Patterson Bowling Center

Very unreliable machines in lane 7. They charge by the time, not by the game, so with the amount of issues we had with the lane working, we didn’t get to finish the game.

I can’t rate any duckpin place lower than 3 stars, but I want to. It’s expensive, and the lanes break down or malfunction often. If they put in some money to spruce it up and get them functional, I wouldn’t mind the high hourly cost (though still prefer Stoneleigh or Parkville for my bowling fix). I like the BYOB, but find that dealing with Lane 6 here really exacerbates my drinking. If I didn’t live nearby I’d never come here.

DUCKPIN!
Ever since I moved to Florida from Baltimore, I have sorely missed duckpin. For those who don’t know, its a type of bowling with smaller pins and balls, and you get three balls. It’s also more difficult.
We were the first customers for the day. We were a party of six and payed for $ 120, which is quite steep for one and a half hours. What happened to $ 1 bowling?! However, shoes are included in the cost of bowling.
The alley isn’t in bad condition at all. I don’t know which bowling alleys that the other Unilocalers are going to! It’s clean, bathrooms tidy enough, and there’s AC. It is also nice that they just got some new shoes, just be prepared for the desk to hold your ID (or a shoe for the kiddos) so you don’t steal shoes.
We took up two lanes downstairs. There is a fairly modern electronic scoring system – remember the old pencil and projector system? The lanes needed resetting once in a while, and the maintenance man wasn’t always paying attention, but it wasn’t a huge deal.
It’s cute how you can see the little balls roll from the end of the lane up to the holder. I remember getting a kick out of it as a kid… and still maybe a little now.
We ended up playing three and a half games. That’s about $ 5.71 a person per game.
This is a super fun (albeit expensive) way to spend a sweltering B’More afternoon. We think we’ll be back next time we’re up visiting the fam.

It has now become my obsession to try as many types of bowling as I can find. Though most everyone has tried standard (commonly called 10-​pin) bowling, and a few have tried candlepin bowling (tried in Maine), this is the first time I had run across Duckpin bowling.
Love the balls as they are small versions that you can hold easily in one hand, and the squat pins are just so much fun to (try to) knock down.
The alley has certainly seen better days — but that is certainly part of the charm. You do have to raise a hand or otherwise attract the attention of the attendant when something doesn’t work right, but they are happy to oblige, and it’s definitely worth a trip — this is not your fancy alley with amenities galore, no matter the game. This is blue collar bowling at its finest, and should not be missed.

$ 20 to bowl, $ 8 to just breathe the air in the building? Which is cold… Because there isn’t any heat. And didn’t charge everyone that wasn’t bowling, just a select few. Rudeeeee.

This place is a BYOB vintage duck-​pin bowling alley where they charge by the hour. The two stars I have given are because I love bowling and a vintage duck-​pin bowling alley is inherently kind of awesome.
I have been here 8+ times over the past two years and have a few complaints. Despite how much I’d like to say I love this place, I don’t. Here’s why:
1) The machines break. Often. I understand they are old but they did not function well enough to allow our group of four to play one smooth game within the hour we paid for. It definitely hindered having a good time and was frustrating.
2) The bathroom is gross (at least the ladies’ room is). There is funk and fuzz in the corners, the ceiling is sagging, is black in some spots (mold?) and in general looks like a health hazard.
3) The customer service was blah. The woman working there (possibly the owner? We see her there often) was reading a book while we were bowling and although we were playing right in front of her and having to repeatedly tell her the machine broke, she looked annoyed as if she were at a library and we were interrupting her from reading her book.
4) It’s pricey. $ 15/​person for one hour. $ 60 for the four of us to struggle through one game.
The woman reading/​working did add extra time to the clock so we could finish our second game which was nice (took 1 hr 50 min total), but overall it was not a very pleasant experience. I feel the broken machinery, poor service, and dirty atmosphere just aren’t worth it.
This place with a small renovation to fix the biggest issue (the bowling machine not working enough to enjoyably get through a game) could be amazing! We have had some fun evenings there but overall… its just okay.

