Devonport Tenpin Bowling plan to open escape rooms, cafe, bar private venue space on site

Devonport’s Tenpin Bowling may be nearing 40 years old, but the newest owners of the business have big plans for the centre ensuring tonnes of family fun. See the plans.

Owners of the Devonport Tenpin Bowling Kerryn Duncan and Mark Vernon are "excited” by the local community’s reception to recent upgrades.

Families in the northwest will soon enjoy an fresh entertainment and sporting hub, with stage one of renovations to the Devonport Tenpin Bowling centre open on Wednesday.

Designs were released earlier in the year for an entire interior and exterior redevelopment of the centre, with owners Kerryn Duncan and Mark Vernon excited to move ahead with upgrades since taking over in July 2022.

“We’ve been really overwhelmed by the support from the local community, even the wider community across Tasmania,” Ms Duncan said.

“We really didn’t expect that it would get this much attention.

“It means that our renovations are happening a lot quicker than what we originally intended, because the community really have gotten behind us.”

An interior concept design of Devonport Tenpin Bowl.

Boasting upgraded bowling lanes with wheelchair access and a mobile stage over the lanes for live acts, the centre will soon have an array of escape rooms, karaoke and private venue rooms as well.

A new cafe space, bar, live music staging facilities and outdoor beer garden will also provide areas for adults to “chill out” while kids enjoy themselves.

For Ms Duncan, formerly a teacher of 15 years and Mr Vernon, a sales manager for an advertising agency, the decision to buy the bowling centre was “big”.

“When we were looking around for something to purchase, we just wanted to put some escape rooms in as we quite enjoyed doing them ourselves,” Ms Duncan said.

Devonport Tenpin Bowl’s concept designs.

“We were looking around for a space to put those in and then realised the bowling alley would be a perfect spot to be able to offer a wider range of entertainment options for the Devonport community.”

Devonport Tenpin Bowling centre will mark its 40th birthday on September 30.