St Charles Bowl

My second visit to SCB was on a Saturday afternoon instead of a Sunday and that made a world of difference! Dim lighting, consistent music without announcements, fewer people. No birthday parties.

Everybody here is really nice, and today we noticed there's a ROLLING STONES PINBALL MACHINE in the bar area, what even is this life! Amazing.

My friends and I are not too found of bars and we wanted to do something for New Years Eve so going bowling was the perfect plan!  

We paid $100 a lane for up to 6 bowlers which included shoes, all the games you could bowl, appetizers, campaign toast at midnight for those 21 and over of course and prizes.  We were able to bowl from 10 pm to 1 am.

The bowling alley was full of people but didn't seem too crowded because you had to book a lane in advance.  My friends and I were able to get 4 and a half games in during the 3 hours we had.  One friend made $8 in prize money for getting strikes at the right time when the staff was watching.  The appetizers were good.  How can you go wrong with make your own nachos, mini corn dogs or mini chicken nuggets?!

Around midnight we watched the countdown on the tvs around the bowling alley and toasted each other as we rang in 2013.

Had my kid's birthday party there. $14.95/kid for their "best" package. After the party was in full swing, I inquired about  the photos and DVDs that was promised to the kids. The staff said that they don't do that anymore. Would have been nice to know as I was planning to include those in the goody bag. There was also a Happy Birthday announcement which I had to again ask for and that was done 10 min before the party was over. We did get pizza and pop.
I am giving 2 stars because the staff was  polite. They moved my party to different lanes to accommodate my large extended family who were coming later.  My hostess  was friendly and available.  I did receive 14.95 off for my inconvenience.  Of course my kid had a great time with his friends and he didn't know the difference. However, for the price, I would have gone to FunWay in Batavia. There you can bowl, get tokens for the arcade, and go on a bumbler car ride.