AMF Bowling Center

AMF bowling centers is a line of multi-lane ten-pin bowling centers. Bowling may be purchased per game, per hour, or as part of a birthday party or corporate event package. Many locations support bowling leagues.

The AMF brand for bowling centers originated with centers owned by the American Machine and Foundry Company. The brand is currently used:

The AMF brand (as well as the QubicaAMF brand) is also used for pinsetters, automatic scoring equipment, and other bowling equipment. Because many of the AMF-branded bowling centers were acquired from other parties, some centers use by bowling equipment manufactured or distributed by other companies such as Brunswick Bowling & Billiards instead of AMF-branded equipment.

The American Machine and Foundry (known after 1970 as AMF, Inc.) moved into the bowling business after World War II, when AMF automated bowling equipment and bowling centers became profitable business ventures, and in subsequent years into many other businesses. Aging production facilities and increasing quality control problems in some product lines caused sales declines in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The company's vast diversified output proved difficult to efficiently manage, and the company began to experience losses. Bowling remained quite profitable, however, so the company began a campaign of expansion in this area, spending nearly $100 million on acquisitions of bowling centers in 1984 and 1985.

In 1985, corporate raider Irwin L. Jacobs's Minstar, Inc. bought AMF Inc. and began to sell its various business divisions. Commonwealth Ventures, a group of private investors in Richmond, Virginia, paid $225 million to purchase the bowling center and bowling products divisions, forming AMF Bowling Companies, Inc. (later known as AMF Bowling Worldwide). The new owners spent nearly $500 million revitalizing the bowling center business with a focus on expanding the appeal of bowling to league and casual bowlers. By 1986 AMF Bowling owned 110 bowling centers in the United States and abroad. In 1991 the company hired former PepsiCo executive Mark Willoughby to head the bowling center business. Willoughby set out to make AMF Bowling the “McDonald’s of bowling”.

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