The St. Francis Bowling Center is located in the St. Francis school building at 
426 S. Osceola Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55102.
Just one block north of the intersection of Randolph and West 7th.

For information or to schedule
a date for your event, call the parish office at (651)228-1169

Send your $25 deposit to the parish office at:
St. Francis Bowling Center
650 Palace Avenue
St. Paul, MN  55102

Rent our bowling alley for your next event – birthday parties, family reunion, work parties and meetings, Christmas parties, and more.

• Two hours of unlimited bowling for $140
• Each additional hour is $60
• Six lanes available with gutter bumpers and automatic score counters
• Light weight balls available for children
• Up to 50 people allowed in the facility
• You can bring in your own food & beverages (some restrictions apply)
• $25 deposit required and goes toward your balance
 
Also available for additional fee:
• Flat fee of $10.00 for tables and chairs; needed if you are bringing in food
• Rental shoes for $2.00 per pair
 
Men's League on Wednesday nights (September – April)
 

Church Basement Bowling
St. Paul Pioneer Press – Express Section

In St. Paul, Two of the Little Alleys 
Have Been Spared

- By Theresa Monsour

St. Francis Bowling Center of St. Francis-St. James United School in St. Paul's West Seventh Street neighborhood belongs to an elite club. St. Francis has six lanes and may be one of the last two church bowling centers left in the Twin Cities.

"It was very much a part of the German parishes," says the Rev. Stephen Adrian, pastor of St. Matthew's Church on St. Paul's West Side. Of the 6,022 certified bowling centers in the country, only a few are church-related.

"I don’t even know if we could put a number to it," says Mark Miller, a spokesman for several national bowling organizations based in suburban Milwaukee. Miller figures fewer than 100 church alleys remain, and they run the gamut of faith denominations.

The St. Francis lanes were built along with the school in about 1939, says Marianne Jordan, parish secretary for St. Francis de Sales Church. The church's pastor at the time was the Rev. James Zachman. He liked to bowl, so he had a bowling alley put in.

Jordan, a lifelong member of the parish and a former bowler remembers the glory years. Boys set the pins by hand, and the girls hung around to watch them. There were men's leagues, women's leagues, seniors' leagues, and open bowling. She bowled mostly in the housewives' league on Wednesday afternoons.

Article published Saturday, September 29, 2001