SOMA Bookstore May Become Bowling Alley

Books are old-fashioned. The future is all about bowling!

The last few years have been a time of upheaval for SOMA, where new developments jostle with the neighborhood's previous industrial usage. The latest shop to get the boot is Borders at 200 King Street. Rumors of the stores demise have been circulating for a while, but now it's official. "Store Closing" signs went up in the windows this week, and everything in the building is on sale.

So, what's going to take its place? Rumors of a bowling alley are so far just that. But the sources are a reliable woman ("this woman is the closest thing to Nostradamus that I have ever come across" writes one blogger) and a barista at the soon-to-close bookshop. A laundromat has also been proposed.

A bowling alley could be a good fit for the neighborhood, with its legion of sports fans drawn to the nearby baseball park. There's another alley a few blocks away, but it's small and very few people even know that it exists.

A more well-known alley sits across town in the Presidio. Locals were aghast when word spread the Presidio Bowling Alley's impending closure last year. Who knew San Franciscans were so passionate about bowling? If residents show as much love for SOMA's new alley as they did for the one in the Presidio, it'll make a successful replacement for the poor beleaguered bookstore.