alt Hacker NewsI grew up behind the bowling machines. My dad was a bowling machine mechanic and worked on machines all around the midwest. He often moon-lite as the on-duty mechanic during league nights and I'd go with him.
Mostly he worked at the local 16-lane alley with ancient AMF machines. The logic was all relays in a "chassis" on each machine. Relays would fail, pins and balls would end up where they're not supposed to be, folks would roll the ball into the sweep. All kinds of stuff. As a kid was was fantastic to see. A pinsetter machine is a real Rube Goldberg type contraption. Probably lead me to being an engineer.
We had the several opportunities to buy a small-town bowling center, but looking at the economics -- even back in the 1980's -- wasn't good. Most of the operating profit back then came from alcohol sales and that's a totally different business.
Good luck! Recently Facebook has been showing me a lot of bowling content. Be cool if it's making a comeback.
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It's hard to tell if it's making a comeback but it's getting attention.
Ben stiller produced a documentary for HBO "Born to Bowl" and it was very engaging. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_to_Bowl
> Most of the operating profit back then came from alcohol sales and that's a totally different business.
I think this is typical of a lot of similar-ish businesses. Restaurants, bowling alleys, movie theaters, all run on high margin alcohol (or concessions) and make very little profit on the primary business.