “Were you okay?” I asked. She took a beat and squeezed my hand. “I was really emotional for a minute.”
Walking out of the center, we passed a lone RV, and my Mom slowed, surprised that it was the only one on the lot. In the ’80s, she shared, the Rose Bowl hosted the lone PBA tour stop in Canada. The tournament was a dream for my Grandpa, who worked for years to host the event. Back then, the prize money for bowlers was minuscule, and to save money on tour, many pros would travel in RVs and campers. The Rose Bowl created an RV park of sorts, taking up a good third of the massive parking lot.
“Those events were so much fun.” My Mom teared up again. “It was such a big part of my life.”
And it’s still a part of mine, too.