Round1 Bowling and Amusements Taking Over Nordstrom in San Francisco

[Alpha8472]

The empty Nordstrom at Stonestown Galleria in San Francisco will be transformed into a Bowling Alley, Arcade, bar, and amusement center.

Round1 is known for staying open until 2 AM in the morning 7 days a week.

The difference between Round1 and Dave and Buster's is that you don't have a restaurant inside. They have a bar, but very little food. The focus is on arcade games and bowling. The bar does make quite a bit of money.

I am eager to see how they do in San Francisco as the mall has had some violent youths rampaging and attacking mall customers.

This company is unprepared for the violence of San Francisco.

https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/ro ... 357020.php

[storewanderer]

I find this to be a poor fit, would like to think they could have held out longer to get a better tenant, but the situation must be that bad.

I also don't see this being an overly productive location for Round 1.

I am surprised Round 1 can pay the rent for this space. Typically they go for old Sears buildings nobody wants.

[ClownLoach]

My guess is they're going in for a month-to-month lease with minimal improvements aside from what, spray painting the ceiling black and turning off most of the lights? This is about the same thing as a Spirit Halloween. They're a space filler not a committed long term tenant, and the rest of the mall is going to empty out pretty quickly with no major draw and a bank running it who is only thinking of the highest possible return on selling it to a developer who's going to knock it down.

[Brian Lutz]

Installing bowling alleys (especially in an existing building that hasn't been designed specifically for the purpose) is a very involved and a very expensive process, not the type of thing a "Spirit Halloween" type place could do. There's a very specific set of technical requirements for it, and although they could decrease the cost by using string pinsetters the price of a bowling alley generally runs pretty close to six figures per lane, not to mention all the maintenance involved.

[SamSpade]

Installing bowling alleys (especially in an existing building that hasn't been designed specifically for the purpose) is a very involved and a very expensive process, not the type of thing a "Spirit Halloween" type place could do. There's a very specific set of technical requirements for it, and although they could decrease the cost by using string pinsetters the price of a bowling alley generally runs pretty close to six figures per lane, not to mention all the maintenance involved.

Hopefully they build out a full Round 1. I believe some of them are now just operating the arcade portion without the bowling?

In Portland, Ore. a similar tenant is present at Pioneer Place and it's a nice visit. Punch Bowl Social has a couple bar areas, a pub style menu, a small outdoor seating area, private karaoke rooms, and non-regulation (?) bowling lanes. All mainly for Adults 21+. I believe minors are permitted until 9 pm or something like that.

[ClownLoach]

Installing bowling alleys (especially in an existing building that hasn't been designed specifically for the purpose) is a very involved and a very expensive process, not the type of thing a "Spirit Halloween" type place could do. There's a very specific set of technical requirements for it, and although they could decrease the cost by using string pinsetters the price of a bowling alley generally runs pretty close to six figures per lane, not to mention all the maintenance involved.

I've seen some really cheap prefabricated fiberglass bowling alleys with vinyl wood-look lanes at low end entertainment places like this. They have the string pinsetters. Balls roll back on a visible trough and you pick them up from a "pool" at ground level. The physics are not the same when the ball hits the fake wood and the string pins tend to either stay up when they should fall, or they knock down other pins that otherwise wouldn't. I'm pretty sure they weren't regulation length lanes either. The place with this was in a closed furniture store in Huntington Beach area, we had to go because it was our nephew birthday party. No way they paid $100K a lane because the place was too low budget for that. I'm very sure the floor wasn't flat either because all the balls had a tendency to go to the left; looked like everything sat on top of existing carpet. I think the place closed for good during COVID and someone else has opened a similar concept there with some kind of laser maze.

Round 1 started out with some pretty expensive purpose built locations with games and prizes that were primarily targeting the Asian demographic, but then seems to have changed to an "anything goes" space filler of closed Sears and closed mall food courts and such. Like a poor man's Dave and Busters. Some of the D&B locations are old Jillian's and have full bowling alleys, can't remember if we went to one in Arizona or Texas with that setup.

Either way this SF Mall is obviously not signing leases for decades since it seems that the clock is ticking on the building, so I would expect this will be a fast pop up quality location with the prefabricated bowling lane machines and such. Did the Nordstrom have a restaurant? If so that'll probably be the food service so they can reuse the counter. And so on... If it was D&B they would do a in depth remodel.