A weekend wedding trip to Chicago started with a bowling party! This is a 4-lane facility with real people setting up the pins.
My husband's family liked to go bowling over the Thanksgiving holiday back in the day, so this is sort of an old November family tradition.
Finding our first dinner venue too busy, we arrived earlier than our assigned time of 8:00 PM and enjoyed good old fashioned bowling food: beer, burgers, fries, fish and chips. And nachos:
The menu at Southport Lanes claims Craft Beer, Craft Food and Craft Bowling. We were all hungry and enjoyed the heavy fare that weighed down our stomachs as we attempted to roll those heavy balls down the two lanes which had been reserved for our group of 9.
The elder statesman of the group volunteered to finger a pencil rather than a ball. I played one line and managed to break a hundred, which not everyone did--two strikes helped. I attempted to tip the pin boys by putting a dollar in the thumb hole, as suggested by a sign on the wall, but our pin-setter did not take it, so after 3 rolls I pulled it back out. He seemed to knock down a few pins with his stick for the younger and prettier in our group.
This sort of bowling is certainly a throwback to a simpler un-mechanized time and the balls occasionally were thrown back, rolling up the lane for a third shot at any missed pins.
The whole evening was an adventure in experiencing an old Schlitz brewery building from around 1900 now occupied by a noisy crowd of the young and thirsty. Everybody in our group was disappointed in their inability to score well in this simple old game, but had had enough beer so they didn't care too much.
The bathrooms were upstairs and old-fashioned as well. A simple wooden shelf with door stoppers provided a unique way to hold the toilet paper--something I have a propensity to notice, even as I manage to incorporate a point of reference for "poop" in each post!
The website claims that the upstairs rooms were used for brothel purposes back in the day.
More wedding weekend events coming...
I hope the nachos were tastier than they look!!
ReplyDeleteThe entire bowling alley sounds like a fun place to spend some time with family and friends. Perhaps we should go to Chicago with the R & G and then you and the husband can show us how to enjoy Chicago. btw I do get a kick out of all your references to fecal matter.
Did the nachos look that bad?? They were pretty much inhaled as I recall. Camera, lighting and editing also were not ideal...
ReplyDeleteWe should "do Chicago" one of these days. Put it on the list!