300 Dallas

If we were grading this place as what they managed to accomplish since they bought the previous bowling alley that was here and improved it something like 12,000 percent, including arcade and laser tag, this place would get top marks. If we were grading this place strictly on bar service and bartender camaraderie, it would still score as high it could. However, if you take this as an aggregate of everything it has to offer, 300 Dallas kind of misses the mark and offers up a place that is marred by inconsistencies.

A group of us came here on a Friday after work, a sort of "happy hour"/celebration-that-management-was-not-in-town being our cause for spending time with each other outside of the office. I remembered when this place used to be something called "Fun Fest," a hollow excuse for a bowling alley offering no festivities and even less fun. Fortunately, 300 Dallas has erased all of those gaudy purple and sea foam green memories and replaced them with a very trendy establishment - the place is slick without being obnoxious, if that makes sense. You won't find valet service here, which is a good thing. It's a bowling alley/entertainment place, not somewhere you go to be seen by other vacuous people.

Anyway, the parking lot is expansive, but nothing like the inside. There is room to move about and not just because we arrived at 6:00 and the place started getting crowded at 9:00 - there is  a lot of room here. But us being us, we headed for the bar. For the life of me, I cannot remember either of our bartender's names but they were exceptional in their service. Whichever women were working the bar on June 21 get my stamp of approval, for whatever that is worth. The reason I cannot place their names is because the GM, Zack, was far and away a personable and entertaining force to be reckoned with. He made sure to learn all of our names and, big points here, was painfully honest in what to order and what to avoid on the menu - I appreciate honesty in my dining establishments, particularly when it comes from someone with a bit more pull like a manager. From bartender to general manager, the bar could not be beat. Nachos were piping hot, the chicken tenders were outstanding, the chicken sliders disappeared as fast as they were delivered and the taquitos looked amazing (they never made their way down to my end of the bar). Heck, even their pineapple mojito, served in a $10(!) glass the size of my head, was divine. Bottom line, if you're here for personable staff, and drinks and food that are well beyond what we all are accustomed to eating at a bowling alley, then five stars is the final verdict.

It's when you go bowling that the wheels start to come flying off at varying degrees of speed. We walked right up to a lane on a Friday night after speaking with a desk clerk who was about as friendly as a statue from war torn Berlin. She sort of plopped down our shoes for us and we made our way over to the lane. The booths around the lanes are great for sitting and, more importantly, drinking. The problem comes from getting service once you actually start bowling.

I get it - bowling is a relaxing sport, a way to blow off some steam and take it easy with your friends. It would have been nice to have seen our server more than four times in three hours, however. For the first 40 minutes, we were unaware if we even had service at the lanes or if we had to hustle back to the bar for drinks. Lo and behold, a server appeared, a well-meaning individual who wanted us to like him but (unintentionally?) did everything in his power to make that mission impossible. Drinks were ordered and delivered in shifts - why two of us got our beers, a third got her beer later and a fourth got her margarita after that is beyond me. That doesn't even take into account the gal who ordered a meal and had to have it delivered to a free-standing table in the dining room since we were done with bowling by the time it arrived.

The lanes are decent. Kind of cramped if you have another party nearby but not overly loud, a godsend in a place like this since you have music playing, televisions airing videos and blacklights making your clothes look even more ridiculous than they already are (and I can say this since I was in the ugliest Hawaiian shirt you've ever seen). Sure, the in-game graphic animations of pins in various states of despair, from "Indiana Jones" parodies to space alien vaporizations, are fun but they also look like relics from a Playstation 1 game. Then again, if they were more realistic, some of the more intoxicated patrons may fear for their safety and think anthropomorphic bowling pins are chasing them. I had time to take all this in since service was moving at about a snail's pace if that snail had been wedged in molasses and was trying to slither uphill during a landslide.

If you're coming for the average bowling and the bottom of the barrel service, give yourself two stars. If you're coming for the bar, five stars all around.

I've been here a couple of times now. I think paying your server for your bowling is a cheap gimmick to get a tip. Service has never been great. The food and beer are over priced and the 15$ all you can bowl turns into 20 after the shoe rental. I'd rather a plain bowling without the bad lighting, loud music, and over priced bowling.

This was my 2nd time here. Both times the service was just ok !

The $15 unlimited bowling special is great, just wish I could pay in advance. Also, wish that they could split the tabs better.

Somehow it all ended up on on card but, there was like 6 of us. So glad everyone was honest. Could have been a real bad situation !!