First off i need to say I've been going to O'fallon bowl since i was a teenager, and have never had any trouble, That all changed in the past week, I will never visit this establishment again. About 10 years ago I bought a pair of bowling shoes at a garage sale. The bowling shoes said O'fallon bowl on the side, but I never thought anything about it. figured it was an old pair the bowling alley had sold off. I've been to O'fallon bowl with those shoes 5-10x since I bought them, never had any trouble. This past week my son took his girlfriend out to bowl, I told him go to O'fallon bowl, I used to go as a kid, you'll like it. I gave him my shoes to save on the rental fee. He went in, bought shoes for his girlfriend, and proceeded to bowl a couple games. Upon leaving he took his girlfriend's shoes back to the counter, and went to leave. He made no attempt to hide my shoes. The attendant then accused my son of stealing the shoes. To be more accurate, he said "give me those shoes, those are stolen". This was in front of numerous people at the counter. My son explained the shoes were his dad's, he brought them in with him, but the attendant got more rude and said "those shoes are stolen, give them to me". My son thought they were going to call the cops, was by that time extremely embarrassed because everyone was looking at him like he was a thief, threw the shoes on the counter, and left. Once my son talked to me, I called. I explained the how I'd bought the shoes years back from a garages sale, etc. The attendant accused me of stealing the shoes. Again, to be fair he said "we have no way of knowing if those shoes are your or ours." I told him I wanted to speak to a manager, he told me to call back M-F. I did, and set a mtg to sit down with the general manager. I told time out of my work schedule, went to see him. From the very first words with the manager, there was no attempt to apologize for the misunderstanding, no attempts to apologize for making my son/me feel like common criminals (in front of other customers). I did get angry, raised my voice, even said a few cuss words, which I later apologized for. Told the manager I didn't give a damn about the shoes, I cared about the way he made me/my son feel when the damned shoes were mine. He agreed, you made no attempts to hide them, he agreed you walked in with them, he agreed I've never had anyone take time out of their work schedule to come see me over a pair of shoes (because when it's happened in the past the parties were guilty), but it didn't matter to him. "Those are my shoes you're not getting them back", he said. I even asked him to call the police to resolve it, he did. There was no way he was going to give the shoes back, or apologize, anything. I explained my business would go elsewhere, I'd ensure everyone else I knew took their business elsewhere, he said "do what you gotta do". Needless to say, I will never step foot into Ofallon bowl again, and I plan to take as many people as possible with me. My hope is this place shuts down in the next 3-4 years due to business dropoff. read more
