Question of the Day - 27 October 2022

The original Brooklyn Bowl is in a 130-year-old building, originally built as a foundry, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York. The vacant ironworks was discovered by a New York nightclub owner in 2006 and after a two-plus-year renovation, it opened in 2009 as a combination 16-lane bowling alley, restaurant and bar, and concert venue. It was the first bowling alley in the U.S. to be rated as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED); its pinspotter machines use 25% of the energy of the standard pinspotters. In 2013, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it as the 20th best music club in the country.

In 2014, two more Brooklyn Bowls debuted, one in London, the other in Las Vegas in the LINQ Promenade under the High Roller observation wheel. The one in London closed only a few years later, but the Las Vegas outpost continues to thrive. It has attracted such notable touring acts as Elvis Costello, Jane’s Addiction, Phil Lesh & Friends, String Cheese Incident, and Steve Winwood. It has 32 bowling lanes fronted by eight giant, high-def video screens, the Bowler's Lounge (from which you can see the live acts), a 2,000-capacity concert floor, food by Blue Ribbon, a sort of sports bar that specializes in fried chicken, and a private-events center. Perhaps most notably, it's standalone, not in or part of a casino.  

In short, when it comes to live music in Las Vegas, Brooklyn Bowl is as unsung (evidenced by this question) as it is popular and uncommon. Prior to the pandemic when it celebrated its fifth anniversary, it had hosted a half-million showgoers at 900 concerts and 3,000 special events, with nearly five million frames bowled, more than 800,000 kegs emptied, and more than 100,000 pounds of fried chicken served. Thankfully, it survived COVID and a location opened in Nashville in June of last year and in Philadelphia last November.