Bowling alley will be open by mid-July, new owners say

Riverhead’s new bowling alley will be open for business by mid-July, according to the partners now finishing up work on All-Star Lanes on Route 25 just east of Cross River Drive.

The new complex will feature 22 retail lanes, plus six lanes in a room for private parties, a sports bar and restaurant, a 45-game arcade, a couple of pool tables and an outdoor 18-hole miniature golf course, partner Jeffrey Rimland told RiverheadLOCAL Thursday.

The miniature golf course will be developed in 2013, said partner Chris Smith in an interview at the site. “That’s phase two.”

Smith, an architect who lives in Laurel, said he’s developed eight bowling and entertainment centers over the past decade, with his most recent project being the 90,000-square-foot, 50-lane BowlMor Lanes in Times Square, where the lanes are divided into seven New York City-themed lounges, plus a sports bar/restaurant and an arcade.

“I saw this languisihing here,” Smith said of the bowling alley, a construction project begun in 2007 but abandoned a couple of years later by previous owners after they ran into financial trouble. “I told Jeffrey about it. We bought it out of bankruptcy. Now we’re going to breathe some life into it,” he said.

The bowling alley was “about two-thirds of the way built,” Rimland said. “So we thought we’d take a shot at it.”

He brought in Peter Sgroi, who has been in the bowling industry for seven years and in the food and beverage industry for more than 20 years.

The partners have hired bowling mechanics and are looking for a chef for the 60-seat restaurant.

“We’re tyring to bring it up a notch as far as the quality of food you usually find at bowling alleys,” Sgroi said. It will feature a typical sports bar type of menu, he said.

It’s too early to start hiring other staff just yet, Rimland said. There has been a lot of interest in jobs at the venue, especially since a “now hiring-bowling mechanic” sign went up out front.

The project will generate a total of about 50 jobs, Rimland told the Riverhead IDA board at a January hearing, at which the IDA  board granted the developer’s application for development incentives, including a seven-year real property tax abatement.

Photo captions: (Top) Bowling alley on Route 25 will be open by mid-July, the new developers say. (Bottom) New owners of the bowling alley being built on Route 25, from left, partners Peter Sgroi, Chris Smith and Jeffrey Rimland, outside their building Thursday.

RiverheadLOCAL photos by Peter Blasl.