Lucky Strike Lanes bowls a 7-10 split
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Walter Sobchak doesn’t roll on shabbos, but Lucky Strike Lanes & Lounge does. On Friday night, the upscale bowling alley debuted its newest outpost, located in mega-entertainment complex LA Live. If comedy and concerts don’t draw you to downtown, developers are gambling that bowling will -- especially if it’s served with a heaping dose of Hollywood-style nightlife.
Bowling almost seems beside the point at the newest Lucky Strike, where you can drape yourself across the couches in the moodily-lighted lounge while sipping martinis and noshing on dates stuffed with Parmesan, ahi tuna chunks seared in sesame oil and fried mac and cheese bites. Lucky Strike is less a bowling alley than a nightclub with rental shoes.
Speaking of which, what about those perennially uncool three-toned lace-ups? We figure if Dov Charney can make white knee socks and those plum-smugglers he calls short-shorts into a louche fashion trend, anything’s possible in this post-post-ironic age.
--Elina Shatkin
Mini-photo essay and more blogger opinions on Lucky Strike after the jump.
I’ve had doubts about L.A. Live’s ability to draw a crowd that doesn’t just dine and dash to Staples or Nokia Theater to take in a game or a show. I wasn’t sure if it would become a place where people came to simply hang out.
Crucial to success in the hang-out department is the ability of a bar, club or restaurant to make itself somewhere to see and been seen. Such a feat is generally pulled off by reeling in pretty young party people. If anything substantial could be gleaned from Friday night’s super-glitzy opening party thrown by the Alliance (the team behind Wednesday nights at Crown Bar and among the most influential celebrity-centric promoters in town) it’s that the deluxe bowling lane and lounge is attempting to do just that.
It is also shooting for the stars (of the Hollywood variety). Burly security guards stood around making sure that unfamous camera-toters didn’t take pictures of sort-of famous attendees (like Devon Aioki).
Whether or not Lucky Strike will continue to lure Hollywood downtown when it’s not throwing a splashy party is anybody’s guess, but judging from the crowds I saw milling through the entire L.A. Live complex on Friday night, I think it just might.
--Jessica Gelt
