How to save a bowling alley
Introduced by Christine Sable:
“How Do You Save a Bowling Alley?”
Jordan Steffy is an entrepreneur who loves building things that bring people together. As the owner of Dutch Lanes, a bowling center that has served its community since 1955, he is reimagining what a local gathering place can be. That means growing leagues and competition, tuming the center into a showcase for local businesses, and finding creative new ways to give families a reason to come together.
That mix of community, creativity, and entrepreneurship has shaped his whole career. Playing quarterback at the University of Maryland taught him early how much a team can accomplish when people believe in one another, a lesson he has carried into everything since. After earning his degree there and later an MBA from Columbia Business School, Jordan founded Attollo Prep, a nonprofit built on the belief that young people thrive with high standards and high support. He went on to build in the startup world with StatusPro and to back other founders through Tekfen Ventures. He also serves on the boards of the High Foundation and Elizabethtown College, helping strengthen the institutions that make communities work.
For Jordan, owning a bowling center brings all of it together. It's a creative challenge, an entrepreneurial bet, and a chance to build a place where neighbors connect and everyone feels like they belong.
Jordan lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Kiandra, and their children Meera (11). Maverick (7), and Mielle (2).
==========
Long before Jordan Steffy became a starting quarterback at the University of Maryland, he was a youngster at 222 Dutch Lanes trying to roll the perfect game. Now his life has come full circle: Steffy and his family are the new owners of the bowling center where he first developed his love of sports.
For Lancaster County sports fans, Steffy is a familiar name. At Conestoga Valley High School, he was a four-year football letterman who threw for 5,587 yards and 51 touchdowns. He was also a four-year basketball letterman and became only the second player in school history to score 1,000 points. His athletic ability took him to the University of Maryland on a football scholarship, where he played quarterback for the Terrapins from 2004 through 2008.
His interests after college extended well beyond sports. Steffy founded the Children Deserve a Chance Foundation and Attollo Prep in 2008. Attollo has developed into a Lancaster-based college-access and leadership-development program for high school students, emphasizing such qualities as resiliency, accountability, sacrifice and competition.
Now another chapter has brought him back to his roots.
222 Dutch Lanes has been a Lancaster County institution for decades. The Montgomery family owned the center beginning in 1986, developing it into a community gathering place for recreational and league bowlers and the home lanes for several area high school bowling teams. The facility also includes an arcade and the 22-hole Dutch Gardens miniature golf course.
In 2026, Steffy and his family became its new owners. Speaking about returning to Dutch Lanes, Steffy described it as a privilege to become part of the future of a place whose history he had personally shared. Former longtime general manager Eric Montgomery put the transition another way: the building and its memories will remain, while new owners create new memories.
That presents Steffy with an interesting challenge. Bowling alleys are more than rows of lanes. They are businesses, sports facilities and gathering places where leagues compete, high school teams practice, families celebrate birthdays and generations of bowlers form friendships. Preserving that tradition while keeping such a facility relevant to today's families requires both respect for its past and ideas for its future.
Returning to his roots, Lancaster County native buys 222 Dutch Lanes:
https://lancasteronline.com/business/local_business/returning-to-his-roots-lancaster-county-native-buys-222-dutch-lanes/article_47448e20-e0fb-48e3-9273-611ac67fb577.html