Bird Bowl, the family entertainment center on Bird Road in Westchester, is marking 70 years this month. The business opened on Thanksgiving Day in 1956 and has grown into an 80,000-square-foot complex with 60 lanes certified by the United States Bowling Congress for professional competition. It is the only such center in Miami-Dade, according to the business.
Chief financial officer Theresa Ore, who was hired at 17 in the late 1970s, said the building has changed a great deal since then. Scores were once written by hand with grease pencils and projected on a hot telescore. Today the center offers a karaoke room, a bar called The L Bar and a Game Zone with arcade games, laser tag and mini-golf that opened this spring.
Executive director Dion De Freitas, who joined 15 years ago, said the team plans a larger change next. The old arcade and billiards lounge will be gutted and rebuilt as Rok Social, with axe-throwing, Krazy Darts, lounge seating and a dance floor for DJs and live music. It will have its own street entrance. Roky’s Ice Cream counter will also expand into a full shop.
The changes come as independent centers face rising rent and competition from nightlife operators. Davie’s SpareZ closed this spring after 36 years, and its owner plans to demolish the building for warehouses. Bird Bowl’s owners, the Rok family, have kept the center as the anchor of its shopping plaza since buying it in 1984.
