Maple Lanes feels frozen in time, which is just how co-owners Barb Rodgers and Annette Abranovich like it.
For starters, it’s one of the few registered bowling alleys in the U.S. to use manual pin setters. Maple Lanes also has its original alleys, built from real maple and the feature that gave the establishment its name. Since there are no automatic electronic scorekeepers, bowlers must calculate their own results on paper scorecards.
The owners have discussed updating the four-lane alley attached to a charmingly vintage tavern space in Cleveland’s St. Clair-Superior neighborhood. An admittedly expensive proposition for a family business still surviving long after bowling’s golden age.
“It’s about $10,000 each to buy used alleys,” said Rodgers, who runs Maple Lanes with her sister, Annette. “Plus, we’d have to knock out a wall in back and put in an extra six feet just to make room for the machinery needed for automated lanes.”
According to Cleveland Historical Society, Maple Lanes began operation in 1940, serving as a hopping hangout for local manufacturing workers.. Barb and Annette’s aunt Josephine Reeves bought the property in 1963 after seeing a “for sale” sign in the window. The sisters’ parents – Edward and Ann Abranovich – put in for partial ownership a year later, then moved the family into the apartment above the business.
Barb Rodgers, a decade older than sister, recalls many nights falling asleep to the sounds of laughter and crashing pins. Both siblings acted as pin setters in later years, working in the pit area behind the lanes for 10 frames of play. The physically demanding work now falls to their grandchildren, as neighborhood kids often quit after just a few sweaty minutes of setting pins and returning balls.
“We were all pinsetters growing up,” says Annette Abranovich. “If you were born into this family, you had to be one.”
The aged wood of the lanes presents its own demands, far from the fancy laminate and intricate oil patterns of modern bowling facilities. Visitors must learn every ripple and divot of these well-worn lanes – as legend has it, no player has bowled a 300 game at Maple Lanes over its existence.
“Here, you have to know how to really bowl,” Rodgers says. “If you bowl a straight ball all the time, or if you throw a hook all the time, you’re not going to have success. Like my dad used to say, you have to challenge the alley.”
Not just a business
Maple Lanes does not have open bowling due to the lack of reliable pinsetters. However, the alley can be rented for parties – the front tavern is open seven days a week, overlooked by a painting of Lili St. Cyr, a 1940s-era erotic actress and burlesque dancer.
Abranovich remembers peeking into the bar area as a child, when patrons stood three deep after clocking out from work. Bowling was available Wednesday through Friday, with nimble pinsetters earning $3 for a night of hard labor.
Today, Maple Lanes still has bowling parties, charging enough to pay two pinsetters for three hours. Otherwise, the business gets by on auction-house seating and cannibalized equipment from the former Brown’s Bowling and Grill on W.25th Street. Rodgers’ son cuts the grass and does maintenance on the building, while a small-business grant secured during COVID funded a paint job and repairs for the bowling alley.
Maple Lanes is not just a business, but a gathering place for most major holidays and family events, notes Rodgers, who still lives in the upstairs apartment.
“We have Christmas and New Year’s parties here, plus weddings, baby showers and graduation parties,” says Rodgers. “This is a business that’s more than a business.”
To emphasize the point, the walls of Maple Lanes are festooned with family photos and other memories of years past. Despite the difficulty that the modern attention economy poses for an old-school bowling alley, the sisters have no intention to sell, they say.
“It would be hard to get rid of the business,” Rodgers says. “People have been coming here for so long, and they expect it to be here. They expect to talk to Annette and see how the family’s doing, and tell you their stories. The whole place has taken on a life of its own.”
Maple Lanes is located at 6918 St. Clair Ave., in Cleveland. For inquiries about alley rentals, call 216-273-3804.
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