Meet Kingpin Lynn
Think of Lynn Gregory as the
chipper skipper of a huge landlocked vessel of fun
called Valley Bowl, with a crew of 25 and swarms of happy passengers.
On Mondays alone, 300 bowlers play on 3 leagues. Fridays and Saturdays
are packed until midnight and on Sunday they serve $1500 worth of food
from 8 to 11 with their "3 games and breakfast
special" for $5.99.
For Lynn, running such a large operation is
second nature having been raised in the alley, so to speak. Her father,
Vic Felice, bought Colonial Bowl in 1963 and later Valley Bowl and
finally Diamond Bowl. "My father was
an old-school Catholic Italian, " Lynn told me recently
as she answered questions between phone calls
and other affairs of business, " he wrote everything down on paper and
kept his money in a sack that he threw in the safe every night."
Joining the business as a teenager, Lynn has seen a lot of balls roll down the lane and she likes what she is
seeing now in the industry.
"There is an upswing in bowling going on right
now," Lynn said, " the non-smoking laws have really helped make it
family orientated." The trend,she said, is
moving away from leagues to open bowling and parties.
The more fun the better. " My philosophy is to
treat every one like royalty when they walk through the door and make
sure they've had as much fun as possible when they walk out," she said.
By far Lynn's favorite part of her job is the camaraderie.
Her sons, Donnie and Chris work with her and as she
says,"everyone that works here is my friend." And she knows most of her
hundreds of customers by name.
"Every day is like old home week," she said as an elderly
man brought her a ball that needed the thumb hole resized.
"You look familiar to me," she told him.
"You do too," he replied.
"Did you ever bowl at Colonial?" she asked.
"Oh sure, I bowled there for years when Vic Felice owned the place," he said.
" That was my Dad, I used to work there," she said, as
they began talking about old times.
After he left, she said to me, "see what I mean? This place is the Cheers of Spokane bowling allies."
