Name your top three bowling alleys with dual fireplaces and arguably the best BBQ on Cape Cod. We’ll wait.
Still waiting.
Ahead of his 13th season, Dave had enough of slowly chipping away at the thematic facelift he’s seen in his head for The Alley. So he ripped the bandaid, temporarily closed his doors for four weeks (lightning reno: 10 May to 07 June), and circled the wagons. The adjustments and additions will be easy to spot, even from the outside. Let’s establish the cosmetics.
The parking lot got a fresh coat, new lines were painted, a strong statement outdoor patio is underway (hello, +40 seats), landscaping & tree planting that’ll mature and provide a canopy, and he’s started the ball rolling on a new mural to keep it lively for the patio patrons.
Will there be additional fire features outside? Yes.
Will there be an outdoor projector screen for sports & Pete Weber championship roll reruns?
Yes … and, well, maybe. I mean, it’s an idea, right?
Let’s Set the Pins
Before we sit back and enjoy the full story of Dave’s run from 2013 to 2025 (well really, we’ll go back to 2011), let’s get a clear view of what you’ll get once you park in that manicured lot.
The front door’s vestibule will now defrost you when that’s needed — the heat from the fireplace on the other side of the wall will be checking many boxes: one of them is to thaw you out immediately when the chill sets in. Once you’re inside you’ll immediately get the picture: the colors are stronger, deeper, vibrant, and pulled directly from the branding. Your eyes will move from the carpeting up to the killer orange chairs framing the dark brown tables. Just beyond the tables you’ll see the newly refurbbed wrap around benches just ahead of the scorer’s table with those tasteful orange lamps. The smooth as silk lanes with their thin lines draw you to the candlepins in a momentary trance-like adventure of its own. Clearly one of the Deakinettes had been studying Allen Daviau’s finer work through the spring.
The dining area behind the lanes now has a half-wall separating the formerly open area and creating a whole other room; step inside the fire pit! More than just keeping the diners warm, this fireplace is a tone setter. Did you come up with the name of those other bowling alleys with fireplaces? We’re still waiting.
Another half-wall sprung up just outside the bathrooms and when you take both of them into account you start to see what Dave’s got in mind: he wants to establish rooms and hallways and generate more dimension of design and character — but it’s important to be sure they’re all part of the same whole.
Moving into the bar you get a nice little love tap across the face when the corrugated metal jumps off of the bar base where the diamond shapes used to rest. It’s the same corrugated you see along both of the half-walls, flanking the shoes, and edging the lanes. You’ll also see another fireplace to the right on the dining room wall (where the hotline window was a hundred years ago). Tthat same feeling of design congruency comes over and taps you on the shoulder again.
When Dave told his friends about his plans for the renovation, they knew what he was up to immediately, “oh, you’re going to make it like your house - a really nice place to hang out.” And that’s what you’re really looking at - he’s no Daniel Plainville but, yeah, come by and bowl. Milkshakes optional.
What’s nice to know about The Alley is that, while they throw rocks during the season, as you’d imagine being a family friendly spot with BBQ that could battle in a steel cage match with any comers, they consider their season just as much the fall and winter as they do the flooded, warm weather months. They’re here for the locals and they’re one of the lighthouses that HyperLocal rows toward. And that attitude goes back long before Dave ran the place.
Marion the Great
Marion Currier is Dave’s great aunt. She’s also his daughter’s namesake and the person from whom it seems like he may have caught his loyal-to-the-soil, community-centric view of life or business (or both). She ran Lake Farm Camp and used the proceeds to send local kids to camp if they didn’t have the scratch for it. So by the time she took over The Alley in the mid-70s, the lanes became a place where families would come year round, where kids were good to run from one end to the other and the adults kept an eye on everybody … honestly, it sounds like an indoor campground, doesn’t it?.
Growing up in an era before women broke into all the industries and roles they since have done, Marion sounds like a straight-up Suffragette. Born in 1911, she was in her teens when the movement was coming down from its peak and, seeing the way her life shook out, I think it’d be fair to say she remembered the era well.
When Marion died in 2005 (at 94), Dave's father took over at The Alley and ran it until it was time for Dave to grab the baton and strut his stuff. While Dave didn’t take over until 2013, he knew what he wanted to do and started executing on that first vision he had for the place in 2011 - when The Alley was 14 lanes and three vending machines.
The Candlepin William Wallace
Back in 2011, Orleans was going through some city-wide municipal adjustments and it was hard to get certain plans approved. The way it played out for Dave (and a lot of local business owners - which I’m guessing isn’t singular to Orleans or the Cape), was that committees and commissions were not only looking for reasons to say no to new businesses, but they may have been, for their own reasons, trying to dry up some of the existing ones.
Look, we’re trying to be as diplomatic as possible here but from the sounds of it, and from the way it played out, there were some shitbirds making themselves a little too comfortable in the nest and not everybody else in the tree was very happy about that. Is the analogy holding?
Net-net: after two years and $40k+ going round & round with Orlans, walking through their administrative quicksand with muddy boots and ankle weights, Dave identifies his side quest and he hops on the express with all of his research and heads straight to the State of MA to get his proposal approved.
Before going over their heads, his last permit request to the town, after the dozens of months of fuckery, was for 11 lanes and 14 seats for food and drink. He was ready to voluntarily sacrifice three of his lanes so he could get his food business off the ground. But even with his willingness to give up the three lanes, and the acrobatics he did to navigate the plateware/silverware/glassware/septic matrix, he STILL couldn't get the approval he needed.
After three weeks working with the State, Dave had his permit. When they asked him what his request for lanes and seats was, he ripped the lid off of it and fired off new numbers: all 14 lanes and make it 35 seats, PLUS the glassplatesilverware configuration. Dave knows like the rest of us that eating BBQ on paperplates is acceptable (if not optimal) but drinking beer or wine or a cocktail out of a plastic cup was … gauche. His request was approved and victory was his.
