Thanks to a serendipitous football/calcio watch party that honorary league savior Dennis Walling attended a couple of weekends ago, we now have a new centrally-located home for our Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 leagues, and hopefully onward into the future!
Our league now has exclusive Tuesday-evening use of a privately-owned 6-lane vintage bowling alley in Strawberry Hill, a historic neighborhood with a plethora of neighborhood bars & restaurants to enjoy before or after bowling. It is located underneath/behind the St. John's Catholic Club, a community center leased from the neighboring church that is a dominant feature of the KCK skyline as viewed from the east.
Amenities / Benefits of our new home:
- Centrally located in the KC metro, making it easier on those who live or work south of the river while adding little drive time for those who are north.
- Quick & easy on/off access to I-70 for those coming from most directions, or straight down US-69/Fairfax for those coming from Platte County.
- "Exclusive use" means that exactly. There will be no other leagues on our night, and no open bowling. It's literally just us.
- Includes a beer bar* and snack bar. (See photos below for menus.)
- For those who need rental shoes, there is no charge. Just borrow a pair from the stack.
- Lockers are available for rental for those who don't want to lug their stuff with them.
- Brand new large flatscreen TVs for when there's a game on.
- We can provide our own soundtrack, if we choose, via bluetooth connection to the sound system.
- The volunteers who run the facility have offered to provide us buffet spreads a couple of times throughout our seasons, such as pizza parties or backyard-smoked meats.
* The bar serves bottled beer and wine only. Please make use of it and tip well to make it worth the volunteer bartender's time. We cannot bring in any outside beer, however teams who prefer hard alcohol and/or mixed drinks are welcome to bring their own and set up a station in the snack bar area. Ice is available.
The bowling alley is located in the center of the block, directly behind 414 Barnett Ave. There is a small parking lot directly in front of the doors that we may use (except for the handicap spaces) whenever there is not an event at the neighboring church. (Which would be rare for the church to be in use on a Tuesday.) There is also ample street parking: parallel parking on the south (eastbound) side of Barnett and angled parking on the east (northbound) side of 4th Street.
And don't worry... even though the bowling alley is leased from a church, we won't get in trouble for cussing over missed spares. We just need to be respectful.
There will be some minor changes to how the league works that will be detailed later -- primarily in terms of how we handle absences, how payments are handled, and scoring. The biggest change is that league size will be capped at 24 bowlers due to the capacity.
Welcome to our new home! We hope you'll like it! Click the photos below to view larger.