‘He lived it, loved it’
Ed Tadevich Jr. leaves legacy of maintaining quality bowling lanes with personal touch
I had one of those “I remember your dad…” conversations Wednesday night with Oak Forest Bowl owner Keith Tadevich.
We were talking about the year 1975, when I was a 19-year-old first-time league bowler at Burr Oak Bowl.
In a nutshell, I told him how Ed Tadevich Jr. was so gracious and welcoming when the captain of my team introduced me. I can remember being a little surprised at how many of the league members Ed actually knew and took the time to talk with.
But I shouldn’t have.
That was Ed just being himself. “To him, the bowlers were just like a big extended family,” Keith Tadevich said. “He was always in the center, so he got to intimately know his customers. He got to know their kids, their families when they’d have outings at the bowling center.
“He was just one of those kind of guys. He cared, he was affectionate, he was a people person.”
Ed Tadevich Jr. died Oct. 28 at the age of 75. And when I tell you the Chicagoland bowling community lost a giant, I’m not exaggerating.
Along with his brother Darryl and his son Keith, Ed owned Burr Oak Bowl in Blue Island, Oak Forest Bowl and Mardi Gras Lanes in DeKalb.
Darryl Tadevich died in January 2020. A sister, Dee Dee Wright, still helps manage affairs at Burr Oak.
Keith Tadevich is now the sole owner, carrying on a tradition in its fourth generation.
The Tadevich history involving Chicago area bowling is certainly an interesting one.
It started in the 1920s, when Joseph Tadevich owned Triangle Lanes, located on Halsted and Elston in Chicago. The family later opened an eight-lane center on the North Side named Tadevich’s Fullerton/Crawford Lanes.
Continuing on after his father, Ed Tadevich Sr. became a secondgeneration owner when he bought 16-lane Burr Oak Bowl in 1966. Soon, the Blue Island center became one of the most popular in the south suburbs.
A few years back, Ed Tadevich
Jr., told me about how Burr Oak was used as the backdrop for an Earl Anthony photo shoot and that Mark Roth once bowled in a tournament there.
Ed Tadevich Sr. was planning to expand Burr Oak Bowl when he died of a heart attack at age 60. His sons Ed and Darryl, however, kept his dream very much alive, adding 16 more lanes and an additional sit-in bar in 1978.
In 1991, the Tadevich brothers bought Welcome Lanes in DeKalb and renamed it Mardi Gras Lanes. Ed Tadevich Jr. bought Oak Forest Bowl in 1997. Ed stayed active in the bowling business until retiring in 2010 to Florida.
For most of the years I bowled at Burr Oak, from 1975 into the mid-1990s, business was nothing short of amazing. There were early evening and late leagues every night.
Finding a lane for open bowling was not easy.
You can chalk that up to hard work Ed Tadevich Jr. put into making Burr Oak the bowling place to be. It was no different in the later years at Oak Forest, and I’m sure at Mardi Gras as well.
“He lived it, loved it,” Keith Tadevich said. “My dad could go into a group of strangers, strike up a conversation and make them comfortable. It was his life. He just enjoyed the game.”
And he played it pretty well, too.
“Oh, my dad was very good,” Keith Tadevich said, smiling. “He bowled pretty competitive when he was younger. I think he had four 300s in league, averaged 210 to 220 and bowled numerous tournaments.
“Obviously, when you get into the business and you’re here every day taking care of customers, you start having a different focus.”
On that score, Ed Tadevich Jr. always had a perfect game.