Alleyway opened Saturday, bringing games and more
By DONNA THORNTON, Editor
Alleyway Entertainment opened its doors Saturday, offering family-friendly fun to people in Albertville and the surrounding area, and to bring to fruition a facility that’s been 15 years in the making.
General Manager Sean Griffith believes people are excited about the entertainment center.
“We keep seeing people drive by really slow, trying to get a peak at what’s inside,” he said. If they stop by, he said he’s been happy to show them around the center, located behind Jack’s at Mathis Mill Road and Bollinger Street.
At the center of the center there are 20 bowling lanes, but there a lot more: golf simulators, ax-throwing, augmented reality game rooms, an arcade, a snack bar and bar, and bumper cars that may not be there on opening day but will be soon.
Griffith said owners Don Spurlin and Bill Kellen started developing the project long ago, taking time to find the right location and the right situation. He’d worked for Kellen at other entertainment centers and got a call about 15 years ago, asking him to go to Albertville and check it out as a possible site for a new one. Griffith made a visit, “and I told him, yeah, there’s nothing else here. Let’s put a center,” he recalled.
Fifteen years later, there’s much more here, but that only enhances prospects for the entertainment center. Being right around the corner from Sand Mountain Park, and with new developments such as the Target-anchored shopping center coming in, “We’ve got everything going,” Griffith said. “Albertville’s about to explode.”
Alleyway Entertainment will offer something everyone in the area, whether they live here or come in for a tournament or event at the park. Griffith said entertainment offered is top of the line, using the latest technology.
There’s the snack bar, he said, that will offer a wide variety of “shareables,” including a huge pretzel that will feed four, smash burgers, pizza, and in July, soft-service ice cream and slushies. “We’re just trying to keep it fun and fresh,” he said, “about two levels above fast food and two levels below fine dining.” He said the idea is to lure people in for the food alone, even if they aren’t playing games.
There are five TV screens in the snack bar area, so people will be able to watch all the games.
About the games: The golf simulators at Alleyway are the same ones Tiger Woods has at his home, Griffith said, from a company called Full Swing, which provides the same simulators for the TGL golf tour. The simulators can access any PGA Tour course (except Augusta).
“If you have an hour, you can come in here and play golf at a location you’d never be able to play in real life,” he said.
There’s a bar, Griffith explained, but there is a strict three-beer maximum that will be enforced. “Three beers and you’re done. I don’t care if you’re drunk or not.
“It’s a family entertainment center. The last thing a six-year-old needs to see is someone stumbling out of the bar.”
In a contained area behind the snack bar, there is ax-throwing. Most venues offer targets painted on long boards, Griffith said, that must be replaced frequently because they get “chewed up.” At Alleyway, the targets are made from ends of 6x6s in grids, with the targets projected onto them. “If you spray them down once an hour they actually ‘heal’ themselves over time because the wood swells. It makes it even easier for the ax to bury itself in there,” he said. The scoring system lets players have moving targets and other options. For kids, there are targets and axs that use Velcro instead of sharp edges for safer fun.
The Valorena is an augmented reality game room — when you step inside the game room, you’re in the game, on the screen and in the game. Four people can play at a time, and it can get competitive. “I had a 75-year-old woman knock me off my spot,” Griffith said. At the end of the game, players provide an email and share a recording of their game. It’s a great way to let a parent who can’t make it to the center still be a part of the visit, he said.
The 20 championship-
level bowling lanes will be great for league play and tournaments, Griffith said, but some lanes are going to remain available for non-league bowlers. There’s a movie screen available above lanes connected to DirectTV, so 10 football games can be viewed at the same time, from comfortable couches with tables, or bar-height tables.
The lanes use string pins. “The pins are literally on strings,” Griffith said – something that just got approved by the U.S. Bowling Conference for tournament play. The benefit to strings, he said, is no mechanical breakdowns.
The lanes also have bumpers that can be raised for children and lowered for adults playing on the same lanes, and a lane machine that creates the oil patterns on lanes.
Griffith said the oil pattern on lanes can affect the direction of the ball, making it easier or harder to bowl. The machinery at Alleyway has a connection to the internet that allows the machine to duplicate the oil pattern at another bowling lane. So if a team here is playing in a national tournament in another city and they know what oil pattern is used on the lanes, it can be duplicated for practice here.
“We had a group of about 16 people last week that came out to test the lanes,” Griffith said. While they were just testing lanes in Albertville, they were going to a tournament in Reno. “They gave me the pattern and I laid it out for them,” he said, “so they get to go out there and put on a good show.”
The center had two laser game rooms — one with laser beams that move and one with beams that don’t. Players entered the darkened room and must move through the maze without breaking the laser beams, and their adventure is visible on a screen outside the room. Griffith said there’s also a beam-breaker game with the goal of breaking as many as possible, which is a good way to enthusiastic children to burn off some energy.
As Griffith and Assistant General Manager Cameron Spader continued to oversee work last week to get the facility ready, they awaited the delivery of another classic amusement — bumper cars. There will be cars that accommodate a child and an adult, and some for child occupancy only, he said, and the cars will have an inflatable edge around the bottom, rather than the hard rubber rim that many may remember.
The upgrade will lessen the “whiplash” effect older cars would give with each bump.
Griffith said that’s another part of providing fun, safe entertainment for people of all ages. If the bumper cars are not there by opening day, he said, they will be coming in soon after.
General Manager Sean Griffith gives a tour of the ValoArena full-body mixed-reality game at the new Alleyway Entertainment in Albertville. Alleyway will open Saturday at 100 Mathis Mill Road with golf simulators, skill games, bowling, ax-throwing, a snack bar, laser game rooms, bumper cars and more. Photo by DONNA THORNTON l The Leader
