Acton Bowladrome & Arcade

Staff could be a little more customer friendly but in general they are helpful and pleasant enough. The bowling balls desperately need to be replaced (and when they are, please add more so you aren’t bumming some from the neighboring lane). A shade pricey per string but within the range of other alleys in the area. Overall, a nice place to bring the kids.

My nieces and nephews like this place. It’s a decent candlepin bowling place that has a little diner-​style restaurant and a small arcade where kids can get «tickets» and win some junk.
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The bowling was fine. It’s all automated scoring now with everything tracked on the screens. The kids like watching the goofy animations after each throw. It’s a good way to keep kids moving and doing something for a change.
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The arcade could use some TLC. You don’t use quarters or tokens anymore, and everything is tracked using a little credit card thingy you buy. Most games worked all right, but a few needed help. One of the water-​gun ones needed water added. The skeeball had one lane totally overloaded with balls which left the others down some. Few games were busted.
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The card tracks how many «tickets» you win. We had a few hundred. Girl behind the counter was, well, inattentive. Looking at her phone, not counting off how many points we had left, or at least doing it wrong. My nephew knows numbers and knew exactly what we had to spend. We got some candy and trinkets and they were happy.
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Restrooms stink. Like, in need of a real good cleaning and better lighting stink. And one pathetic air dryer — no towels. Ugh.
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I’ve eaten in that diner-​restaurant they have and it’s basic stuff. Burgers, chicken fingers. Nothing fancy. Stuff kids will eat.
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I’d go again because it’s local and the kids love it. The bowling is all right.

Let me start by saying I used to bring my kids to Acton Bowladrome when they were little for their birthday parties and for family bowling and we loved it. The kids especially like the parrot that they used to have which they owner would put on the kid’s shoulder and have a picture taken. I called on Wednesday afternoon to be sure that they had their special two dollar night. The gentleman who answered the phone said yes it’s half-​price after 7:30pm. I showed up with my family only to be told by the woman behind the desk that «it’s not two dollar night». I explained that the gentleman (who I assume was the manager) told me on the phone that it was discount night. She said there was nothing they could do as the system would not allow them to honor the price and it was school vacation week. What? It is January 6^th and all the schools are back in session! I suggested to the family we come back next week and she said it probably wouldn’t be $ 2 night then either. I asked for the manager but he was not there. A 20 minute drive wasted because on principle I walked out with my family. If you’re going to run a business you have to honor your deals and your word.

It’s fun in an abandoned kind of retro way.
Automatic bowling let’s you choose your screen theme! Yeah — it’s a dated place but it’s still bowling so hey there’s that.

Would never even give this place 1 star but it makes you do it… Worst experience & I will never be back– rude rude people who don’t care about a child’s feelings… Walked in at 12:45 with not one person in sight no signs on the door nothing on website about being closed NOTHING… was told my son couldn’t bowl b/​c of other kids coming in… They were mean & nasty & told us to leave… My son was crying & they could of cared less the manager kicked us out & slammed the door in our faces… Do yourself a favor & DONT GO HERE

I grabbed the coupon from clippers, for 4 games. What it really meant was 1 game for 4 people. A little semantics, but whatever. The staff was okay, a little rude but it was a saturday so I won’t fault them hard on that. I saw there was a large birthday party group. I’ll tell you that the owner’s cell phone is linked with the business so if you call, he’ll answer at any time. I actually liked talking to him, solid guy, so 1 star for that. It wasn’t a bad place, but I don’t think I’d go back.

This place is OK if you live within 5 – 10 minutes of it.
I think they are very pricey for 2 games. Two games with shoes cost the 4 of us just under $ 50 — for Acton?
It took 5 minutes before any one came to help us when we came in even though they seemed fairly busy with 90% of the lanes occupied. The person at the desk never looked up while dealing with us.
Lane15 — the lane must be slanted because no matter how you throw the ball it keeps steering hard to the right. All of the balls were chipped too which made for an uncomfortable throw.
This is place is true to what a NE candlepin bowling alley has always looked like. Don’t come here looking for a place like Kings or somewhere hip.
The arcade is pretty fun — they have a huge variety of games including pinball machines. The machines are pretty fairly priced at 50 cents to $ 1.50. The prizes are cheap junk but you find that anywhere that gives out tickets.
We will definitely be looking else where the next time we want to go bowling.

