Brooklyn Bowl, Coming Soon

Although Williamsburg is full of unique live music venues, with Williamsburg Music Hall and a bar scene that features some kind of music performance at least once a week around every corner, Brooklyn Bowl, a concert hall/bowling alley/restaurant is preparing to open its doors sometime in April.

When it opens, Brooklyn Bowl will offer a diverse Blue Ribbon menu, local craft beer on draft, frozen Margaritas, entertainment, which will include live music and stand-up comedy by top acts and a bowling alley with an airy beer garden atmosphere that will charge affordable prices and open in the afternoon and stay open late.

The expansive former iron foundry space on Wythe Avenue and N 11th Street features red brick walls, fire-proof raftered ceilings, a 35-foot stage, sixteen bowling lanes, two bars and more stalls per bathroom than most music venues have seen even in their wildest dreams.

Owners Charley Ryan and Peter Shapiro put in extra money and effort into Brooklyn Bowl’s construction to ensure environmental safety with features like 100 per cent wind-powered energy, water-efficient toilets, low-impact bowling machines and an environmentally friendly HVAC system that includes several four-foot wide metal ceiling fans. Ryan hopes to get LEED certification for the place, which would make Brooklyn Bowl the first green bowling alley in New York City, and perhaps the country.

Furthermore, keeping with the neighborhood’s “locavore” character, Ryan and Shapiro went out of their way to stay local, selling beer exclusively from Brooklyn breweries—Brooklyn Brewery, Six-Point and Kelso – hiring a local iron-working company to design the back bar, obtaining furniture from a Brooklyn provider and even using floorboards from a demolished Tribeca building as the top of the back bar. Ryan said they are also planning to hire locally.

To show respect to the neighborhood’s history, Ryan and his partner Peter Shapiro tried to work with the existing building as much as they could to preserve its original design. They enhanced the existing brick walls, re-opened the original skylights and took boarding off a circular window.

Ryan and Shapiro talked about opening a place like this for years, but the opportunity only came now. Though there is another bar/bowling alley—the Gutter—just a few blocks away, Ryan and Shapiro are confident that they have something unique to offer North Brooklyn residents looking to have a good time.

“The Gutter is a fun place, we’ve been there many times,” Ryan said. “The Gutter and Brooklyn Bowl both have bars, but there is no kitchen and no live music, so it’s really a different thing. The Gutter is not threatened by us and we are not threatened by the Gutter. Both are gonna be good for each other and the community.”

By the end of this week, Ryan is hoping to finish up construction and begin the difficult and complicated process of getting the place certified by New York City. He is incredulous that the lengthy project which cost “millions,” with an emphasis on the “s,” according to Ryan, is finally coming to fruition. Despite the economic downturn, he is confident Brooklyn Bowl will succeed because of its unique features and affordability.

“You can come to watch a performance, eat, drink, enjoy a 16-lane bowling alley, all at an affordable price,” said Ryan. “I don’t think it’s comparable.”