This weekend, my friend Becky and I decided to check out the new, swanky downtown bowling hotspot, Corner Alley. From the rave reviews it’s been getting, we imagined a hipster paradise, full of apple martinis and chic retro bowling shoes.
But before we left, we decided to check out the prices online. (Yes, we’re cheap. Thanks for asking.) What we found shocked us into forgetting all about the spiffy new lanes. How much does it cost to don rented shoes and throw a ball at some pins on a Friday night? Thirty-five dollars an hour!
When we called, they explained the price buys one lane for up to six players—all of whom we’d need to make the investment worthwhile.
So much for supporting the downtown Cleveland revival. For that price, we figured we could buy a new pair of heels and ruin our manicures ourselves. — Lisa Rab
This article appears in Jan 3-9, 2007.
I agree that the weekend $35 price tag for one hour of bowling seems high. However, I think it’s incredibly unfair and misleading for the author to have neglected to mention that that price is on Friday and Saturday only and that it is a very affordable $12/hour on other nights. Personally, I appreciate that a solo hotshot bowler cannot monopolize a lane for hours on end on a Friday night nor can a group of chatty coworkers spend an entire evening taking turns posing and tapping away on their Blackberries while the rest of Cleveland waits to throw the rock. It’s a brilliant strategy.
If you want Parma bowling prices, you can bowl in Parma and get the Parma bowling experience. You can also get a shot and a beer for $1 at the Last Stop Inn on State Road, but we don’t compare that to an $8 drink downtown. I’m continually amazed that the people in this town think they deserve to have a Manhattan experience for Parma prices. We’ll never be anything but Parma if that’s what we think. (No offense to Parma, but let’s be honest. Plus I grew up there.)