My wife and I bought a small 24-lane duckpin/tenpin bowling alley in Hampstead, Maryland a few years ago to preserve this for business for the community since there is very little to do in our small town. We have a 12-year-old son that has loved duckpin bowling since he could walk and we couldn't stand to see this business turned into something else. We both work full time jobs and this bowling alley is, for all intents and purposes, a hobby for our family.
As a proud Model S driver since 2013, we thought it would be a great addition to our small town if we added two Tesla destination chargers in our parking lot. We went through the process with Tesla and opened these free chargers to the world a few months ago.
Our demographic for the bowling alley in our rural community is certainly not EV drivers, for the most part, but we thought adding this to our family business could be a good way to introduce electric vehicles to people who otherwise view EVs in a negative light.
Much to our surprise, the chargers have been extremely successful and quite a conversation piece among our customers. We find there to be vehicles charging almost every day although there are few EVs spotted in the community. This has been a pleasant surprise.
One thing that has surprised us negatively however is the Tesla drivers themselves. Rarely do those who charge their vehicles come inside to patronize the business. That's understandable because we are a bowling alley and bowling requires a substantial time commitment but we do have a pretty nice snack bar available so they don't know what they're missing.
One thing I don't understand is the amount of trash left by these drivers in our lot which shows a complete disregard for our property and family business. We even have a trash can close by.
Today was even more troublesome because we found one of our traffic cones that we use to block off these charging spots from our bowling alley customers for the Tesla vehicles was stolen. Granted, this is a nice cone that I custom made myself with a Tesla logo but never in a million years would I have thought someone would steal something like this from our lot.
Unfortunately, our security cameras do not show these chargers which I never thought this would be something we'd have to consider doing.
I will say I am pretty upset by this and the overall experience with Tesla drivers in general. I thought if we had an issue it would be the acceptation of our customers of EV drivers parking in "premium spaces" but so far our customers are intrigued by these vehicles.
When we bought our first Model S the Tesla community seemed far different than it is now since Teslas have been more prevalent with the Model 3. Back in 2013, things felt like more of a close knit community than now.
Nonetheless, if anyone sees our White Tesla cone out in public please assist in its rightful return to Greenmount Bowl.
As a proud Model S driver since 2013, we thought it would be a great addition to our small town if we added two Tesla destination chargers in our parking lot. We went through the process with Tesla and opened these free chargers to the world a few months ago.
Our demographic for the bowling alley in our rural community is certainly not EV drivers, for the most part, but we thought adding this to our family business could be a good way to introduce electric vehicles to people who otherwise view EVs in a negative light.
Much to our surprise, the chargers have been extremely successful and quite a conversation piece among our customers. We find there to be vehicles charging almost every day although there are few EVs spotted in the community. This has been a pleasant surprise.
One thing that has surprised us negatively however is the Tesla drivers themselves. Rarely do those who charge their vehicles come inside to patronize the business. That's understandable because we are a bowling alley and bowling requires a substantial time commitment but we do have a pretty nice snack bar available so they don't know what they're missing.
One thing I don't understand is the amount of trash left by these drivers in our lot which shows a complete disregard for our property and family business. We even have a trash can close by.
Today was even more troublesome because we found one of our traffic cones that we use to block off these charging spots from our bowling alley customers for the Tesla vehicles was stolen. Granted, this is a nice cone that I custom made myself with a Tesla logo but never in a million years would I have thought someone would steal something like this from our lot.
Unfortunately, our security cameras do not show these chargers which I never thought this would be something we'd have to consider doing.
I will say I am pretty upset by this and the overall experience with Tesla drivers in general. I thought if we had an issue it would be the acceptation of our customers of EV drivers parking in "premium spaces" but so far our customers are intrigued by these vehicles.
When we bought our first Model S the Tesla community seemed far different than it is now since Teslas have been more prevalent with the Model 3. Back in 2013, things felt like more of a close knit community than now.
Nonetheless, if anyone sees our White Tesla cone out in public please assist in its rightful return to Greenmount Bowl.