Garden Center Lanes, Fat Daddy's Bar & Grill, and Broadway Ballroom Event Center opened August of 2005. The concept originated after having been a bar, grill, bowling alley and small catering operation with banquets held in the basement at Garden Center Lanes on 5th & Hawthorne, or what we now call the "old place."
Our three businesses share the same roof and ownership. We are a third-generation, family-run business. Garden Center Lanes started as an 8-lane bowling alley in 1939 and was purchased by LeRoy Meyer in 1957. Over the years the business expanded by adding in the catering operation, utilizing the basement as a banquet facility as well as many additions to the bowling lanes over five different add-ons and ending up with 34 lanes of bowling. In the 1980s LeRoy's children, Charlie and Susan, took over ownership of the business; in the late 1990s and early 2000s Charlie's children, Chad and Matt, have also obtained ownership, and the four of them run the "new place."
The constant need for expansion brought along the desire to build a bigger and better facility, which is where the dream of Garden Center Lanes, Fat Daddy's Bar & Grill, and Broadway Ballroom Event Center fit into the picture. After a few years of planning and building, the Meyer family was able to open the doors in August of 2005 with a Bar and Grill able to seat 200+ people, 34 lanes of bowling, arcade, pro shop and a banquet center with the capacity to seat 500 guests.
We take pride in our business and look forward to providing a great banquet and catering facility, bowling alley and bar & grill to the Alexandria Lakes Area!