By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
It's one thing for an employee-owned business to survive 60 years in one town. It's another for it to still be growing. Walnut Bowl is one of those rare success stories to make it six decades. Along with the bowling alley's success, Jim Mayberry celebrates his own 25 years of ownership this year.
As part of the celebration, Walnut Bowl is offering $1 games of bowling on Aug. 5 and 6 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Shoe rentals will also be a dollar. Children under the age of 17 can bowl for free on Aug. 5 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and coaches will be on hand for instruction.
Walnut Bowl has not changed much on the outside since it was built in 1961, opening the following year. The original business was plugging along with 38 shareholders before Mayberry bought it in 1996.
"We havent really added on to the building since we bought it, other than the big walk-in cooler and freezers we added on," he said. "Space-wise, it's the same. I built the shop out back, and I built the miniature golf right after we bought the place."
But most other aspects of the alley have changed over the years. Shortly after purchasing the business, Mayberry replaced the ball returns, carpet, and furniture. He built the miniature golf course in the parking lot. And he replaced those tricky pencil and paper score sheets with automated scoring.
"We were the last large bowling center in the state of Kansas to not have automatic scoring," he said. "We put that in as soon as we opened."
Big City Lights, also referred to as Cosmic Bowling, brought in a new crowd of recreational bowlers and allowed Walnut Bowl to offer something to customers after leagues shut down around 9 p.m. on Friday nights.
Equipment is constantly being replaced. Pins, house balls, and house shoes all cycle through every 2-3 years, with about 30 percent replaced yearly. Several years ago, Mayberry made the tough decision to switch from wood lanes to synthetic lanes. Savings from not maintaining the wood lanes was pivotal to keeping the business alive.
"I'm old school," he said. "I want the league bowling, I like the wood lanes and everything retro. It's economics. We wouldn't be here if we hadn't done that."
Mayberry has made other significant changes, most notably in the kitchen. When Earl Ryan installed the original bar in 1985, the design specifically excluded a kitchen. Mayberry wanted food, burning through 4-foot electric grills once a month. Then he put in a 5-foot hood he got from a closed Wendy's, and added a fryer and flat grill. Now a full kitchen with a 6-foot flat grill, a flame grill, two ovens, two pizza ovens, and six fryers cooks up "everything but fried chicken." Mayberry makes it a point to keep top-of-the-line ribeye steaks in stock.
Mayberry estimates league bowling brought in approximately 80 percent of the bowling alley's revenue when he bought it. While that's fallen to about 30 percent, the restaurant has more than covered the difference.
"In 2019, we decided to go full-blown, to add on and put the full, big kitchen in," he said. "Then COVID hit and we got shut down. I thought, 'What have I done?' because I bought all the equipment. It's been a blessing."
Mayberry has also revamped the arcade at the front of the bowling alley, and even more changes are coming soon as the games go to card-only, much like Dave & Busters. The cards will track spending and points earned on the machines.
In the early 2000s, Mayberry turned part of the arcade space into a formal pro shop. He gets help there from his son, Jay, and Todd Pfeifer.
"It used to be in the walkway between the kitchen, and that just didn't work out very well," Mayberry said. "The drill press was sitting out in the open. We've enclosed that. That's a service. We don't make any money on that. We don't charge near what other people do for the shop. It's a service to the bowlers, is the way I look at it."
Finally, there is the high school element. The Great Bend High Panthers call Walnut Bowl their home, and as a former coach of the team, Mayberry is pleased to have them.
"Really that's just more to promote bowling," he said. "We donate all the lanes for the practice and competition. We just give it away, which is about $10,000 when you throw in the lane oil, the labor, and the electricity it uses to run that. That's just something we give to the community, and it promotes bowling. It's been really beneficial. Of my league bowlers, I've probably got 40 or 50 who have continued on from high school."
Mayberry intends to keep working alongside his son, and now his granddaughters are starting to work in the family business. The goal is to continue to grow, especially with new types of leagues, including a rum-bucket league: two bowlers, four baker games, no averages, just fun.
"I think bowling really has a strong future, it's just changing," Mayberry said. "The direction is different. It's more family entertainment-type, eat, drink, arcade, and the fun-type bowling. We're working really hard this year trying to get league bowling back up."