Steer Bowl gears up for summer bowling leagues
Steer Bowl plans to bring bowling leagues back to Graham starting this month. The bowling alley’s owner hopes it will be a source of entertainment for children, adults, businesses, churches and anyone in the community seeking another summer entertainment option.
The owner and operator of Steer Bowl, Jared Price, recently announced a change in business hours for the bowling alley. The facility is now closed Monday through Thursday.
“It was more or less a lead up to doing leagues,” Price said. “Pretty much getting people used to us closing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, just so that when they come here they’re not like, ‘Oh they got leagues’.”
Sign-ups for the leagues are underway. There will be four leagues. On Mondays starting June 20, Steer Bowl has four-person mixed leagues. Tuesdays will be mixed leagues for businesses starting June 21. On Wednesdays, Steer Bowl will host youth leagues. Youth leagues will be available for children ages 10 to 17 and will include two- or three-person teams depending upon sign-ups. The last league will be a four-person mixed church league. It will start Thursday, June 23.
All leagues will start at 7 p.m., except for the youth league. The youth league will start at 3 p.m. and go for eight weeks. The adult leagues will last for 10 weeks. The price for all leagues will be $12 per person each week.
During the day Monday through Thursday, the bowling alley is available to rent out for large groups.
“Renting out the building is $75,” Price said. “I thought during the summer, I was kind of thinking that there would be group settings where people could come in, and as a group, family reunions, birthday parties, things of that nature, could come in during the summer and do that. That’s not obviously working out too good. We really like the group settings. We absolutely love them. I was trying to make it affordable for big groups to get together.”
The big push for Steer Bowl is to get the leagues running again and to get the community involved in bowling.
“We are really going to push for this to come on,” Price said. “We want a minimum of eight teams per league. If we can get that, it would be phenomenal. With this kid’s league, we might have to go with two or three with that, if we are lucky per team. Just because, there are a lot of kids, but there are not that many kids.”
Steer Bowl wants to make bowling fun for the area youth, and will offer incentives in the youth bowling league.
“There has got to be a way to get them (kids) involved. I just haven’t pinpointed it yet,” Price said. “You know, their league will also be paid out, as well. They will get a nice something or another. We might do a game console or something (depending on the prize fund) for first prize. Second prize might be a gift card to Gamestop or whatever. We have some things we are working on. We are really working hard to get people back in.”
Steer Bowl plans to start charging kids to hangout at the bowling alley on the weekends. The price will be $10 and will include a game of bowling and something for them to eat.
“I don’t mind us being a hangout. I love having the kids coming in and hanging out, but you can’t go to Allsups and hangout and be like ‘Hey guys I am just here standing around not doing anything. I’m just talking to my friends. You can go around me, but I am just going to hang out here.’ It’s kind of getting to that point here,” Price said.
Price doesn’t mind being a hangout spot, but wants the area’s youth to get involved with the sport of bowling.
“Kids love it here, but they’re not bowling. They’re not eating. They’re taking up space. We are unfortunately going to start charging an entry fee,” Price said. “Anyone who is 16 and under and not accompanied by an adult, that’s not interacting with something in the bowling alley, if they are not in there playing games, or they’re not playing pool or doing something. I mean 10 games of pool, you can stay interested for hours and that’s $10. They don’t seem to be understanding. They could be doing anything. Playing a game in there (the arcade) every 10 or 15 minutes. Instead they come and sit at our tables. They are loud. They’re rambunctious. They run back and forth to the bathroom. They break things that they shouldn’t be touching. We are going to start doing a $10 cover for the children.”
Steer Bowl has enjoyed business from out of town, but Price has focused his energy on building the base of customers in Graham. He hopes to introduce more people to the sport of bowling and the entertainment it can bring.
“Honestly, we get a lot of people from Breckenridge and Newcastle. The schools are awesome. Jacksboro’s school came in, Newcastle’s school came in and Bryson’s,” Price said. “We absolutely love everybody from out of town. We appreciate them. We know that they can drive to Wichita Falls. They can drive to Mineral Wells. They can drive anywhere in the same amount of distance and bowl and they choose us. We really appreciate it. You can’t buy that.”
The bowling alley hosted “Grown Ups Nights” this spring. Price said that 20 people were the most that came to those events.
“I thought we would have more,” Price said. “It’s $10 for three hours. I was amazed by the first two or three we had. I was kind of sad.”
Since the reopening of Steer Bowl, the bowling alley has had a regular run of customers. Price would like to see more people in Graham give the sport a try.
“Honestly, we are doing all right. We are keeping the doors open, but we would love for more people to come in and give us a shot,” Price said. “Come and try it out one time. It’s something new. My regular customers I see all the time, but I rarely see any new people walking through the door. I don’t get it. I know people are busy and times are tough right now, but everybody’s got to have something to do.”
Steer Bowl hopes to see good competition and community involvement in the leagues. Price says his goal is to be fair and to provide the community an option for family entertainment.
“We are definitely here to be fair. We are trying real hard to keep the prices down and to keep it reasonable,” Price said. “The menu is cheap, really cheap. For the most part, it is definitely a very reasonable deal,” he said.
For more information about the summer bowling leagues, call Jared Price at 940-456-1530.
