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Rock n Bowl NY Style
(ex)Wetlands Owner and Blue Ribbon Owner's Cut A Gruve
By BEN SISARIO nytimes
Published: July 31, 2008
Opening a rock club in New York is not as easy as it used to be.
There’s the insane cost of real estate, as well as fierce competition as the battered music industry looks to live performances for steady income, and national promoters expand their reach into smaller spaces.
But hardest of all, said Peter Shapiro, who owned Wetlands in TriBeCa from 1996 until it closed in 2001, is just coming up with a new angle. That’s why he’s excited about Brooklyn Bowl, his spacious new room in Williamsburg. A combination 600-capacity music club and 16-lane bowling alley, it will also have a menu created by Blue Ribbon, a chain of restaurants in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
“To sit at a show, cock your head back, watch a band and then leave, it’s been done,” Mr. Shapiro said. “But to come see a show, do some bowling, eat some French-bread pizza from Blue Ribbon — that hasn’t been done.”