New owners struggle to upgrade old bowling center

One day Mike and Kristine Caouette plan to open an entertainment complex in Reno where anyone from age 2 to 80 can find something fun to do.

But for now, Mike, 38, and his 34-year old wife face the daunting task of restoring respectability and a strong customer base at a decades-old bowling center.

The Massachusetts transplants are the new owners of Sunset Lanes, formerly Greenbrae Lanes, at the corners of Greenbrae and Pyramid.

In Massachusetts the Caouettes created the idea of a family fun center and lined up private investors for the $4.5 million project.

However, the small Massachusetts town in which they lived stonewalled the development. Mike had family in Henderson, and he stumbled across the 24-lane Greenbrae Lanes while searching Nevada for a bowling center to purchase.

"We didn't pay a lot for the place. The price had significantly gone down," Caouette says, although he doesn't disclose the price.

The Caouette's purchased the center from David Atkins using their own money and the help of a silent family partner.

"We were trying to get Small Business Administration lending, but the SBA wouldn't even touch it especially because it doesn't involve any real estate," Caouette says. "They felt there wasn't enough equity in the equipment to cover themselves."

And whatever cash the couple saved in the low purchase price was lost in costly repairs. The 40-year-old air conditioning, for instance, broke down three times in the six weeks since they took over.

Caouette estimates he's spent roughly $40,000 on repairs, including $7,000 on re-screening the lanes with a layer of urethane and leasing a new oil machine. The one he purchased with the place was shot.

He says the first weekend he moved to town, from Friday afternoon to Monday morning, he went home for only for an hour-long shower and worked close to 96 hours fixing the machines.

"I was literally covered from elbow to toe in grease," he says.

The pin-setting machines, installed when the place was built in 1963, needed the most work. Caouette had a mechanic friend from Massachusetts visit for a week and spend 12-14 hours a day evaluating and fixing every pin-setter.

"I have 24 kids," he says. "They just need a little TLC and a little discipline. They are workhorses, they have just been neglected for so long."

And because no permits were pulled for most of the remodel work done over past years, city inspectors are making the new owners bring the place up to code. Although they're tied up in litigation regarding representations of the property prior to its sale, the Caouettes are moving forward to give the place a new look and more importantly, a new start.

They will keep the large "Greenbrae Lanes" signage atop the building because Sparks codes limit new signage to marquees. But changes include:

* Circulating 8,000 free-game passes and 4,000 buy-one-get-one free drink vouchers at the Thursday Night Farmers Market with an employee dressed as a bowling pin.

* Re-branding the old Driftwood Lounge into Club Waves with a tropical theme.

* New paint schemes, carpet, tables and chairs.

* Expanding the snack bar back into a full-service cafe, a project that's temporarily stalled because of the estimated cost of $30,000 for a new hood and fire suppression system.

Caouette hopes the center will be home to roughly 700 league bowlers this year and more than 1,000 in the next year. But he really wants to build that all-inclusive family fun center.

"The whole goal is to spend quite a few years building this business up as much as possible, and then build the center I have dreamed of since I was a little kid," he says.