Rocking and rolling again at Roxy Lanes

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/07/2020 (1642 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Melissa and Robert Gauthier, owners of Roxy Lanes, weren’t the only ones who missed the clatter of strikes and spares while the 60-year-old, five-pin bowling alley was shuttered for close to 2 1/2 months owing to COVID-19.

According to Melissa, whose office is located in the bowels of the 10,000-square-foot, neighbourhood haunt at 385 Henderson Hwy., the 20-lane alley’s resident spirits weren’t too keen on the dearth of activity, either.

In late March, a week or so after the married couple was forced to close their doors to the general public to help stem the spread of the coronavirus, she was headed to the basement to catch up on some paperwork when a high-pitched voice called out, “Hello!” Halting in her tracks, she looked around, trying to determine whether an employee had popped by to grab a few of their belongings. Satisfied she was all alone she did what any other rational person would when they’re greeted by a spectre: she continued down the stairs, calling out, “Why, hello yourself!”

“They’re very nice ghosts who usually don’t have much to say but I guess they were wondering why it had been so quiet around here lately,” she says, noting a medium who visited the premises a few months after she and her husband purchased it 11 years ago confirmed the subterranean level is inhabited by a trio of ghosts. “Sure, it was a bit of a shock to the system the first few times I heard ‘em moving around but these days I don’t think twice. Mind you, if it ever gets to the point where we start seeing bowling balls floating around in mid-air I’m definitely outta here.”

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Roxy Lanes, which started welcoming bowlers back June 1, began life as the Roxy Theatre, a 1,200-seat movie house that opened on Christmas Eve 1929. According to the Manitoba Historical Society’s website, the two-tier venue, originally owned by Winnipeg businessman Jacob Miles, was designed by Max Blankstein, a Russian-born architect who emigrated to Canada in 1904. Blankstein, who died in 1931, was responsible for a slew of iconic buildings in Winnipeg, including the currently vacant Palace Theatre on Selkirk Avenue, the 106-year-old Jessie Block apartments at 626 Jessie Ave. and Maryland Street’s Tivoli Theatre, now a Food Fare grocery outlet.

While highly successful in the 1930s and ’40s, grand, North American movie theatres such as the Roxy found it difficult to compete with the growing popularity of television in the mid to late ’50s. Millions of people who religiously headed to the movies every weekend were content to stay home Friday and Saturday night to catch the latest episode of Gunsmoke or The Honeymooners on the boob tube instead. The same way Academy Road’s Uptown Theatre, also designed by Blankstein and also originally run by Miles, was turned into Academy Lanes (now being redeveloped as a mixed-use facility), the Roxy Theatre made the switch from projectors to pins in 1960, a move some long-time Elmwood residents lament to this day, apparently.

Every once in a while an elderly person will drop by to reminisce about movies they saw there in their younger days, Melissa says, seated near a poster advertising The Big Lebowski, rated the No. 1 bowling flick of all time by no less an authority than the good folks at gobowling.com. They enjoy telling her how little it cost to see a movie way back when and what a great view the Roxy’s balcony offered, while she happily lets them know there’s still a ton of stuff from the old theatre days in the basement — artifacts such as seats, popcorn machines and a dusty marquee.

‘It’s pretty far down there so we don’t worry too much about it getting hit by bowling balls but one night when a couple of rowdies seemed to be trying to do just that, two big biker dudes who were bowling on Lane 10 walked over to them, warning them they had better respect the Harley or else’– Melissa Gauthier, on a group getting a stern warning to leave the Harley alone

Gauthier, 55, believes she and her husband are the alley’s fourth set of owners. Although Robert, 58, grew up on nearby Bredin Drive, he’d never set foot inside Roxy Lanes until it hit the market in 2009, the year after longtime proprietor Marcel Van Styvendale died. Robert was running the Marion Hotel at the time and was simply looking for a change, his wife says. One night over dinner he asked what she thought about the two of them buying the alley. He wasn’t 100 per cent sure because, according to Melissa, neither one of them is exactly what you’d call a bowler. Her response: “You don’t have to be a golfer to own a golf course, right?”

