There was a time when every children’s party, every lads’ night out and every bored teenager’s weekend of mooching seemed to include at least one visit to a bowling alley.
Now the big boxes that were once the main draw on the out-of-town retail park are struggling (see below). Jon Patrick, head of leisure at Christie + Co, says: “Tenpin bowling has always been a cyclical, some would say faddish, business. Its current lull is caused by operators not being able to rationalise the product.”
The picture Patrick paints is bleak. “It is a tough market and it will continue to be tough,” he adds. “The smoking ban has hit the league-oriented clubs hard and family oriented business have been struck by the economic downturn.”
There are also, he argues, certain fundamental flaws with bowling as a leisure concept: “The game can only evolve so far. It is property or land intensive and some properties are oversized.”
Patrick says that as retail has become more about leisure, and leisure has become more about food and beverages, operators have not been able to leverage those secondary income streams as successfully as cinemas, for instance. “After all, why eat burger and chips in a typical bowling alley on a leisure park when there is likely to be a higher-quality, better-priced option available within yards?”
But what about those bowling operators that appear to be bucking that trend? While the big boys with the big boxes are finding the going tough, bowling has had a revival at the hands of operators that are small, selective and achingly cool.
“In London there is the emergence of premium concepts, such as All Star Lanes,” says Ross Kirton, director in Colliers International’s licensed and leisure team. Founded seven years ago, the boutique bowler has now opened lanes in Holborn, Brick Lane, Bayswater and at Westfield Stratford.
“The more boutique bowling concepts like All Star Lanes are gaining the most popularity,” agrees Tracey Mills, development leasing director at Davis Coffer Lyons.
All Star Lanes’ 14-lane alley, restaurant and cocktail bar at Westfield Stratford City is its fourth in London and the first in a shopping centre environment. Mills says: “They were chosen by Westfield, I think, due to the evolution of the leisure footprint within retail-led schemes. The nature of the shopping trip has, of course, changed. Leisure, including bowling, helps to create a personal experience, not just a physical alternative to the internet store.
“Leisure anchors like bowling create ambience and also help to extend the trading day and keep customers there longer. Boutique bowling, especially, helps them to create a point of difference.”
Ready to expand
And now All Star Lanes is eyeing up the provinces, with Manchester first on its list.
“If traditional tenpin is a family entertainment,” says Kirton, “then these are more aspirational. And the model is based far more on food and drink.”
In fact, if it were not for the steady background rhythm of falling pins, you could be forgiven for thinking you were in an ordinary bar. The cocktail list, prices and hipster clientele tell you that it is appealing to the cooler cats of society, as does the barman’s haircut. Gone are the neon strip-lights of the Megabowl. Instead, the lighting is muted, subtle, subdued and sexy. But it is the decor that shows this bar’s true colours. The booths are studded leather and the walls are tastefully hung with images straight from Mad Men’s design team. The waitress wears a 1950s-style apron in bubblegum pink. If James Dean and The Fonz were to strut through the door, it would not be a surprise.
“These guys are appealing to geek-chic,” says Patrick. “They are small units for high spend, professionals. Big Bang Theory types.”
And that, Kirton argues, is why these bowling boutiques have not swept the country. “It is a submarket that only works in certain urban centres with aspirational types.”
There is certainly less hubris about expansion from All Star than, say, the indoor ski slopes of the early Noughties, which PY Gerbeau claimed would become a part of every leisure scheme in the country. “Just because it works in a shopping centre in Stratford, does not mean they want to go in to every shopping centre in the country,” says Mills.
“All Star has taken seven years to go to Manchester,” says Kirton. “Admittedly, the economic conditions have not helped, but these are models that can only work in very specific locations.”
Adam Breeden, one of the co-founders of All Star Lanes, may be careful about expanding, but he does already have another concept in the offing.
Last month, the founders opened Bounce, in Holborn. They are already in talks to open further sites. Breeden is the managing director, also backed by Zoopla founder Alex Chesterman, Ed and Tom Martin of pub group ETM, and Mark Sainsbury.
Like All Star Lanes, Bounce is a bar with a twist. Its 12,500 sq ft space comprises a 130-seat restaurant and cocktail bar. And 17 ping-pong tables.
“It may be hard to believe,” says Kirton, “but the new thing is ping-pong.”
Ping-pong – also called wiff-waff, Gossima and the more traditional table-tennis – was possibly invented by British soldiers in the Raj, or possibly by drunk students, using the lids of cigar boxes and a champagne cork. Despite that, it is seen as almost classless. It has been, at times, hugely popular or completely forgotten. And it is also a highly competitive Olympic sport.
“I can see the appeal,” says Mills. “My 15-year-old is obsessed with ping-pong. I think rightly – it transcends age groups.”
The big question of how you hold a pint – or, given the type of establishment we are talking about, a mojito – while wafting your wiff-waff bat, remains unanswered.
The concept is already gaining momentum. There is Bounce in Holborn – on the very site where ping-pong was first patented by games-maker Jaques in 1901 – and Ping in Earls Court.
Both are achingly cool. And both are, in reality, bars with a gimmick. “On a weekend Ping is open until 2am,” Kirton points out. “That tells you exactly what it is. It is a bar.”
