Bryant-Lake Bowl- May 25th

Oh man, can you feel it? Can you feel how close we are to the end of the list? For us, it’s both exciting and sad. We’re writing this post the day before we drive off to Boston, with Summit, Victor’s, and a bunch of great friends in the rear view mirror.

In the meantime, we have four more items on the list. The first is Bryant-Lake Bowl, which we visited on Monday. How to describe Bryant-Lake Bowl? It’s a bar, a restaurant, a bowling alley, a theater. The fact that it’s all these things but retains a single identity and personality is a credit to its owners and staff. When we moved here, it was a comforting place, full of laid-back warmth and good food. We also noticed a sign in the window that said “Cheap Date Night”, outlining its Monday night deal: two entrees, one bottle of wine (or two beers each), one round of bowling, all for $28. This, my friends, would never happen in Boston. All you can do with $28 in Boston is pay for half a parking ticket.

When we saw that sign in 2004, we thought, “We’ll have to do that sometime soon.” It didn’t happen, and we figured this Monday would be our chance. Then the specials didn’t look very appealing, and … yeah. Oh well. We instead had some beers and some awesome food on their awesome wood tables that resemble bowling lane surfaces, and did some bowling.

A note about bowling at Bryant-Lake Bowl: people here take it just seriously enough. Though some pros surely pass through the place, it’s mostly friends having a good time. Strikes are rewarded with joyous applause, gutterballs are greeted with either polite encouragement or severe mockery (depending on the relationship). Lizzie and I are fine bowlers, neither good nor bad, mostly just inconsistent. (How inconsistent? Monday’s game included a few strikes each, and otherwise we only got a few pins down at a time. Yikes.)

We like to take people from Boston to Bryant-Lake Bowl, because many of them – including us, in 2004 – don’t have much experience with “real” bowling. In New England there’s a phenomenon called candlepin bowling, which has much smaller pins and balls. (It also predated real bowling, and was developed in Worcester, MA. Who knew?) While bowling on Monday, a strange thing happened: Lizzie suddenly remembered candlepin bowling. It was a stunning realization that, in some ways, we have become Midwesterners. But only in some ways. The day we say “pop” instead of “soda” is the day we hang our heads in shame. Mark our words.