You know the adage, “a change is as good as a rest?” The couple quickly discovered that doesn’t necessarily apply to decades-old bowling alleys. First of all, regulars raised a bit of a ruckus when there were no longer any freebies to be had. Unlike the Gauthiers’ predecessor, who owned the building outright and could afford not to charge customers from time to time as a gesture of goodwill, they had to “keep Mr. Banker Man happy,” Gauthier says, meaning they couldn’t afford to let people bowl on the house. She laughs, pointing out there were almost as many complaints when she and her husband “had the nerve” to relocate a rack league members were asked to place their muddy boots or wet sneakers on before slipping into their bowling shoes.

“We wanted it closer to the exterior doors so people wouldn’t be tracking dirt across the carpet. Even though we only moved it maybe 10 feet tops, you would have thought we moved it a mile away, some of ‘em were so up in arms,” she says rolling her eyes.

It took a while, about three years, for the Gauthiers to transform Roxy Lanes into what they had envisioned in their heads when they took over. While revenue was once heavily dependent on league play, glow bowl birthday parties — did we mention they spent close to three grand on special, fluorescent paint? — and office get-togethers gradually became the primary source of income. Also, guys and gals in their late teens and early 20s began showing up in droves on weekends, thanks to what Gauthier refers to as “the cheapest suds in the city” plus a soundtrack that leans heavily on classic rock tunes. (Little surprise, Sweeney Todd’s mid-’70s smash Roxy Roller is perpetually on the playlist.)

“We still have a Thursday night league as well as a Monday afternoon league but mostly we’ve become known as the city’s rock and roll bowling alley,” she says.

In keeping with that theme, yes, that is an honest-to-goodness, fully operational Harley Davidson motorcycle hovering above lanes five and six. A 2003 Softail Deuce, it was originally stationed in the lobby of the Nor-Villa Hotel, owned by Robert’s brother. About six years ago he decided to wheel it over to the Roxy, instead. Talk about a splashy entrance: remember the song Girls, Girls, Girls by Mötley Crüe, particularly the part at the beginning when the sound of a revving bike can be heard plain as day? Well, before they had the motorcycle suspended from the ceiling with industrial-strength cables, Melissa cranked up Girls, Girls, Girls on the in-house stereo system while Robert “played” along by starting the hog just inside the front doors.

“It’s pretty far down there so we don’t worry too much about it getting hit by bowling balls but one night when a couple of rowdies seemed to be trying to do just that, two big biker dudes who were bowling on Lane 10 walked over to them, warning them they had better respect the Harley or else,” Gauthier says with a chuckle.

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Initially, Gauthier understood bowling alleys would remain closed until Phase 3 of the province’s restoring safe services protocol. She’s guessing most of the public was thinking the same way as, since reopening, business has been down significantly compared to the same period last year.

“There couldn’t have been a worse time for a bowling alley to have to close than when we did,” she says, adding she doesn’t even want to think about how much money they lost during the shutdown, what with the cancellation of umpteen birthday parties and end-of-the-school-year field trips. “Slowly but surely the phone is starting to ring again but for now, I think people are still hesitant about going out, even though it’s pretty easy to socially distance at a bowling alley.” (When asked the question on the tip of every germophobe’s tongue, namely “What’s going on with rental shoes?” Gauthier reaches for a bottle of disinfectant saying she and her employees “spray the crap out of ‘em” after every use.)

Although the Gauthiers’ plan to toast Roxy Lanes’ 60th anniversary is temporarily on hold — their original idea was to treat customers to cake and coffee, including a family from North Dakota that has religiously made the trek north every summer since falling in love with five-pin bowling, as Canadian as maple syrup and Trooper — there is another milestone on the distant horizon they’ve already begun mulling over.

“Because the Roxy has never been granted historical status, people who live around here have always been worried it could be sold one day and, along with the parking lot, be completely transformed,” Gauthier says, mentioning she and her husband have to date turned down attractive offers from at least five developers who were interested in doing just that. “The thing is we’re only 11 years into this adventure so to us it still feels relatively new. If our neighbours are worried the building won’t be around for its 100th (in 2029) they shouldn’t be. As long as we’re still here, the old girl will hit 100.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca