Lunar Lanes, LLC

06/11/2026

This weeks winner is…Lexa Mackenzie!
Congratulations!

“The only place you’ll find baseball players actually aiming for strikes.”

Don’t forget to come in a claim your free game!

06/10/2026

It started rough, but it has been an absolutely fantastic week so far!

We are indeed back to our normal business hours. The big news? Our power is now clean and stable, and you wouldn't believe what it's done for us over the last week alone.

The majority of our machines are now running whisper-quiet and much, MUCH more reliably than we've seen to date! I've repaired Lane 8's moving deck after a few days' downtime, which means she's not going to drop pins all over the lane anymore. Lane 5 is next, hoping to have that one back to 100% by next Wednesday. I plan on standardizing all the electricals next.

I'm also noting that when we repair something, the fix actually sticks now. Without getting too far into the engineering weeds here, it's safe to say that dirty power conditions wreak absolute havoc on industrial equipment - particularly the main drive motors in our machines. Much of their instability has been rooted in this reason alone (since the machine was constantly stressing itself during every game.)

Since the power issue is resolved, our scoring is now much more reliable as well - it also knows what ball it's on without issue. I've got some minor details to fix up here, but again... we're seeing things starting to pull together very nicely now.

The kids helped me start sorting dead pins from live ones today, which we'll be loading into machines this week to improve our pin action. Healthy pins should look like they're 'exploding' during a strike, instead of simply falling over or just wobbling around and quietly robbing your score. Promise I don't actually have magnets and glue back there. Rubber cement sure, but not glue.

Our damaged arcades are coming back up to speed, too. We've got the majority of them re-arranged and repaired, just Centipede and our Multi-cade left to go. They'll be back on their feet by Friday night, in time for this week's Free Play Friday. I'll order more claw machine prizes once we're a bit caught up.

Since I'm no longer chasing electrical gremlins or constantly triaging their symptoms, our maintenance area is also cleaned up and ready to take on some upgrade projects - namely, foul lights, re-cabling each lane, and restoring the ball lights on our masking unit (the red lights that tell you which ball you're on)

We've installed some old cameras on our ball return capping so I can see the machine from every point of view - front, back, and bowler's PoV - all in one place. This will help us monitor for hiccups more closely, which in turn lets us respond to issues faster. Eventually I'll train a machine learning model to watch for the same stuff I do myself. That way it'll tell us about a problem before a customer gets a chance to even stand up. Tiny baby steps, but they're awesome tiny baby steps.

For the first time since Bobbi and I took the reins, I feel very confident that we're on the right track with regards to creating a great bowling experience for our community!

Outside of bowling alone, I'll be building a new room shortly. This room will basically give us a sanitary dish-washing area for the snack bar while our roof repairs and bar renovations kick into gear. This helps get the snack bar up and running, as well as beer and such. We can finally take the big step we've needed to move forward and stabilize the business. I'm... dang it, pun NOT intended... over the moon about this.

From where I'm sitting, this is only possible in our rural community. If I had to start all over again, I frankly wouldn't want to do it anywhere else!

This community really pulled together and made this work happen. And... it's honestly one of the greatest honors I've had in my life. No joke, this is rewarding in ways I cannot describe.

Like 'The Dude' said, it's been ups and downs, strikes and gutters, but... this community has been incredibly kind to us. Many of those ups were made possible by all of -you-. I sincerely doubt we would have made it this far without all the support, which I intend to go into my signature book-report-tier detail about in its very own post. It's just too much to list it all in a status report, y'know?

All in all, I feel we're making really good headway this week. The power thing was a really, really big deal for us. Stay tuned, TONS more to share! In the meantime, come on out to see us - we've been down, but nothing's gonna knock us out for long. We can't wait to bowl with y'all!

06/10/2026

It’s Wednesday folks! Let’s play a little game shall we? Let’s see who can come up with the best caption this week!

As always rules are leave a comment for a caption and like and comments you think should win. Winner is chosen by most liked comments, unless a tie then Nick and I choose. 😁

Good luck everyone and Happy Wednesday!

