At the start of the month, a bowl­ing al­ley opened in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

It meant for the first time in decades, the pop­u­lar sport could be played in this coun­try once again.

At a launch event ahead of the open­ing of The Al­ley, East Gates man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Ed­ward Aboud said re­viv­ing the sport was among of the main rea­sons for the in­vest­ment.

“Bowl­ing is a sport that is an in­ter­na­tion­al sport that we don’t have rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Trinidad. Many years ago, there was a bowl­ing al­ley, and it isn’t here any­more, and we be­lieve that it’s some­thing that could bring peo­ple to­geth­er,” Aboud said at the event.

Aboud, how­ev­er, stressed the fo­cus was on ac­tiv­i­ties that could bring peo­ple to­geth­er.

“The Al­ley of East Gates has been a vi­sion and a plan for the last four years in Trinidad. We lack fam­i­ly en­ter­tain­ment. Fam­i­ly en­ter­tain­ment is some­thing that uni­fies fam­i­lies, keeps us to­geth­er, brings bonds, brings joy to peo­ple, and we be­lieve that this is a very unique fa­cil­i­ty that brings us to­geth­er,” he said.

“We try to think of every­one. So we want­ed a place where par­ents could come with their fam­i­lies, with their kids, en­joy, have some­thing for them, some­thing for the kids, and some­thing for every­one. I think that is gen­uine­ly the con­cept be­hind what we’re try­ing to achieve here, and I be­lieve we’ve de­liv­ered it.”

Bring­ing back a sport that has been ab­sent for sev­er­al years has meant that spe­cialised train­ing was re­quired ahead of the open­ing of The Al­ley on Feb­ru­ary 6.

The Al­ley’s restau­rant con­sul­tant, Lisa John­ston, ad­mit­ted that the staff se­lect­ed had no back­ground in food and bev­er­age and the team had to un­der­go spe­cif­ic train­ing for over a month and a half ahead of the open­ing.

“The de­ci­sion to re­cruit that way was be­cause we had a won­der­ful lux­u­ry of be­ing able to have sev­en weeks of class­room and prac­ti­cal train­ing, so a cou­ple of weeks of dry runs as well. We just re­al­ly be­lieved that when you hire won­der­ful peo­ple with amaz­ing at­ti­tudes, you can teach the skill,” said John­ston, who ad­mit­ted that bring­ing The Al­ley to life was an ex­tend­ed process, but see­ing the fi­nal prod­uct was re­ward­ing.

“It’s been a long haul. It’s a dream that start­ed a few years ago from Mr Aboud, but in the last year, the ac­tion has re­al­ly been hap­pen­ing. I re­al­ly got on­to this project in March (2024), and it’s been full steam ahead, from about the mid­dle of last year, from every facet, from con­struc­tion to re­cruit­ment to full de­sign of op­er­a­tion and poli­cies and con­cepts. It’s been a full team ef­fort, and it’s won­der­ful to see it fi­nal­ly come to fruition.”

How­ev­er, The Al­ley is not the on­ly restau­rant and bar or lounge, which has opened in the past year that is cen­tred around a com­pet­i­tive ac­tiv­i­ty or sport.

In June 2024, Six­es So­cial Crick­et opened at One Wood­brook Place.

The restau­rant al­lows pa­trons to try out their bat­ting skills, fac­ing a bowl­ing ma­chine which at­tempts to repli­cate bowlers from am­a­teur to world-class lev­el.

Busi­ness de­vel­op­ment man­ag­er for Six­es, Marc Ros­tant, ex­plained that the idea for Six­es came from an in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence.

“The own­er of the com­pa­ny, (Joan­na Ros­tant) runs Chuck E Cheese. So she was go­ing to a con­fer­ence for the games you see in Chuck E Cheese. And in that con­fer­ence, she had no­ticed this bat­ting sim­u­la­tor.

“She went with her son, my younger broth­er, and he couldn’t stay away from this bat­ting sim­u­la­tion. So he said, Well, you know, I want to go here. I want to go here. And then in the end, she was like, Well, you know, this is some­thing to look in­to, for sure. And we con­tact­ed the right peo­ple, and with­in a year we opened Six­es,” said Ros­tant in an in­ter­view with the Busi­ness Guardian.

Since then, Six­es has been a suc­cess as he not­ed the coun­try and the wider Caribbean’s affin­i­ty for crick­et, and the restau­rant quick­ly be­came pop­u­lar.

“Pub­lic re­cep­tion has been great. Every­body who comes by loves the idea of the game. They love the ca­ma­raderie. They love that you know you don’t have to sit down in a rum shop and play cards,’ said Ros­tant, who ex­plained that the restau­rant has be­come pop­u­lar not just among fam­i­ly and friends look­ing for some­thing to do, but cor­po­rate clients in­tent of do­ing team-build­ing ex­er­cis­es.

“We’re get­ting a lot of sup­port from cor­po­rates as well, who are book­ing us out every week. They come and do cor­po­rate team builders, brand launch­es, ex­ec­u­tive meet­ings through­out the day. We had cor­po­rates com­ing from 7 am and host meet­ings till 4 pm and then at four stay­ing and drink­ing till 10 o’clock,” he said.

Even dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son, Ros­tant ex­plained the restau­rant man­aged to main­tain a de­cent lev­el of ac­tiv­i­ty.

“Dur­ing Car­ni­val peo­ple have less mon­ey to throw around, so we ex­pe­ri­enced a lit­tle bit of a down­turn. But then events pick up. We’ve had events for cor­po­rates. We are do­ing a dis­tri­b­u­tion for the Caribbean Air­lines’ J’Ou­vert pack­age. And our Fri­days and Sat­ur­days are still amaz­ing. We still have the place full on a Fri­day and Sat­ur­day. Full of vibes, and then, you know, an ex­cuse to play so­ca for the whole day is good enough for me,” said Ros­tant.

A cou­ple months af­ter Six­es opened, an­oth­er lounge opened which was cen­tred around a sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ty. Swing Golf Sim­u­la­tor and Lounge opened its doors on Oc­to­ber 1, of­fer­ing pa­trons the op­tion to try their golf swing on a vir­tu­al dri­ving range, while al­so fea­tur­ing vir­tu­al bowl­ing and foot golf.

The Busi­ness Guardian reached out to Swing and while its agents ex­pressed in­ter­est in be­ing fea­tured, they did not make them­selves avail­able for an in­ter­view ahead of the pub­li­ca­tion of this ar­ti­cle.

De­spite see­ing oth­er es­tab­lish­ments in­cor­po­rat­ing sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties in­to their busi­ness, Ros­tant said Six­es was not nec­es­sar­i­ly a pi­o­neer in that re­gard but was glad to see more busi­ness­es shap­ing prod­ucts around ac­tiv­i­ties.

“Com­pet­i­tive so­cial­is­ing has been a part of our cul­ture, domi­noes, cards, all fours, etc. We just added a crick­et el­e­ment, be­cause crick­et is Caribbean, as Caribbean as it gets. It’s part of the cul­ture we live and breathe crick­et. I’m very hap­py to see more com­pet­i­tive so­cial­is­ing es­tab­lish­ments in the area. I think it’s great that we’re go­ing in­to this and peo­ple have more things to do,” said Ros­tant.