Meet Your Neighbor: Bill | Ten Pin Alley

We spoke with Bill from Ten Pin Alley in Fitchburg to get to know him better as a Fitchburg neighbor and business owner! 

We’re back here in Fitchburg and we are with Bill with Ten Pin Alley. I’ve actually gotten to know Bill for the last, maybe 10 years at least! Coming out here and doing client events here at his awesome bowling alley.

 “And don’t forget volleyball!”

We’ve had a lot of fun doing that. Thank you for great coordination! Ten Pin is more than just an awesome bowling alley. They have lots to offer. Bill, tell us a little bit about how Ten Pin started, how long you’ve been a part of it.

“I’ve been part of it since day one. I was working at Boulevard, and the owner of Boulevard wanted to build another center. We were looking at many places, we were actually one time looking at a place in Columbus, we’re talking about building a bowling center there, also doing a movie theater at the same time. And then that didn’t work out. So then he looked at this site and then 24 years later, we’re here. So we started about 24 years ago, we went out to Minnesota, looked at a couple other sites to get some ideas of how to put this bowling center to work. Then we started, and there we go. I became manager on day one. I’ve owned the place now for 14 years, I bought it from him under land contract for the first two and then bought it outright for the last 12 now.” 

Awesome! Tell us specifically about the bowling center part of it.

“We have leagues and pretty much every night of the week. We also do corporate events, we do many birthday parties. I don’t know how many birthday parties we have in a year! We do school outings, just groups coming in and families just coming in to bowl and have family parties and everything else like that. Now it’s Christmas time right now. We’ve had a lot of groups use our banquet room for Christmas parties for their families and stuff like that. If they don’t wanna host at home, right, with a group of 20, 30 people that way they can come here  and enjoy themselves without cleaning up a mess at home.” 

I appreciate that! We alluded to this already, but it’s more than just bowling. So on top of that, tell us what else is here at this facility.

“We also have a main bar, which we serve food and drink and everything else like that. Of course, we have the banquets, we have a full banquet menu. We do anything like picnic buffets  or even taco bars to sit down dinners to other banquets and then hors d’oeuvres or pizzas. We run volleyball leagues starting the end of April, beginning of May, all the way through August. Every night of the week except for Saturday nights, we have 150 volleyball teams last couple years, which really helps us out. And then just people just come in and socialize in the main bar. The Badgers, if they’re playing well, we have people coming in watching the Badgers. Last Saturday, we had almost 50, 60 people in there watching the Packers try to beat the Bears."

I appreciate that! We alluded to this already, but it’s more than just bowling. So on top of that, tell us what else is here at this facility.

“We also have a main bar, which we serve food and drink and everything else like that. Of course, we have the banquets, we have a full banquet menu. We do anything like picnic buffets  or even taco bars to sit down dinners to other banquets and then hors d’oeuvres or pizzas. We run volleyball leagues starting the end of April, beginning of May, all the way through August. Every night of the week except for Saturday nights, we have 150 volleyball teams last couple years, which really helps us out. And then just people just come in and socialize in the main bar. The Badgers, if they’re playing well, we have people coming in watching the Badgers. Last Saturday, we had almost 50, 60 people in there watching the Packers try to beat the Bears."

That’s right. Well, that’s the thing is you call it a bar – but it’s more of a restaurant. The space is so large that you can fit a ton of people in there! So it’s selling it short when you say it’s, it’s just a bar. And it has multiple levels as well. Going back to volleyball, you have some of the best sand around. We’ve played in a few other leagues around town. Coming back and playing in this sand makes it one of the reasons why you love coming out here, as well as the drink specials and, and the deck to hang out and enjoy a summer day at!

“The sand we get, it’s not just plain sand, it’s masonry sand. The masonry sand is finer and doesn’t build up. We’ve got water drains underneath the sand. When we built the place, we put the drainage out there, so when it does rain, it drains very fast. So the sand isn’t mucky. So we built the place, in mind of having volleyball courts. We started out with two, and then we added one more, and now we have three. And we built a deck, twice the size of what it was when we first opened up. And now we do weddings on the deck. We do a lot of Cup, Cup corporate events on the deck. People just come out and socialize, just have a couple drinks when the weather is nice outside. Where would you rather be in the summer?”

Exactly, I was gonna say, on that deck! When you’re out there playing volleyball, and you have time in between games, just to be able to soak up the sun and just enjoy.

It’s more than a bowling alley. That’s obviously what gets most people through the door, but you’ve been able to make this into so much more through the restaurant bar, the event spaces, and volleyball. So it’s been a great piece to Fitchburg. Thank you for landing here when you were looking at places all around. 

“I enjoy the people coming out. I’ve gotten to know quite a few people. I might not know names a lot but I know faces! We get so many people from all walks of life coming through here. And it’s just not your bowlers. From two years old up to – we’ve got some 90 year old bowlers still bowling too. And you’ve just got people from all kinds of walks of life just coming into the center, which is really nice to see.”

A game of bowling! When you’re not at the bowling alley, I know you spend a lot of time here and family’s here and everything, but what do you like to do in your free time?

"My free time, I like to golf. I go for a walk with my dog. My wife passed away two years ago, so it’s tough but I enjoy coming here and the people around me to keep me busy. I used to play softball, so I still like to go watch my son play softball quite a bit. Other than that, I just try to get outside. I don’t get on my bike as much as I used to, I used to bike a lot. My knees are not as great as they once were, I’m almost seventy years old. But just being active, I like to be active. It keeps me young! That’s what I like to do.”

I’ve always enjoyed our interactions, such a friendly face when we come in here. So I continue to wish you success here, not only, at Ten Pin, but also just in life and getting back out and being active some more and spending some time with family. Thanks for the time today, and look forward to spending some more time here. 

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