PS- If anyone has any photos taken at the alley they would like used for a caption photo please send them to us with your permission to use.

06/10/2026

When I can't sleep late night, sometimes I just come up and work on something cool. Can't wait to have this little guy running on busy nights. We've got a private event today at noon, open to the public during regular hours tonight.

I honestly can't wait for the mail truck to arrive today with a big box of parts. When I'm not fixing something broken, I'm working on new things too... I'll tell you all about it when it gets closer.

06/06/2026

Psst... today's Bobbi's birthday, don't tell her I said anything! Help wish her a happy birthday before she knows I told anybody!

06/05/2026

06/04/2026

An electrician, a lineman and a bowling proprietor walk into a parking lot... and find this!

I have absolutely awesome news! We think we found the problem today!

We're pretty confident that this little guy from the transformer on the pole outside is the source of many of our instability problems, power surges, and blown equipment. It doesn't look like much, but this one little fix might solve LOTS of equipment problems for us. As an added bonus, the surrounding homes may notice more stable power conditions as well.

I can literally -hear- the pinsetter RPM running... well... much more better. Hard to describe the sound to the general crowd haha. Point is, we've found a really important piece.

So! We're closed again tonight, Thursday the 4th to give us some time to recover our broken equipment, repair the damage, and re-calibrate the electronics that were taking all these power hits.

That said I'm happy to report that we absolutely will - without question - be back on our feet TOMORROW, Friday the 5th at 4PM, as normally scheduled. Thanks for bearing with us, everyone - and thanks especially to Trent Laughlin for shuffling around his schedule today to deep dive into our panels and beyond with me; and for calling in a favor on our behalf! Thanks ALSO goes to Brennon Kershaw for taking a look at our varied power panels inside as well!

This seems like it's small, but it's monumental for us. It means that equipment won't keep randomly failing, no more power surges, more stable operation across all main bowling equipment... This is a really, really big deal y'all!

So please, if you can - share the good news and come bowling with us this weekend! We're back on our feet just in time for weekend service. That's the power of community, people! Stay tuned!

05/31/2026

Hey all, Nick here with an update. Buckle up folks, it's a long one.

First, I'm deeply sorry to disappoint our customers who came to our door and were met with a 'closed' sign for one reason or another this week. As a proprietor, I'm ashamed to have such unstable hours. I sincerely thank each and every one of you for bearing with us through all this.

We took the mother of all power surges this week, on top of the other myriad challenges we've hit along the way. This surge blew out:

- 1 lane computer
- 5 power strips (and counting)
- 3 arcade machines
- Multiple pieces of critical bowling equipment
- 1 battery backup
- 2 surge protectors

Lane 7 arced and smoked in my face when this happened as well.

I'm already mad at Lane 7 because this time last week I'd slipped off the front of it and landed face-first into the pin turret. I have a nice black eye now and I think my eye twitches when it rains now, but the jury's still out on that one. Luckily I had some amazing people in the house that day that took good care of me, but still... ow.

In my professional career, I've never, ever seen a surge like this.

Anyway. This power surge appears to me like something back-fed into our ground wire. I think this happened somewhere in the 7/8 return, which we immediately shut down. My scope however still shows a very small (mV), but very noisy power source somewhere on the ground line - meaning there's still something wrong somewhere.

The good news is that when we fix this problem, we fix a TON of other issues along with it. For the electricians in the community who've offered to lend a hand, I'll reach out in the next few days - I could really just use a hand checking our building ground and maybe tracking down this particular gremlin. I don't want to waste anyone's time; so I want to make any calls to the experts really count, y'know? Fixing this one is a really big deal for us!

The bad news is that I determined this issue could pose a safety risk to myself, our equipment, and even Bobbi. I'm not risking anyone's safety or property over an extra game of bowling. That's why we're closed again tonight. And I can't apologize enough. I'm genuinely, truly sorry.

