I’ve been copping some shit this week for publishing Chenell Basilio’s most embarrassing story.

So now I’m gonna share mine. 😬 

It’s only fair.

Buckle up.

✍️ Then join the conversation on LinkedIn.

From top to bottom in the blink of an eye

12 years ago, I moved back to NYC after spending four years in Australia. 

My career straddled a rocket ship while I was down there. 🚀

• I led a major development project

• Became a globally-recognized expert

• And launched a successful media business with my ex-husband

Honestly, I couldn’t be more thankful for the experience. It rocked.

Then my marriage went to hell — I’ll spare you the details. 😒

For my own sanity, I needed to return to the U.S., though I didn’t even have “concepts of a plan” for what I would do once I got there. (Still milking that joke.)

NYC rent is highway robbery, so I needed a job — any job — to begin rebuilding my life.

Luckily, a friend got me an interview…

…at a bowling alley. 🎳

Seriously? A bowling alley?

Ok, so it was actually Bowlmor Times Square, a beautifully designed 90,000-square-foot entertainment center, complete with:

• Three bars 🍻 

• A full-service restaurant 🍽️ 

• And, of course, plenty of pristine bowling lanes 🎳 

Mad props to this place — in my first week, we had a $400k night.

Yep. A single night. 🤯 

My interview was with the Founder and CEO, Tom Shannon, who conducted the entire discussion chewing on an unlit cigar that he planned to smoke later because it happened to be his birthday. Badass. 👊 

Tom is a rockstar entrepreneur.

In 1997, he scraped together $2 million to buy a defunct NYC bowling alley with the vision of transforming bowling into an upscale nightlife experience.

Over the course of a decade, he expanded the concept to 13 locations (including the Times Square flagship, where I would eventually work).

Well done. 👏

“Let’s go for a walk,” Tom said to me, as we departed a drab back office and ventured onto the colorful venue floor to continue my interview.

We strolled through the thoughtfully conceived space, representing neighborhoods and eras of NYC like “Chinatown”, “Prohibition”, and “Central Park”.

Tom revealed a secret:

He was about to close a deal to acquire the bankrupt AMF Bowling Corporation, expanding his portfolio of bowling centers from 13 to nearly 300 — overnight.

Holy shit.

I had been on the fence about entering the nightlife industry, but this was really exciting.

And when Tom asked me to be a part of what he was building, an unconscious force in me met his handshake with enthusiastic agreement.

I was officially Bowlmor’s newest Operations Manager.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

As an Operations Manager, I was on my feet dealing with the day-to-day drama of running what was essentially a complicated nightclub.

The venue had two lines of business:

1. Retail (that’s what we called regular walk-in customers)

2. Private Events

Since the space was so large, and segmented into individual rooms, on any given night we could be hosting a corporate event for KPMG, and a cast party for a Broadway show — all while simultaneously serving hundreds of customers off the street.

It was a fun job. My nights were busy and interesting.

👉 I prepared a last-minute private room for Vanilla Ice and Guy Fieri to bowl together. Apparently they’re good friends (must’ve met through a mutual hairdresser 🤷).

👉 I hosted a birthday party for JaRule’s daughter. He was a massive dick and didn’t even tip his waitstaff. 😒

👉 And I was personally serenaded by the original Broadway cast of Motown: The Musical as a thank-you for staying open late one night so they could celebrate a cast member’s birthday after their show. ❤️

I was well cared for, too.

Tom provided his team with generous monthly bonuses based on a combination of profitability and customer satisfaction.

The venue was super profitable with many happy customers, so I was raking in twice my salary most months.

But I was also:

• Getting home at 4am every night.

• Dealing with drunks and low-lifes.

• Too deep into daily operations to get involved with the AMF acquisition in any meaningful way.

Then I almost died ☠️ 

This is not an exaggeration. 

One day, I arrived at work a little earlier than usual to prepare for a party we were throwing that evening for the cast of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.

I got a call from our friendly neighbor — the manager at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., who had a favor to ask.

They had completely run out of Bud Light, and were wondering if we had a few cases we could loan them until their next scheduled beer delivery the following morning.

No problem. I told them I’d check on our inventory and call them right back.

I jotted down an estimate of how many cases I thought we needed for the night, then went upstairs to our beer cooler to see how many we could spare.

We kept our beer inventory in a small, locked, airtight refrigerated room where dozens of kegs dispensed draft beer to our three bars.

The Bud Light cases were stacked along the wall, just inside the airtight door.

I started counting them…

Then I realized that I had strangely lost count. 😕

So I started over, and darkness began to creep into my peripheral.

My heart started racing, and my breath became frantic.

I quickly lost consciousness and fell to the floor.

I still can’t believe I survived

I awoke laying on the floor in the threshold of the airtight door, with my lower body still in the refrigerated room, and my upper body in a small vestibule between a locked door and the refrigerated room.

I could barely see, barely move, and barely breathe.

A hissing noise that had been masked by the hum of the compressors when I initially entered the room suddenly became apparent.

I realized that a CO2 leak must have displaced the oxygen in the airtight room, and it probably wouldn’t take long for it to displace enough oxygen in the vestibule for me to lose consciousness again.

Mustering every ounce of strength I could find, I crawled fully into the vestibule, reached up to the door handle, and pulled myself out into the hallway.

I collapsed onto my back and didn’t even attempt to move for what felt like an hour.

I reveled in the contrast of the soft carpet of the hallway against the cold concrete of the death room, and in the pure unfettered ability to breathe actual oxygen.

If I had fallen in the opposite direction of the airtight door, I would have certainly died…

🍺 In a beer cooler.

🎳 At a bowling alley.

🪩 In Times Square.

💔 Newly divorced.

📦 While counting cases of Bud Light.

🦐 For Bubba Gump.

What a horrifyingly embarrassing legacy. 🤦

And I wouldn’t have been the only victim

My old pal Tom Shannon could have lost everything because a simple CO2 alarm was either never installed, or not maintained (to this day, I still don’t know.)

Not only would’ve my family sued him to smithereens, this incident would have thrown his deals into serious jeopardy.

Tom’s complex acquisition of AMF involved their second lien lenders converting their debt into equity in his new company, and receiving over $300 million in loans.

The following year, he also acquired all 85 properties in the Brunswick Bowling & Billiards portfolio through another complex transaction, becoming the largest proprietor of bowling entertainment centers in the world.

And in 2021, Tom took the company public during the SPAC craze, and re-named it Bowlero Corporation.

His company now generates over a BILLION dollars in annual revenue across all of its assets.

Methinks Tom’s pathway to success would have been much more challenging if he had accidentally killed a girl. I dunno. 🤷

Lucky for Tom, I leaned in the right direction — so the only true tragedy that arose from this saga is that Bubba Gump never did get their Bud Light.

Cheers! 🍻 

-Kristin :-)

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