One of the Portland Area’s Oldest Bowling Alleys Is Shuttering

Kellogg Bowl, the 58-year-old, family-owned bowling alley in downtown Milwaukie, announced its permanent closure today.

IMAGE: Kellogg Bowl Facebook.
By Matthew Singer

Another Portland institution has succumbed to the pandemic.

Kellogg Bowl, the 58-year-old, family-owned bowling alley located in downtown Milwaukie, announced today it will be closing permanently due to the financial strain of the state's coronavirus restrictions.

The alley—which opened in 1962 and has remained seemingly unchanged in the decades since, with vintage furnishings and charmingly retro signage—was forced to shut down at the onset of the pandemic in March. It reopened Oct. 30 after an executive order allowed bowling centers and skating rinks in counties still in Phase 1 of Oregon's reopening guidelines to resume operations, but closed again in November when the state economy entered a two-week freeze in an attempt to stunt the recent surge in positive COVID-19 cases.

"A business can not endure 10-12 months of closure and be expected to survive," owners Bill Oetken and Champ Husted wrote in a Facebook post. "We can not say that we did not try."

Bowling centers were an endangered species in Portland even before the health crisis, with several popular spots closing in recent years.

Related: The Bowling Alley On Southeast Powell Will Be Replaced By a Target.

In early October, prior to Brown's order changing the regulations, bowlers held a series of small rallies at local alleys, urging the state to allow them to reopen.

"We've been sitting there since May ready to go, and every day it gets harder for us," Kellogg Bowl general manager Roxanne Oetken told The Oregonian then. "We're getting to the end of being able to hang on."

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