Super Bowling
TenDown co-owners (from left) Bob Reed, Mariah and Bryon Smith and Kristen Smith. Not pictured: Brett Smith.
For almost 15 years, TenDown Bowling and Entertainment Center has been a go-to destination for family fun and great food and brews.
Story by Nate Hansen Photos by Thomas Boyd
Bowling has taken Byron Smith around the U.S. and beyond.
Since turning pro after high school, the Umpqua Valley native has won bowling tournaments from coast to coast in the U.S. and traveled to compete in the Japan Cup in 2002. A life on the lanes eventually led Smith back home, where he is now co- owner of TenDown Bowling & Entertainment in Roseburg.
Smith honed his skills at his parents’ bowling alley in Sutherlin. After high school, he took his shot on the Professional Bowlers Association tour.
“I wanted to find out just how good I really was,” he says.
Smith’s bet on himself paid off. For the next two decades he competed at the highest levels of professional bowling and, in 2003, he captured the American Bowling Congress’ Masters national championship.
“I spent 20-plus years traveling,” Smith says. “I went everywhere. I even spent a month in Japan. It was a really great experience.”
Wanting to settle into family life and spend less time on the road, Smith shifted his focus to TenDown, which opened in December 2007.
Smith is one of TenDown’s five owners. The bowling center/ restaurant is largely a family business which includes his wife, Mariah, brother and sister-in-law, Brett and Kristen Smith, and Bob Reed, who brings to the business 38 years of bowling center experience. Reed started working at his family’s bowling center as a teenager, which led to a job in bowling-center mechanics that took him to three continents.
TenDown was constructed from the ground up, on the same Diamond Lake Boulevard site where another bowling center was razed. Smith used his travels to and experience with other bowling centers when designing the space.
“It’s very important to us that everyone who comes in feels safe.We want families to have a sense of normalcy here, even with the added guidelines.” — Mariah Smith
“I saw a lot of concepts in other parts of the country that we could bring to the Northwest,” he says.
One of those concepts, according to Reed, was to focus on attracting more customers than just serious bowlers.
“We wanted to appeal to whole families,” he says. “We have an arcade so kids can play games and a sports bar with a full menu and cocktails, so it’s not just snack-bar food.”
The restaurant and bar, Splitz Grill, also has one of the area’s best selections of local and regional craft beers.
The COVID-19 pandemic has, of course, presented challenges to TenDown, but the center’s owners have been trying taken the past year in stride.
“It’s very important to us that everyone who comes in feels safe.” says Mariah Smith. “We want families to have a sense of normalcy here, even with the added guidelines.”
She adds that TenDown helped lead the charge to reopen bowling centers across Oregon.
“When the state was reopening businesses, bowling was originally classified as a ‘Phase Three’ activity, so we couldn’t even be open,” she says. “We developed a plan for TenDown to open in a safe manner, and got that plan on the governor’s desk. With that we got bowling placed in ‘Phase Two.’”
“I’m really proud to be with these guys.” Reed says. “We’ve had to completely change our philosophy, but I think we’ve got an A-grade team.”
TenDown Bowling & Entertainment is located at 2400 N.E. Diamond Lake Blvd. Check operating hours through the pandemic at tendownbowling.com.
