Bowling in Echelon

Nationwide Bowling Centers orchestrates a cacophonous symphony of clanking pins and cheering bowlers at 11 modern bowling centers located throughout New Jersey. Center size varies from the Hudson-Bayonne location where 60 lanes with automatic scoring, a grill, sports bar, and arcade games accommodate armadas of bowlers to Garden Palace, which houses 16 lanes, a bar, and a snack shop. At all locations, staffers host birthday parties and corporate events and organize leagues for competitive bowlers or people who just like to chuck heavy objects as hard as they can.

For nearly 40 years, First State Lanes has kept pastimers and ardent tenpin enthusiasts furnished with waxed lanes, snack-bar provender, and accouterments from a fully stocked pro shop. Amateurs hurl spheroids at lanes alongside semi-pros doing battle in colorful league uniforms or impressive gladiator outfits. During rounds, the full-service snack bar slings pizzas, plates of signature chicken tenders, and a selection of beers. During the evenings, bouts of cosmic red-pin bowling cast pins in crimson and black-light glow, and any bowler who throws a strike that houses le pin rouge wins a dollar. For less alley-based diversions, guests can saunter over to the game room to play pool and arcade games.

On Friday and Saturday evenings, as party songs thump in the background, lasers beam over 36 lanes—each home to a rack of glowing pins—and reflect off their thin layer of oil into the fog. Of course, Playdrome Bowling & Entertainment Center hosts regular open-bowling hours throughout the rest of the week, when it echoes with the sound of crashing pins and celebratory sirens from the on-site arcade. Meanwhile, the aroma of beer-battered fish, fries, and cheeseburgers wafts from the Raxx Bar & Grill, and—though unseen, heard, or smelled—the signal from complimentary WiFi streams through the air as well, allowing players to post their high scores online or to look up the cheat codes that enable the bowling balls’ rocket boosters.

While the scoring may be faster and the tunes louder, Wynnewood Lanes still maintains the laidback atmosphere it had on its opening day in 1962. At the 24-lane alley guests mow down pins and snack on pizza at The Beer Frame Lounge. As weekend evenings fade into night, live DJs start blasting tunes through the sound system, inspiring guests to dance under the alley’s glowing neon lights. Simultaneously, a fog machine fills the room with a haziness that confuses bowlers into thinking karaoke singers are really the ghosts of long-gone rock 'n' rollers.