But there was still unfinished business out by the rotary: Dave rode back into town with legal documents on his hip and was done asking for permission; because any decision made by the state trumps a town ruling, Dave informs the fools who tried to stand in his way what he was GOING TO DO, puts the wheels in motion to do it and then, to add insult to injury runs for, and wins, a seat on the Board of Health.
In his first meeting on the board, Dave promptly & publicly puts the Chair and the Vice-Chair in positions so contorted and awkward that they resign in disgrace. Dave proves that he, like the Wu Tang Clan, aint nothin to fuck with.
He then breaks ground in September of 2013 and the race was on.
A Student of Swine
Pop quiz, hotshot: Can you name the only chef who has cooked on Air Force One under multiple presidents? Hint: that same guy was crowned a 4x World Champion and 3x Grand World Champion at Memphis in May over the years. Pour some out for Mike Mills, remember with respect — he checked out at the very end of 2020 heading for that that big smoker in the sky.
When The Alley opened on 12 March 2014 even Dave didn’t anticipate the reception to the food was going to blow up so quickly. But it did and, in short order, he had some champagne problems to solve. Going from smoking meats and having friends over to the house for BBQ & beer to running a BBQ restaurant is not a short walk - it’s a pilgrimage.
Luckily, after stacking all of that hardware with the Apple City BBQ team, Mike Mills, by then heading up 17th Street BBQ restaurants, began hosting classes, seminars, and workshops for aspiring restaurateurs. He not only helped them understand the intricacies of prep and timing, how to navigate the slow cook kitchen, but he also worked on brand and marketing. Our hero Dave made the pilgrimage to Illinois to attend and learn from Mike directly. He needed the intel and what he left with played out perfectly.
Dave was able to handle the practical part of food and service, using many if not all of his own recipes from the jump and hiring a proficient kitchen staff who could follow his instruction. How’d that go, you ask? How’d that Dave’s Rub hit?
By September 2016 two more lanes were removed to add more seats (they built a dining room) and move the kitchen. Keeping score at home? As of 2016 that’s 12 lanes and 58 seats, which was incredible seeing as five years earlier he was being jerked around for 14 seats. But you know what was apparently stuck in Dave’s craw? There were still Zero fireplaces.
This 2025 overhaul on speed gives The Alley 12 lanes, 98 seats (once the patio opens), TWO stellar fireplaces inside and two more fire features outside. I look forward to seeing what thorn Dave gets caught in his paw next and how he goes about crossing that off the list. I’m hoping it’s the homemade sausage.
The Bar Czar: Magic Mikey Molina
If you’ve been to The Alley, you know Mikey. Having worked here for about 2 years, as manager for the last 9 months, Mikey Molina took the 28 days down and put together a cocktail menu that’ll put you in an experimenting mood. Aside from letting everybody know that off-season Sunday lunches some of his favorite shifts to work, here are a couple of his recommendations from the new drink selection:
Mr Black: Espresso, Mr Black Cold Brew Liqueur, Tito’s, a splash of simple.
If you want a shot of Bailey’s with it, ask for a Mr Beige
Strikes & Gutters: Lunazul Mezcal, Compari, Carpano Antica, Sweet Vermouth in a rocks glass
The Pin Killah: 20 Boat Spiced Rum, Orange Juice, Pineapple Juice, Coconut Cream, topped with nutmeg
And of course you can grab a Caucasian if you so desire.
A Smoker Full of Delightful Treats …
That’s the theme for a potential mural to be painted on the building outside that flanks the new patio deck. Maybe some historic Alley scenes, maybe something biblical from the book of Duder-onomy, maybe a nod to the goodness that flows out of that kitchen day in and day out for the past decade+. Ideally some talented young people will come through with their brushes and their paints and give the good outdoor dining folks a lovely little something to look at when they’re outside enjoying a plate of BBQ and some time by the fire.
This, again, speaks to what Dave’s goal is with this new-look Alley: not only comfort and style but something like homey-ness he feels when he’s … well, at home. Like his friends picked up on: he wants to bring the creature comforts of home over to work.
Or maybe this place is just as much (or more) like his home than his home is - by the numbers, over his lifetime, he’s likely put in more hours on the property where The Alley stands than his own home. The spirit of Marion is strong here and she probably smiles and winks to him when Dave gives some random bowler a high-five after a strike. He’s truly a bowler’s bowler: when he’s on vacation he doesn’t stop into the mini golf spot or the water slides, he finds a bowling alley and samples the place from top to bottom. While he’s rolling he’ll look around to see if there’s anything he can pull from it, anything that inspires him to take back. But mostly he just likes to bowl.
Catch Dave doing a $10 to $1 roll-off with his staff for kicks. (Yeah he pays a Hamilton to everybody else’s Washingtons). It’s obvious that great Aunt Marion’s altruism and humanity has left a sizable mark on him and he’s bringing her spirit to bear on the same hallowed ground, the one she stomped and claimed.
So yeah, even if you’ve already been by, head over again, bring some friends, get a couple plates, throw some rocks, and drain a couple of beers. Who knows, Dave may run drinks to your table or you may get real lucky and stumble in when Dave’s in the kitchen working on his homemade pork sausage (with fennel, VT maple syrup, and Dave’ Rub) and you can finagle a taste. Who knows when you’ll see that again - it shows up in Orleans with about as much frequency as the aurora borealis.
Keep your eyes open for lunch service coming soon and, if you’re lucky and rub your rabbit's foot, the whispers of an inaugural Pig Roast will come true just for you. But it’ll be toward the end of the year when the fires can play a featured role and the locals get billing above the title.
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