Frisco | May 2023

BUSINESS FEATURE Strikz Entertainment East Frisco business keeps things rolling W ith new rooms, new technology and new games, the family-owned

BY ALEX REECE

sport of bowling back in the old days, a ‘bowling alley,’ to where we still have bowling but the arcade is very strong in food and beverage,” Farren said. Looking strictly at the prots from Strikz show that bowling, the games section and food and beverages sales all currently make up the same one- third percentage, Farren said. “In the old days it was 85% bowl- ing,” Farren said. Farren has rst-hand knowledge of how bowling alleys have gradually changed over the years. “My dad was a bowling mechanic,” Farren said. “I was raised in the back of a bowling alley in Indianapolis and then after college one of my job oppor- tunities was to work for Brunswick Bowling and Billiards and a bunch of other things.” Farren spent 25 years in the “corpo- rate world” watching bowling shift to entertainment before the opportunity to open Strikz came along, Farren said. Since opening, all of Farren’s six children worked for him at Strikz before going o to college and their respective careers. “I was able to work as a child with my dad in the back of the bowling alley, and I have good memories of that, and then having them here…it was fun,” Farren said. Throughout the changes to bowling and entertainment, some regulars have been consistently bowling multiple times a week, 48 weeks a year since the day it rst opened, he said. “We’re here for the community,” he said. “That’s really it.”

current Strikz Entertainment is a “far cry” from when it rst opened in April 2005, owner Neil Farren said. “The community has changed and we have changed,” Farren said. At Strikz, one aspect of keeping up with a changing community meant adding virtual reality to the bowling lanes. Projections of animated charac- ters and numbers tracking points now light up the wooden lanes, oering players mini games to take on during the game itself. Relatively newer arcade games, a digital tic-tac-toe projection for axe throwing and separate rooms for birthday parties and events are also markers of Strikz adapting to custom- ers’ wishes, Farren said. “We’ve completely gutted the interior in the [past] 13 years,” Farren said. The most recent renovations, which included adding new bowling scoring systems and new arcade games, were completed in 2022 and the exterior of the building is next, Farren said. Besides the physical space, even bowling itself has seen changes over the years, Farren said. “It’s really evolved from a

Strikz Entertainment rst opened in 2005 and has seen several renovations and advancements since then, owner Neil Farren said. (Alex Reece/Community Impact)

NEW BOWLER LINGO

Split

Strike

Spare

The rst ball of a frame knocks down the front pin but left standing two or more non-adjacent groups of one or more pins. Can be marked with “S.” Scoring a spare in this situation is often referred to as a “killer shot.”

All of the pins have been knocked down on the rst ball roll, marked with an “X.”

All of the pins have been knocked down during the second ball of a frame, marked with “/.”

Gutter

X X X X X X X 60 90 120 150 180 210 240

X 270

X X 300 X

Turkey

Perfect game

A player gets a turkey when three strikes happen a row.

Scoring all strikes, worth 300 points, is called a “perfect game.”

The ball was rolled into one of the gutters and did not hit any pins. Hitting no pins is marked with “-.”

Strikz Entertainment 8789 Lebanon Road, Frisco 972-668-5263 www.strikz.com Hours: Sun.-Thu. 10 a.m.-midnight, Fri.-Sat. 10-1 a.m.

“THE COMMUNITY HAS CHANGED, AND WE HAVE CHANGED.” NEIL FARREN, OWNER

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