Tales from The Social Club: Scoring Spares and Strikes at Lucky Strike
- Shane Holmes
- Feb 10
- 3 min read
Meeting Date and Time: Tuesday, November 18, 2025 from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
Meeting Location: Lucky Strike (Chelsea Piers), 60 Chelsea Piers, New York, NY 10011
Getting to the location of The Social Club (TSC) for this activity was more challenging than it needed to be and I later found out why. For this group, the plan was to go bowling at Lucky Strike in the Manhattan Chelsea Piers location. I used Google Maps to determine the location and get directions.
Upon getting close to the location on Google Maps, I saw a sign for bowling at Pier 60 pointing into a ground level parking garage.
I thought there would be a street entrance to the bowling alley which I found out did not exist. Instead, I entered the parking garage following the sign to Lucky Strike.
Once inside the parking garage, there were no signs pointing to Lucky Strike. As you can see in the left picture below, the sign was absolutely useless. I didn’t know where to go. I stood in the parking garage looking for a person to help point me in the right direction. I went up to one person. They didn't know the location. I found another who did. Following their directions, I was able to locate the bowling alley which would have been easier to find with a better sign. This is what I recommend if you find yourself look for it. Follow the crosswalk past the CHELSEA PIERS fitness banner in the left picture to the base of a ramp at the entrance to Lucky Strike which is indicated by a red lit sign in the right picture.
Parking Garage (left picture) and Ramp to Lucky Strike (right picture)
However, I later learned, Google Map’s location of the bowling alley was slightly off from where it actually is in reality, leading to difficulty finding the place as shown below.
Once I arrived at the bowling alley, I met up with the group who was already there. There were a total of seven people so we split into two groups with three people on lane 33 and four on lane 34. My group bowled in lane 34. The lanes were next to each other. Therefore, I was able to socialize with the whole group. The bowling balls ranged in weight from 6 to 16 pounds.
We played a total of three games of ten-pin bowling. In the first game, I finished in last place. However, in the second game, I won. Therefore, I went from worst to first. I think I performed better in the second game as I found a bowling bowl with the weight I liked the most (I do not remember what the exact weight was). My performance was also better in the second game as I gained more experience. The scores of the second game are shown below.
For the third game of bowling, we did not keep score and ignored the electronic automatic scoreboard. Our reservation ended at 7:30 PM. Due to a shortage of time, people occasionally took turns for one another in cases where someone used the restroom or took a break.
Note, with the exception of Izzy's name, all of our names are abbreviated. For example, my name Shane is SHA. This is because the system limits us to a maximum of four letters per name. If you are interested in learning more on how to keep score in bowling, you can read the full rules here.
Food and drink were available for purchase which some members decided to do. I chose not to get food as it cost money which I was not willing to spend. Some of the food available was pizza, burgers, and wings. Drinks available included lemonade. The venue’s website did not list prices for the food.
I expect bowling alleys to have a certain level of noise. However, this location played their music at an excessively high volume. This was the case even after the music was turned down as per our request. I wore my noise cancelling headphones to reduce the noise to a tolerable level. I enjoy participating in bowling so it made the noise a tolerable inconvenience.
To celebrate the end of a fun TSC outing, we posed for a picture.
After Juliette, our group leader, took our photo, some members stayed at Lucky Strike to play arcade games which were in the venue. The rest of us headed home, myself included. I remembered clearly how to get home as I reversed the directions I followed on my way in. No map was necessary for me as I have good memory and a good natural sense of directions.
