A 1920s Glenside bowling alley gets a new lease on life as a bustling micro-mall
The new micro-mall has coffee, vinyl records, yoga — and an antique bowling lane floor.
A sprawling brick Glenside building that last held an optometrist’s office is returning to its roots as developer Kevin Burke looks to build community hubs around his native Glenside.
The building at 2256 Mt. Carmel Ave. was once home to a bowling alley and billiards hall. The alley closed in 1971, and a family of eye specialists ran a glasses store there for decades.
Burke bought the 1920s structure, dubbed Glenside Lanes, in 2024. The micro-mall, which officially opened in May 2025, is now home to a barre and yoga studio, a coffee shop, a record store, and a gift shop, with plans for a music venue in the back.
Like the newly bustling Yorkway Place in Jenkintown, Glenside Lanes balances traditional retail with experiential businesses. The Montgomery County venues are part of a national trend, as investors look to fill commercial space hollowed out by online shopping and post-pandemic consumer shifts.
“I think it’s the way to keep a brick-and-mortar going,” said Rhiannon Punzo, a Glenside Lanes tenant. “It’s like your community mall where you’re coming to one building that you can walk to, that isn’t corporate.”
Burke is preserving most of the bowling lane flooring — including lane guides and the alternating wooden plank style demarcating the gutters — in the back of the building, which will serve as a concert and event space as early as November. He plans to develop a similar multi-use site in Wyncote.
But to make Glenside Lanes a success, Burke needed the right business partners.
First, he found Punzo, who runs The Dovetail shop of local artist-made gifts, and cofounded the art events company CO Lab.
Punzo connected with longtime music photographer Lisa Schaffer, who had planned to open a record store in about five years. Within months, Schaffer was opening Vinyl Chickie at Glenside Lanes.
“I want you to speed up your retirement plan,” Punzo recalls telling Schaffer.
Former professional ballet dancer Alyson Pray Ward used to park outside the building and walk down the street to her barre and yoga business, Align Studio.
“I would always look up to the second floor and think, ‘That would make a gorgeous ballet studio,’” Pray Ward said. She moved Align into Glenside Lanes last year.
This summer, Raven Cafe began serving Rival Bros. Coffee on the ground floor between Punzo and Schaffer’s stores. The stores flow into one another, making it easier to linger, owners and workers said: Yogis might pick up a teacher gift downstairs at The Dovetail after class, and music lovers grab coffee at Raven before browsing vinyl.
“People can honestly show up and see familiar faces,” said Christine Collins, who teaches at Align. “I’m meeting adult friends there.”
The clutch of complementary businesses is exactly what Burke had hoped for.
The goal “was definitely to bring in different businesses that would help the community,” Burke said. “I always thought the bowling alley would be a perfect spot for that, and now we’re almost there.”
The final business partner Glenside Lanes needed, Punzo said, was Glenside itself.
“The community said ‘We want this, if you build more we’ll come,’” Punzo said. “They could’ve been just talking, but everyone who said it showed up.”
Inquirer Greater Abington
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