Enterprise : LEARNING CURVE: NEW SAN GABRIEL LANES : Out of the Gutter : An Ailing Bowling Alley Is Spared

Eddy Ho had been bowling only a few times when he decided to take over a San Gabriel bowling alley last spring. Since then he has learned to apply his training and experience in hotel and restaurant management to turn the ailing bowling facility around. Ho was interviewed by Karen Kaplan.

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They were thinking of tearing down the San Gabriel Lanes bowling alley in May 1994. I came by to check it out and I ended up signing a five-year lease and started remodeling the place in July. I decided to call it the New San Gabriel Lanes.

My background is in hotel and restaurant management. Before I started the business I had only bowled a few times. But when I found this opportunity, my dad and my wife encouraged me to go for it. After all, the principles of running a bowling alley and running a restaurant are pretty much the same. There are different types of specials that you run, but it’s all a matter of customer service.

This building was built in 1955. People tell me that in the 1970s and 1980s it was the busiest place around. The reason it had gone downhill was that the previous management had kicked out the bowling league and they never maintained the facility.

But I was sure that it could still be a successful business. For one thing, the location is very good. We are close to a lot of middle- and upper-middle-class people who have more leisure money to spend.

Before we opened I visited 20 bowling alleys and talked to the proprietors, the managers and the mechanics. I realized right away that although I have a business mind, I don’t have a bowling mind. So I hired a general manager who is very knowledgeable about the bowling business. He helped me formulate some of our policies and figure out what kind of bowling league we wanted. I didn’t realize how important a bowling league is to a house.

The bowling alley needed a lot of work. We fixed the roof so it wouldn’t leak. We tore down the restaurant and redid the bar and the snack bar. We put in new paint and carpet. Altogether it cost $750,000.

There used to be gangs and other unsavories hanging around here. I tried to change the image of the place to be more family oriented. We put in six bumpered lanes for kids. We put in a play room and a day care so that league bowlers can bring their children. We promote birthday parties, social parties and company parties.

We discouraged the gangs from hanging around by putting more lights in the parking lot, installing surveillance cameras and hiring security guards seven days a week.

I thought we would break even our first year, and we’ve met our goal. The current goal is for this place to be like it used to be. This used to be a packed house.

AT A GLANCE

Company: New San Gabriel Lanes

Owners: Eddy and Millie Ho

Nature of business: Bowling alley

Location: San Gabriel

Number of employees: 15

Profit: Broke even in first year, projecting $50,000 to $80,000 profit this year