The most civilized bowling experience I’ve ever had was last year at the Montreal AMC theatre where they have a huge bowling complex on one of the upper floors (picture lots of red paint and lots of shit-faced friends who couldn’t bowl their way out of a cardboard box). It’s a B.Y.O. joint so the wine kept-a-flowin’ and we kept-a-not-really-caring-about-the-bowling-that-much. If we had instead found ourselves that evening at The Spare Room in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel we damn well might have tried to be a bit classier. HO-LY-SHIT: this has to be the finest bowling establishment you could ever hope to find. Everything right down to the finest detail was custom designed. The overall design is by Los Angeles design firm Studio Collective (the shoes were custom designed by famed shoe designer and craftsman extraordinaire George Esquivel). Nightlife wizards Med Abrous and Marc Rose and cocktail king Aidan Demarest have secured The Spare Room a very select spot in the upper echelons of the L.A. nightlife scene. Celebrities are a constant presence each and every night and mixed with the gaming parlor vibe, the two vintage bowling lanes, and the custom-made dominoes, the place oozes with a 1920s speakeasy vibe that is right up my alley — I am seriously bowled over.
