Tarheel Lanes is operating as a 32-lane bowling center in Hendersonville, with an arcade and a full-service snack bar. Its website says the business is forming new leagues and hosts parties and group events; Visit Hendersonville lists the center at 3275 Asheville Highway and says it can accommodate groups of up to 192 people.
That continued use as a bowling venue was central to the 2024 ownership change. Les and Paige Boyd bought the longtime alley on July 31, 2024, and told WNC Business they wanted to keep it from disappearing. The outlet reported that four employees were running the business seven days a week at the time of the takeover.
Since then, the Boyds have refreshed the interior, updated the scoring system and bowling equipment, and reopened the kitchen, according to WNC Business. The report also said longtime employee Ellis DeSimon stayed on after the sale. Tarheel Lanes’ own site now promotes modern bowling, an arcade and its snack bar, while the visitor listing identifies it as Western North Carolina’s largest bowling center.
A comparison, not a trend
A separate reopening offers one point of comparison, but not evidence that such projects are becoming more common. WFIE reported that Kerilynn and Ryan Lasley reopened the former Gibson Lanes in Princeton, Indiana, in 2025 after buying it in 2022 and adding lanes, lighting, an arcade and a bar and grill. That alley had closed in 2018; Tarheel Lanes, by contrast, remained in operation through its change in ownership.
There is also a limit to what national figures can say about a local center’s prospects. USBC says thousands of schools across the country offer high school bowling competition, but that does not establish recreational-league demand in Hendersonville. Separately, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis report 70.8 thousand jobs in the U.S. bowling centers industry in 2025. That is an employment measure, not a count of bowling centers or lanes.
For Tarheel Lanes, the documented change is local and specific: a longtime center has new owners, updated facilities and a stated plan to continue bowling and group activities. The available national employment and school-sport figures provide background, but do not show how many centers operate nearby or whether new leagues will attract participants.
