Last night Ryan, Brad, and I went to the new “300″ bowling alley in Pasadena. Here is my review.
Some of you reading this have been to Tokyo Delve’s Sushi Bar in North Hollywood. It’s sort of a combination nightclub and sushi bar. There is a velvet rope at the door, there is a constant and very loud soundtrack pumped out by a DJ, the waiters put on a dance routine to NSync, there is dancing of the Chicken Dance while standing on one’s chair (participation basically mandatory), etc. Now, the sushi there is not bad – but if you’re primarily going out for sushi, this isn’t where you’d go. You’re going for the multimedia extravaganza.
300 is kind of like that, but with a bowling alley. They are sort of aiming for this high-class cocktail lounge feel with the decor, with the special station that fits you for your house ball (no hunting around for a ball, they bring it to you), with the waiter-like dude who gets you your drinks at your lane but also takes care of taking your money for bowling. However:
- They had that whole dim lighting with black lights on the lanes thing going on, making it hard to see to bowl.
- The end of every lane has a big video screen playing the video for whatever song is on the sound system at the moment, which is distracting.
- The music played is very loud, and sort of randomly switches between genre – Shania Twain followed by Sonny and Cher followed by Culture Club (all things we heard there within the space of one game).
- There are no arrows on the lanes! Just the dots.
- The graphics on the scoring system are bizarre and not tremendously functional.
- It’s expensive – $5 for shoe rental and $6 per person per game during the 5pm-9pm time frame ($8 on Friday and Saturday).
So I would say 300 is the Tokyo Delve of bowling alleys, but if Tokyo Delve topped it off with really mediocre sushi.
If what you primarily want to do is bowl, All-Star is clearly the better deal, what with $3.50 shoe rental and $18 for an hour on a lane. I can’t speak to the drink prices, since I don’t drink, but I know Ryan had a beer.
As a Bowling Czar who is primarily interested in bowling, I withhold my Seal of Approval from 300 and will not be scheduling DFMM bowling events there.