Will not go back, period. A few of us moms took our kids here on a summer afternoon. The place was empty, and now we know why. They put us in lanes 1, 2 and 3. Immediately we discovered lane 1 big scoring screen didn’t work. We asked to move which they finally did only after we pushed the issue. The crabby woman had wanted us to ‘just use the small screen at the seats instead’. Really? When many other lanes are available? I don’t think so. So, now we are in lanes 2, 3, and 4. And randomly, pins in lane 4 would roll too far forward while playing so they couldn’t get scooped. We had to ask for help and the staff (aka crabby woman) did not seem happy even though it wasn’t our fault! After the 4^th time of this happening, another employee told us they’ve been having trouble with this lane. So why put us in it when so many others are available?! So frustrating!
We were also uncomfortably hot. Perhaps the a/​c was broken or off? Even the kids were complaining. And if you are not a dog person, fyi there is one running around loose. Perhaps the owners pet?! Not sure but he/​she startled us a few times. I would recommend going elsewhere. This place needs some very big improvements all around, including hiring more friendly employees. Sorry, but we all give this place a big thumbs down.

This place was NOT what I remembered.
I took my children during December break. We were told a 30 minute wait but lucky for us it was only about 15 minutes. We were first set up by a cranky teenage worker at lane 10. We paid over $ 50.00 for two games which is almost as much as Jillian’s! Lane 10 did not want to clear our pins. The automatic pinsetter was delayed at first. Then it decided to not come down at all. We told the unpleasant older woman who replaced the cranky teenager at the front check in area. She walked down the lane and fixed the issue. It only failed to work 3 more times. Once game 1 was done Miss Cranky pants asked if we could move to lane 13. We had no issues moving. Well… to our surprise Lane 13 had it’s own set of technical difficulties. The automatic pinsetter enjoyed dropping the pins on the lane prior to coming down to the optimum placement level. This happened more times than not. I told Miss Cranky pants and she came over and pushed the magic button. After bothering her about 5 more times she was now bright red miss cranky pants. She made lots of huffy puffy noises and was not happy to help.
We had fun regardless since we are able to find humor in most situations but we will not return to the Acton Bowl-​a-​doom.
WASTE OF $$ AND TIME.

Wow, was this place bad. My girlfriend and I went there to play some air hockey. First of all, the air hockey table ate our money and didn’t let us play. Took us a few minutes to sort that out and get a refund. We didn’t bother staying to bowl because the place was dingy and full of teenagers running wild. Not to mention it smelled gross. Don’t bother going here.

I went here around 5pm on a Wednesday which might explain some but paying $ 21 for 3 people to bowl for a game was a pretty high price. I could look past that. Service, as there was only one person working at the time was abysmal. I can get past that given the timing I went. They had the strangest setup for games where each person bowled two frames before the next player bowled. Even this strange format I could get past. But we played two games in two different lanes and the counter miscounted pins dropped BOTH games. One MUCH more than the other but still. It’s quite frustrating when trying to play a friendly competitive game. I wouldn’t recommend this place to others in all seriousness

Perfect neighborhood spot for candlepin bowling, a beer, pizza, video arcade and even World Tavern Poker a few nights a week.
Great for kids and adults. Prices are very reasonable. My 4 year old’s favorite hangout in Acton.
Also, much of the staff has loyally worked here for a very long time which in such a fast paced world is very comforting for folks that frequent as much as we do.
Lots of free parking. And you can always go next door to Orange Leaf for frozen yogurt immediately after your bowling game.

I had a dual birthday party here for my two girls (under 12yo) and 8 of their friends. All we did was show up. Jeanine took complete care of us — set us up with our bowling lanes, got our shoes, alerted us when we we were to wrap up our bowling so we could get pizza and ice cream cake (both got rave reviews from the kids), then everyone got arcade cards and they played until their parents picked them up. Everything went so smoothly and completely stress-​free. One other thing about Acton Bowladrome — during a previous visit, my daughter left her purse — wallet and iPhone inside — on the bowling lane seat and didn’t remember for a few hours after we got home. I called and they had found it and were keeping it at the front desk for us. Money and phone intact. So — a well-​organized, professional, courteous/​kind staff with integrity & a great night of family fun as well. Thanks everyone!

It took 10 minutes just to order our food at the Burgerdrome inside the place, with only one other customer inside. Crazy! Then it took over 30 minutes for our food to arrive, just burgers and fries, what the heck! When my bill arrived, the waitress overcharged me everything by 50 cents; when I inquired why, she said it was «meals tax.» I gave her a quick lesson on how to calculate meal tax by state law. And, my check came to a lot less. She has also charged me for a soda I didn’t order.
Now onto the bowling alley: the place was not that busy, yet no one was at the desk to take our request for shoes, and when someone finally showed up, we were told it would be a 30 minute wait. What?! I saw 3 or 4 empty lanes! Had it not been for a groupon I needed to use, and 3 kids who really wanted to bowl, and the fact that I did not have time to go to another alley, I would have loved to walk out. It was not busy, so it must have been a staffing problem.
Never coming back!

Jeez, some of the reviewers on here are crazy! It’s a bowling alley and you’re not the queen of england… This is fun old bowling alley, not a 4 star hotel.

Having bday party, ask to turn party lights on — the answer «it’s too expensive «,
I pay for the service that I never got. There no info about «lights schedule «when we book the party. Very unpleasant, unhelpful staff. Just let you now that Bday only once a year, not every Friday or Saturday. Too bad that I cannot put negative tip. It’s feels like been in nightmare. Very disappointed.