“Bounce, Ping and All Star Lanes are actually driven by the food and beverage element,” says Mills. “The bowling and the ping-pong are a way to get you through the door.”
Marrying up concepts
Kirton agrees. “These venues become successful because of a marrying up of concepts. Would the ping-pong be successful without the bar? Probably not.”
Kirton points out that this is not a new phenomenon, but it is becoming more prevalent. “It first started with the karaoke rooms, then it moved into boutique cinema bars, then premium bowling, and now ping-pong.”
For Mills, this development has structurally changed the leisure sector for ever. “Can you even call this a leisure use anymore? It only works as a bar and restaurant with this other elements. It would not work as a D2 use with a few packets of crisps.
“If you look at it stringently, All Star Lanes is really sui generis. Very few of these new concepts are strict D2. Basically you are looking at bars with bits,” says Mills.
What this means for bowling is uncertain. There is a bar in Exmouth Market that has a dozen foosball tables. It is very successful and always full, and they make a mean capriosca. But that does not mean that table-football will sweep the nation, or will become a mainstay of big box leisure. It is, as Mills says, just a bar with bits.
For Kirton, the real test will be when All Star Lanes, or even Bounce and Ping, start to move beyond London’s zone 1. “It will be interesting to see what happens with All Star in Manchester,” says Kirton.
But even if Manchester – with its large, edgy student population – is a success, that means little to the rest of the country. “Boutique bowling or ping-pong simply isn’t going to work everywhere,” says Mills. “Even if you offer them a good deal, a really good deal, All Star Lanes will not want to go to Llanelli.”
But, what about the future of the traditional, big box bowling alleys? “You have certainly seen some bowling operators trying to jazz up their offer,” says Patrick. “They introduce better scoring systems, or infra-red. But let’s face it, it is just chucking a heavy ball down a lane at some bits of wood. You cannot really do much else with that.”
Having said that, he is not about to write an obituary. “There is something about bowling that is long lasting,” he muses.
Or maybe the appeal is now just nostalgia for a more innocent, golden age, when the jukebox played all your favourite tunes and the good times lasted all night? “It is about creating something that makes people take notice and feel good,” says Mills. “Bowling, karaoke, ping-ping all do this for a while. But then, ultimately, we move on to something else.”
A bowling league of their own…
Ross Kirton, director in Colliers International’s licensed and leisure team, says: “The market for larger bowling sites is dominated by three operators. There is the Original Bowling Company (formed when AMF acquired the Hollywood Bowl centres from Mitchells & Butlers), Tenpin, which is owned by Essenden, and Bowlplex. They control about 44% of lanes in the UK.
“Both Tenpin and Bowlplex have undertaken company voluntary arrangements, enabling them to offload poorly performing and, in many instances, over-rented centres. Trading conditions remain challenging although have been helped by the poor weather over the summer.”
Christie + Co’s Jon Patrick says: “Others are looking to downscale operations to locate fewer lanes in less property-cost-intensive premises. There is still an appetite for bowling clubs from niche operators, though.”
One of those is Garland Leisure, which bought eight Newbury Leisure clubs in June and recently bought its 35th centre, in Ilford. Garland hopes to become the largest operator in Britain, but, Patrick warns, “big is unlikely to be beautiful in the near future”.
Which means there will be, he predicts, a growing number of big leisure boxes looking for an occupier. “But who?” asks Kirton. “Casinos are only allowed in permitted areas and bingo is not doing so well.” So who is taking this space? “The buyers tend to be evangelical churches and banqueting for Asian weddings.”
Finding the ‘next big thing’
Karaoke, indoor skiing, screening rooms, boutique bowling and ping-pong. Each of these have been touted as the unlikely “next big thing” in leisure, and yet each appears to do well.
“It is all about trying to capture the imagination,” says Davis Coffer Lyons’ Tracey Mills. “These people try to capture rising markets. That is why we have seen concepts like Interactive Xboxing being launched. Some work, most of them simply do not have the long-term sustainability.”
One suggestion of where these next big things will come from is through pop-ups – in fact, not one big thing, but lots of little things, that pop up and then disappear as soon as they lose their initial glister.
“It is about colonising space,” says Mills. “You see it most clearly with silent discos. It does make sense for landlords. If you hit the right buttons and people start talking about it – that can put you on the map and is really worthwhile.”
Some recent ideas have include using rooftops to provide external sports facilities – such as running tracks – or extreme sports, with rock climbing up the sides.
“Often we look at the great fads on TV such as DIY, or gardening maybe, to steer new leisure trends,” says Mills. “Certainly, cookery schools have been a hit – as you can see with Jamie Oliver’s concept, Recipease.”
Kirton agrees: “Cookery schools. That’s something that does have a future.”
“That one is less about youth and more about the yummy-mummys,” says Mills. “But that makes it very localised.” Indeed, Recipease’s sites scream a certain demographic – Notting Hill, Clapham Junction and Brighton.
Other ideas that seem perfect, simply fizzle out and die. “There were no real Olympic things,” says Mills. “We did not have people doing archery on the roof tops, but that was probably hampered by security issues.”
