The Lanes Reviews Summary

Staff and Service

Pros:

• "Staff were friendly and helpful, toilets were clean, bowling was fun."
• "Outstanding place!! I have been often with my daughter and staff has always been amazing."
• "The staff are friendly. The music has been great."
• "One of the girls on at the beginning was helpful."
• "Staff were great as they accidentally binned my full pint after leaving the karaoke room but offered me another one as a condolence."
• "Bar staff are very friendly."
• "Lovely friendly staff behind the bar and on the door."

Cons:

• "The staff behind the bar were very rude about me having another cup of coffee."
• "A member of staff was so rude and frightened when he grabbed and pulled me by the arm from behind."
• "Staff were so unhelpful and rude."
• "Upon arrival our game of bowling running late, staff were very abrupt and rude when we were trying to make arrangements."
• "Extremely rude and unwelcoming staff."
• "The staff are almost mute, with no ability to interact with the general public."
• "The general attitude of a few of the staff, and in particular the manager, really let's the venue down."

Venue and Atmosphere

Pros:

• "Really nice venue for a group to visit."
• "It's nice to have an older bowling venue with more character than the chains, and the set up is really nice."
• "There was live music and relaxed atmosphere and reasonable choice of beer and decent pizza."
• "Lovely vibe, good ambience, trendy feel, cool atmosphere everything was very reasonable."
• "It's endearingly scruffy with a lively but unpretentious atmosphere."
• "Nice chilled bowling place, a rare survivor in the face of corporate chains which we see today everywhere."
• "Fantastic live music by Thrill Collins then a great mix of punk and rock from the 90s and 00s."

Cons:

• "It looks a bit run down, but perfect for students I guess."
• "The atmosphere is generally alright except for the evenings when you might be in store for some extremely loud music."
• "The layout is awful. The bar is right next to the stage & bowling access and it gets savagely crowded."
• "This is basically a hipster destination in terms of nightlife and is fun during the day, but at night is just full of passive aggressive staff."
• "It's very loud so not really suitable for smaller children."
• "But the live music they had was just absolutely way too loud...made it impossible to socialize."
• "This used to be one of my favourite venues but in the past year or so security has become so tight that it is now incapable of running an enjoyable club / live music night."

Food and Drinks

Pros:

• "Pizza is good, drinks selection is ok."
• "Great choice of beer, good pizza."
• "Plus the pizza here tastes great and is super fresh made to order nothing tasted frozen."
• "The pizzas are HUGE as well and delicious."
• "The pizza: fantastic! Vegan, veggie and meat options!"
• "Great selection of drinks. Particularly liked the Elderflower cider."
• "Drinks are reasonably priced and seats are comfortable."

Cons:

• "Also their beer is sometimes hit & miss."
• "The pizza we had barely any cheese and the drinks were over priced and the cocktails tasted horrid."
• "Due to not being served food we didn’t even stay for the Karaoke due to being so hungry."
• "However, I must mention that the pizza left much to be desired – it was disappointingly dry."
• "Drinks are so expensive here it's like London prices."
• "Unfortunately my favoured cider has gone (lily’s bee sting) and they just had one on tap and one bottled which seems odd for a place in Bristol."
• "Pretty terrible service. The food was good but zero smiles, no hello and no customer service."

Facilities and Cleanliness

Pros:

• "There are large TVs, games consoles, 10 pin bowling lanes and a few bar games, pinball etc."
• "Bowling was great fun and set-up before we’d arrived so we could get straight to the game."
• "Bowling is fine with nice decor from old bowling diagrams."
• "A decent array of on tap ciders and beers."
• "Personally I'd go with a group for bowling as the hour long sessions are good value for money."
• "The machine was pretty good quality and had lots of songs on it."
• "Love the bowling and there is a choice of drinks aplenty."

Cons:

• "For mid-afternoon the toilets were pretty dirty, plus the seating areas could do with being cleaned between bowling groups as ours was very sticky."
• "Toilet was a joke. Urinals out of use. And a cubicle with no toilet seat."
• "Toilets are a filthy, aged, hideous pit."
• "The bowling lanes are time dependant more than complete games, so if there are quite a few of you, you might not be able to finish completely."
• "Sometimes the pin-resetting machinery messes up a bit and knocks down one pin on the reset."
• "The pool table was completely dismantled and the whole area felt cut off from the downstairs bit."
• "Only slight criticism would be the bowling area needs a bit of tlc - some of the seats were damaged."

Management and Organization

Pros:

• "On the night itself, the staff could not have been more helpful, and checked up on us a number of times to make sure we had everything we needed."
• "Well done to all the staff, appreciate all the hard work for busy re-opening."
• "The staff are lovely, just overworked."
• "Staff were class. Nice bunch of lads behind the bar."
• "Decent all round place, food to snack on, good selection of drinks, bowling, music."
• "The staff have been really friendly and helpful, the location is perfect and I would consider staying here again."
• "The staff are amazing and very welcoming."

Cons:

• "I booked a karaoke room here online...we were told that there was no booking in my name."
• "Asked to book a lane upon arrival and the barman said not to worry, all the lanes are available, so ordered a drink and waited for my friend. 5 minutes later we went back to the bar and were told by a different barman that all the lanes were taken and that there was an hour wait."
• "We were rushed out by security at 10 as soon as our karaoke session finished due to a lame event."
• "The reason for the 1 star is their lack of care for the COVID restrictions on the bowling lanes area specifically."
• "Paid 28£ for a show “Kpop” that is free for other people, no security checking, no body knows why some people paid but no refund possible…"
• "The karaoke room had broken glass in (we were slightly delayed getting in because they had to clean it, but then clearly hadn’t)."
• "Emailed them after a bad night and even sent a letter and not had a single reply - awful service."