Good for the kids for vacation. Gets crazy during that time but expected. Food is ok. Unfortunately I found the staff a little unfriendly, and while I understand it was hectic, they were disorganized and tried to get me to pay for my lane when I had already given them my daily deals coupon. Luckily I had written my name on the back of it! My 13 year old had a blast but the staff that came to tell him I hadn’t paid scared him a bit!

Hectic, confusing, but good place to take kids.
I had a day to handle my 5 year old nephew and 4 year old niece. We had a coupon for this place: $ 40, 4 people bowl 1 string each, 1 large pizza and a pitcher of soda, includes $ 7 card to use in the arcade. It was a good deal. My problem was with how hectic and confusing it was.
We finally got someone at the main desk and they were more than happy to hook us up with the coupon. It was a bit hectic there and we had some confusion, but eventually we got it sorted out. The lady behind the counter said she’d come get us when the pizza was ready and that it would be out on one of the tables there. But you’re in a crowded bowling alley and the only tables I saw had like 2 tall stools? We have 2 kids with us, lady, where is everything else? What about all these people milling about? Are they gonna take my pizza or sneeze on it or WHAT? I didn’t quite like that but let me continue: We took the kids to the little arcade and they had a blast there. The lady did come get us and there was our pizza on a tiny table. I asked if we could take it into the next room — because THAT’S the diner room — the food area. Why not keep it in there away from the maddening crowd? I took the pizza and the kids in there and it was quieter and nice. I got juice boxes for the kids at the diner as well as cups for everyone. And napkins and knives and forks. It’s just a weird setup. I had to drag the kids and food to find a place to actually SIT and then locate all the other crap I needed.
Pizza was really good — the kids loved it. We then had more of a wait for our lane — we were told ½ hour when we showed up but it was more like 1 hour. The kids were fine sitting and watching people bowl.
We bowled a string — which is fine for little kids. You can just keep playing if you want and then pay when you leave. They did mess up before we got to our lane — some other people sat in our lane when it was clearly OUR names up on the display. We had to kick them out. Again, it was a hectic day there.
BUT — the kids did really like it: The food was good — they had juice there — they enjoyed the bowling — the arcade and different games were fun. OH — PINBALL — big + with me!!!
So — if you got kids, I recommend this place for sure. Easily kill a couple hours here. Just be ready for madness.

The leftmost TV over the bowling lanes is now the property of my company. It’s easy to spot. It’s the broken one. But we’ll let you use it anyway.
You see, during our office holiday party, something got out of hand. That something was a bowling ball. The nicest, least degenerate, soberest one of all of us, somehow messed up while experimenting with a new technique and fired an underhand line drive into the bezel of the television, making the programming suddenly quite a bit more abstract and colorful. Sadly, we did not get this on video.
To his credit, he ‘fessed up immediately; to their credit, we were not immediately thrown out.
Despite allowing shenanigans such as ours, it’s a perfectly okay (candlepin, that is) bowling alley, with skee-​ball machines in the back, four beers on tap (a heavy emphasis on winters and Belgian-​y ones meant i was stuck with PBR), and relatively new, unstinky shoes.
So, next time you’re in Acton…
…don’t tell them we sent you.

This is a report from my visit last night This summer, they’re running $ 1/​string Wednesday nights after 7:30. At about 8:15, the lanes filled up so that was good to see.
The music from the performer taking advantage of open mic night was way too loud, so my wife and I finished our second game and paid. Throughout our time there, generally, you’d go to the counter and wait until someone noticed you and came over. I was told the bowling was $ 2 but I reminded the guy we bowled 4 games so I’d pay him $ 4.
My wife went to the restaurant and ordered a BLT which was good but she said the fries weren’t.
I played Ripley’s Believe It Or Not pinball. The left slingshot wasn’t working and the third flipper was a little weak. Otherwise playing nice. The Star Wars Pinball 2000 machine had the same dead left slingshot issue. They’re down to four pins right now. The other two are South Park and Monopoly which was down. It looked like the bank was being fixed.
Then I went to the new classic arcade room that they’re putting together and talked to Josh who is very excited about it. They have a nice collection, but as of last night, only about half are playable. I have high hopes for this room. Josh also says he’s moving the pinball machines into this room. I played Phoenix, Spy Hunter (upright) and Ms. Pac Man. Also working are Missile Command, Donkey Kong, and Centipede. Non-​working but there are Pac-​Man, Galaxian, Beer Tapper, Krull, and Defender. I think I’m missing one.
One piece of great news: The redemption prize counter is in its own room, far away from the main counter.
Candlepin bowling is fun, but a little expensive. It’s awesome that the Drome offers cheap bowling Wednesday nights. My only complaint is that the open mic performance was way too loud for comfort.