Koz's Mini Bowl

Last night I met up with Nicole Sweeney, a writer for MKE, at Koz's Mini Bowl on Milwaukee's South side. I've been wanting to check out Koz's since first hearing about it from Jim Stingl several months ago as a possible blog activity. (Hmmm ... this is the second post today in which I've mentioned Jim Stingl. What can I say? I really like the guy.)
Koz's is a little dive bar on 7th Street with four short duck pin bowling lanes tucked into the back room. According to the Journal Sentinel, the bar used to "house women of ill repute" in the years following World War II. And "when neighbors started getting suspicious of the married men flowing through the doors, the mini bowling alley was added to Koz's to explain its popularity."

The bar was quite small, with maybe 12 bar stools along it, and when I saw there was only four little lanes, I was pretty surprised - I was expecting a real live bowling alley, just with shorter lanes.

Nicole had called ahead to find out when a good time to come would be. She was told that weekends are pretty busy and it can be hard to get a lane, but that Tuesday and Wednesday nights are quiet. They certainly weren't kidding. We met there at 6:30 and there was only one guy sitting at the bar, and the bowling lanes were all available.

We made our introductions and got a couple of sodas and then made our way to the back room. We had to wait a few minutes for a pin setter to arrive. The bartender had called her when we arrived and since she lived right down the street, she was there within five minutes. Her name was Becky and she was 13 years old, and she stood behind the lanes and set up our pins after each time we bowled. She helped us when we had questions on how the scoring worked (we're used to electronic bowling scoring!) and she even showed us where to aim in order to bowl strikes.

We played one game and Nicole ended up winning with her three strikes in a row in the tenth frame. Final score: 184 to 177. I don't know if we scored correctly though. I might have won ...



Nicole and I met last night so that she could interview me for her newspaper about the blog. I am a regular reader of her MKE blog, Better Off Wed. She's getting married two weeks before I am, and it's fun to track her planning progress with my own.

So once we were done bowling, we tipped Becky (I read somewhere that 50 cents per game is appropriate, but since she came all the way down, I upped that number a bit and gave her three bucks) and we took her picture and then we sat down to do the interview.

We chatted for a good 45 minutes and it was fun to reflect on how far I've come with the blog and what I hope to do with it in the future. We got off topic a few times - mostly talking wedding stuff - and I stumbled over a couple of questions like a big dork, but for the most part it went really well, and I'm looking forward to reading the story. She's not sure when exactly it will run, but I will definitely post a link to it once it's available.

As for Koz's Mini Bowl, the bar, like I said, was a major dive, but I guess that adds to its appeal for many people. The bowling was fun - kind of a mix between bowling and ski ball - and cheap ($6 for both of us) and the bartender and pin setter were really nice. I think it'd be a lot of fun to go there on a date. I know Dave really wants to check it out, so perhaps we'll get there one day soon and I can post more about it.

I had a bit of a hard time paying much attention to the atmosphere or decor last night since I was meeting a new person, being interviewed, and trying to win at bowling, all at the same time. Plus, I only got to play once and I was just getting good.

Yeah, I definitely gotta go back.

Comments

[Alba]

Your big pictures aren't loading. Image not available?

[Erin]

Yeah, that's my fault. I just realized ... I'll fix it when I get home tonight!

[Erin]

Should be fixed now ... thanks Alba!

[Don]

I wanted to thank you for doing such a great job describing Koz's Mini Bowl. I just returned from a visit to Milwaukee and Koz's was a highlight. I have a blog/podcast and was trying to research Mini Bowling to write a decent description. Then I came across your blog and realized someone had already done a much better job.

I linked to your post, which I hope is okay. I did take some video footage while at Koz's and thats up there as well, if you ever get the hankering for a armchair trip back.

Thanks,
Don Wood