By Josephine Hinderman
Contributing Writer

New local sports bar 1st and Bowl held a grand opening event at its 301 N. Washington Street location in Green Bay on Dec. 8, and with it ushered in an interesting sport — football bowling.

Three friends, turned Wauwatosa-based business owners, were eager to bring their business to the area, a business that encompasses the culture of Green Bay.

“We were looking around at a couple of different options, and Green Bay has all the things that we love about Wauwatosa,” Owner Bryan Mackenzie said. “Obviously football is very popular around here, bowling is very popular, beer is very popular… So when we found this building we said ‘absolutely, this is the place where we need to be.’”

And football bowling is exactly how it sounds; the objective of the game is to knock down as many bowling pins using a football, with teams on opposite ends of the lane taking alternating turns to knock down as many pins as they can.

“Football bowling is a thing that a lot of people haven’t done before — it’s something different and fun,” Mackenzie said. “It’s something that’s challenging enough where you want to do it again. You get that feeling where you’re so close to getting it and you want to try again.”

Alongside football bowling, other activities include cornhole, connect-four basketball and other games.

Mackenzie explained how 1st and Bowl lends itself well for group outings, leagues (which will open up in January following the holiday season), tournaments, team-building events, company outings and even fundraisers.

“If you’re a large group of people searching for something to do, we’re the perfect place for that,” Mackenzie said.

While they don’t serve food, there is a bar with beer and cocktails available.

And with winter descending upon the area, 1st and Bowl seems like the ideal place to host events or to have a night out.

“We kind of provide and fill in that gap of doing something fun, and it gives something for people to do in a wide-open space that they’re not really able to do anywhere else during the winter,” said MacKenzie. “So for us, wintertime is the perfect time to be in here, but we want people to come here during the summer, too.”