The worst part of this is... Saturdays are traditionally our busiest night, and we had an emergency-stop closure instead. At this point, we'll probably have to ship back our new furniture. I see no way around that.

In brighter news:

I'll have two complete spares kits for all mechanical parts on Monday. I'm scheduled to go up to Chicago, rent a u-haul, disassemble the machines at the other alley, and cart them back home to Hillsboro.

Snack bar update - we're building a 'huge wall' around our former bar. We're gonna isolate the renovation section in a new room of sorts so we don't have to re-plumb the whole house. I've got all the materials I need, just need time. Once complete, we'll run through inspection and hopefully, finally, thankfully have a functional snack bar.

Limited funds continue to restrict progress on the liquor license front. Sadly no updates there.

I've completed a new cable loom on Lane 8, as well as a mechanic's override panel prototype. None of that's wired in right yet (solving surge problem first) but the cool part is that it'll let me add stuff that helps us keep things running more smoothly. It's also cleaner and easier to troubleshoot, so super proud of this stuff.

As many of you know, we deployed Theia this week to address the fact that I'm absolute trash at answering the phone. She's an AI assistant that can book lanes and stuff for you when we can't answer.

Small business owners - you'd be amazed at how little Theia costs by the way. She's like $6 an hour, and she's billed for actual minutes used. Definitely recommend (she's a Zoom Phone feature under the hood), but get an AI nerd to help you set things up. I argued with Theia for two hours about the current time because she misunderstood the phrase 'we're closed today.' AI is still frequently just a dumb machine.

We've had some incredible outreach from the community doing what they do best to help us raise funds to keep us flying. These people deserve their own post - ask Bobbi, I'm not ashamed to admit that this legit brought tears to my eyes.

Until I can afford spare parts, Lane 1 is now "Lane One Mart". In other words, I pull parts from 1 to fix others. Lane 6's guttering is and capping is now perfectly smooth, re-aligned with its transitions, and bolted back down to original spec. I also ran a level down Lane 6 to do a quick level check - we're well within USBC spec on that front. Still need a resurface though.

Since I pulled the gutters today, I was able to check and measure our under-lane framing, which is in much better condition than I had expected. Good news!

Phew, what an update!

---------- LEAGUE STUFF FOLLOWS ----------

Speaking of USBC - with all the challenges, I genuinely do not see a means to achieve sanctioning this season. Guys... I've got roof leaks, power surges, equipment giving up the ghost left and right...

I'm the first to tell you... we're not ready for the rigors of competitive league bowling. We just aren't. Our summer leagues, from my point of view are about community-building and stress-testing my repairs. Sure I want to provide convenient league play someday... but unless I can provide a solid experience, I refuse to ask for your business. That's not who I am.

I highly, highly recommend Gillespie, Greenville, Nokomis, Pana, and Taylorville for competitive league play this season.

I grew up in Gillespie, and it's the house I learned to bowl in. Gillespie will always have a special place in my heart, and they've done a fantastic job updating the place over the years. Greenville is in a similar position, they've done an amazing job over there, too.

Bowling as a sport is in decline nationwide. As an industry, it's not what it was 30 years ago - I don't believe we small rural proprietors can afford to be as competitive as our predecessors in the past. So, with that in mind - I genuinely want y'all to support the surrounding proprietors where you can. They face the same challenges we do, they just aren't as loud about it. I can't promise the bowling conditions that league players are looking for; and I don't know that I as one guy can get there in two months. The other surrounding houses have earned your business from my point of view, where I have not (yet).

In my opinion, we're a restoration project that insists on funding itself right now. I don't like asking for help, and even when it's offered, I'm hesitant to take it. This project is a labor of love for me, and I want to make it a great place for everyone to enjoy. A place to forget the stresses of the outside world for a bit and just have a good time. That's not clever marketing folks, that's honestly the goal. It's the job I think is worth doing. I'm stressed to the max, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I'm gonna keep going until I can't anymore.

Hang in there - we certainly are!

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