Bowling center opens in Ascension; movie theater on the way

Ascension Parish’s first bowling alley, Premier Lanes Entertainment Center, opened for business Sunday to packed crowds. “It was like Disney,” says Charlene Ourso, a marketing manager for Malco Bowling Division. “We had lines out to the door. We had waiting lists.” Home to more than two dozen lanes, the complex on Airline Highway in Gonzales also includes an arcade, a café and lounge, and eventually, if everything goes according to plan, a movie theater. The company plans to break ground on the theater by fall 2013, with an opening possible before the end of the year. No decision has been made on the number of movie screens that may be included. Malco, which is based in Memphis, owns other bowling alleys, including Circle Bowl and Metro Bowl in Baton Rouge, and more than 300 theaters. But the Ascension Parish complex could be the first of Malco’s to have both a bowling alley and movie theater, Ourso says. —David Jacobs