San Francisco’s up-and-coming Mission Bay neighborhood has luxury apartment buildings, biotech campuses and some of the world’s leading artificial intelligence companies. It’s also home to the Lucky Strike bowling alley.
The venue’s eponymous owner, the nation’s biggest owner of bowling alleys and a host of other entertainment venues, recently recommitted to San Francisco, reupping its 23,000-square-foot retail space on the ground floor of The Beacon, a mixed-use building with apartments and retail space in the heart of the tech-forward neighborhood.
The deal marks only the second lease renewal signed by a legacy Lucky Strike-branded bowling center nationwide since the company, then known as Bowlero Corp., bought the chain’s 14 locations for $90 million in 2023 and rebranded, according to a statement from JLL, which represented landlord Invesco in the deal.
Modern bowling alleys, often described as upscale entertainment lounges that also offer virtual-reality sports simulators, table games and full bars, have proliferated nationally as consumers seek experiences. It comes as foot traffic in the area is up significantly from its pre-pandemic level, according to JLL, with retailers as well as AI and venture capital firms moving there.
The Lucky Strike lease extension illustrates “the continued momentum we’re seeing in San Francisco’s experience-driven retail overall,” said Laura Tinetti, an executive vice president at real estate services firm JLL, in a statement. “Entertainment concepts that can draw consistent traffic are vital to the success of today’s mixed-use environments.”
The renewal of the lease originally signed at 200 King St. in 2012 extends Lucky Strike’s presence there through spring of 2034. Tinetti led JLL’s retail leasing team that facilitated the deal.
Publicly traded Lucky Strike Entertainment now boasts being one of the world’s biggest location-based entertainment platforms. With over 360 locations across North America, it offers experiential offerings in bowling, amusement parks, water parks and family entertainment centers. Since 2019, the company also has owned the Professional Bowlers Association.
'Experience-driven retail'
The San Francisco venue opened in 2012 as part of the Lucky Strike Lanes chain started by Steven Foster, who launched the first of the chain’s 21 outposts in Los Angeles in 2003 as a stylish gastropub and fun house — bowling optional.
Outlets reported at the time that Foster had a longtime affinity for the Bay Area, where he had studied Transcendental Meditation in Berkeley in the late 1960s before going on to open roller-disco venues and billiards lounges.
The San Francisco outpost that previously housed an outlet of the now-defunct Borders Books chain is on the ground floor of The Beacon, which spans an entire city block bounded by Third, Fourth, King and Townsend streets. Lucky Strike has completed a refresh of the space, with upgrades to the interior and enhanced signs, according to JLL.
Mission Bay, once a warehouse hub, has become one of the city’s most active neighborhoods. It became a rare commercial real estate beacon as the rest of the city struggled in recent years, aided by a mix of new parks and an array of retail leases and tech startups in addition to gleaming medical campuses run by Kaiser and the University of California San Francisco.
The Mission Rock development, a partnership between the Giants and developer Tishman Speyer, is set to redevelop 28 acres of vacant land on Pier 48 near the Bay Bridge — and overlooking the Giants’ stadium — into a mixed-use neighborhood. Plans call for 1.4 million square feet of office space, 200,000 square feet of retail and 1,200 homes.
The area's appeal has been amplified by the expansion of major employers such as OpenAI, Visa, UCSF, the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub and Uber.
“As one of the neighborhood’s original entertainment anchors, Lucky Strike continues to play an important role in activating The Beacon and serving the growing community that lives, works and visits here," said Invesco Senior Director Matthew O’Neill in a statement.
Richmond, Virginia-based Lucky Strike Entertainment launched in the late 1990s as a chain of bowling alleys reimagined as Manhattan nightlife hot spots.
It’s been expanding in recent years, branching out to water parks, mini golf and go-cart parks and arcades. Last summer, the company announced it had acquired five more marquee entertainment parks, including water parks in Los Angeles and North Carolina.
The company runs Lucky Strike bowling alleys across the Bay Area as well as Bowlero, Bowlmor and AMF Lanes outlets and the Boomers mini-putt and arcade entertainment park in Livermore.
Last year, it executed a major shift in its financing strategy by purchasing the real estate underlying 58 of its locations in a bid to reduce its annual rent obligations and strengthen its control over the properties.