Japantown Bowlers Mourn Alley's Demise / Last-minute sale to community group unlikely

What foul line? Zachary watched intently as his ball rolled down the lane on Japantown Bowl's final day. Chronicle photo by Brant Ward What foul line? Zachary watched intently as his ball rolled down the lane on Japantown Bowl's final day. Chronicle photo by Brant Ward Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Japantown Bowlers Mourn Alley's Demise / Last-minute sale to community group unlikely 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

2000-09-21 04:00:00 PDT San Francisco -- They came to Japantown Bowl yesterday for one last, bittersweet game -- league players, neighbors and those for whom the lanes had become a second home.

Even as members of a Japanese American community organization tried to make a final pitch to buy the alley from its current owners, the people who had frequented Japantown Bowl for the last 24 years came to pay their final respects. By 1 a.m. this morning, the place was expected to close for perhaps the last time, its equipment and lot at the corner of Post and Webster streets up for sale.

"It's like home to a lot of us," said Bob Tsugawa, who has been coming to Japantown Bowl about twice a week since it opened in 1976. "I know just about everybody who comes here. We're going to miss it."

The Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California said yesterday it wanted to buy the lanes for $6.7 million from owner Kintetsu Enterprises Co. of America. But Kintetsu General Manager Colin Gomez said yesterday afternoon that his company had not received the proposal.

"Everyone's calling saying the center's made an offer, and we haven't seen an offer," Gomez said.

Last night, members of the community group were waiting at the bowling alley in hopes company officials would meet with them. Meanwhile, patrons crammed into the alley's bar, gorging on a free buffet, signing pins and reminiscing about their greatest games.

Not everyone who flocked to the bowling alley yesterday was overcome with nostalgia. One man in painter's pants named John ("I can't give you my last name because I'm ditching work to be here") said it ought to be remembered that Japantown Bowl was built on the razed foundations of other people's houses. The entire block of Post Street where the bowling alley sits was cleared out during the urban renewal of the Fillmore in the 1970s, he said.

"This is a lost area, anyway," he said. "The people who live here got screwed. That's what we should be feeling nostalgic about."

His afternoon bowling partner, Eric Werner, agreed. "This town has always had a Barbary Coast mentality. There never was a golden age."

San Francisco has never been regarded as one of America's great bowling towns and it will be even less so now. The meat-and-potatoes sport of the rust belt always had a small market niche here.

Yet Japantown Bowl carried its own particular Northern California style, from the multicolored space- age artwork over the second-floor lanes to the ethnic diversity in the youth leagues to the strictly enforced smoking ban to the Cyber Bowl midnight parties complete with fog machines, laser lights and glow-in- the-dark balls.

"This place is an institution, let me tell you," said day manager Darrell Herbert. "This place is Japantown."

Herbert worked at the lanes for 22 years and is something of a cult figure among the teenagers of the neighborhood who know him as a youth leagues leader.

The under-18 crowd is the largest segment of Japantown Bowl's clientele, Herbert said. About 325 kids had been participating in youth leagues.

That alone should have convinced Kintetsu that bowling was a growth industry, Herbert said.

"I've known kids who learned here who are now adult bowlers," he said.

One of them is Kevin Murano, who runs the pro shop upstairs. He was busy hanging up signs announcing a "Last Day" blowout sale in an attempt to rid himself of all his inventory before the lights go out.

Murano learned to bowl here when he was 8 years old by hefting the ball underhanded, between his legs. He started working in the pro shop in 1989 and took it over in 1995.

He will miss the place, but he'll miss his regular customers more.

"Today's going to be the last day I'm going to see them," he said.