Long story short, my fiancée and I booked Paterson Bowling Center (rented the 2^nd floor) from 6:30 — 9:30 for our rehearsal dinner after party. We called about four times in two months to confirm the date and times. We had sent evites to all of our family and friends months before. The night of, everything was great until someone tried to get bowling shoes at 8:20 and the person at the desk said the party was over at 8:30.
Paterson had double booked and another party was showing up. We had family gathered from all over the country, we brought over $ 500 in food/​beer, and we were waiting for latecomers to show up. Paterson made us leave instead of trying to work something out. To make matters worse, as we were leaving, we noticed that the ENTIRE first floor was vacant. No one that worked there tried to shuffle people around or make it work. My parents, who paid for everything and came from Florida, were crushed.
Someone was supposed to call me and explain what happened, but it’s been two weeks and we haven’t received a call. I will never go back to this place again.

Wash your hands after bowling. Their balls are filthy.
Duckpin bowling is a blast (think bowling + skee ball), the staff is friendly, and BYOB is pretty awesome. But nothing really works correctly mechanically. As long as you don’t mind occasional repairs mid-​game or, at the very least, needing to press a button 50 times to get the pins to reset, you’ll have a good time.

Duckpin bowling is a lot of fun. The bowling ball fits snugly in your hand and you feel like Hulk when you chuck the ball at the pins and see them go down. Patterson Bowling Center is the oldest operating duckpin bowling in the country, so it takes a lot of effort to maintain. Unfortunately, this shows during the game, with mechanical issues like the pins not resetting and balls getting stuck. This happened to us a few times during the game, more so in some lanes than others. When this happens, though, they give you extra time.
Notes:
— 12 lanes, 6 upstairs and 6 downstairs.
— Reservations highly recommended, need to give a deposit for a larger group.
— Parking is a biotch here, we used a cab.
— BYOB!
— Maybe bring some hand sanitizer.

Such a great afternoon. Office party get together in a quaint typically Baltimore neighborhood at at a bowling alley that’s been attracting Polish sportsman for 88 years.

Great in concept– byob, we got to rent the whole floor… Problem is they seem to have done literally nothing in the way of maintenance. Constant problems with pins not resetting, not getting full sets when they did, it stopped returning balls. We went to management at least a dozen times… They had a «what do you want us to do
about it» attitude. This was our holiday party. We rented a bus and brought our entire staff. It was an incredible disappointment. We won’t be back.

What a cool place! I had probably driven or walked by this spot a million times and never noticed it but I’m glad I found it! I didn’t expect it to be so tiny, only six lanes on the bottom floor and six on the top but it seems like the locals love it because the place was packed! Anywhere that adults can have a birthday party complete with cone hats is a place I want to be! haha
We arrived early for our reservation and the owner seemed a bit exasperated but after chatting while she set up our lane, her mood brightened a bit. I think they were having a few mechanical issues with the lanes, which, on a Friday night, I can understand her frustrations.
Anyway, we had a blast bowling and so did everyone around us. I love that it’s BYOB but I do wish there was a functioning snack bar, it didn’t appear as if the snack bar had been open for a long time. That won’t stop me from coming back again in the future!
Make reservations, especially on weekends!

What a tragedy…
This is an historic establishment in the heart of Canton. It’s packed with young adults and offers 12 lanes of duck pin bowling (a Baltimore creation). I really wanted to love this place, but oh man was it gross. Thank god Patterson Bowling is BYOB because this was definitely one of the foulest establishments I’ve ever stepped foot in. How the health department allows them to operate is beyond me.
After bowling here for an hour, my hands were black from the grease on the balls. I had to wash them 3 times to get the grime off. The balls were constantly getting lodged in the lane which required us to constantly walk out onto the lanes and manually push them up the ramp. Kind of fun but annoying too. A few poor saps were working behind the lanes the whole time, fixing all kinds of issues that should be fixed with a modern automation system. Needless to say, due to the lack of proper equipment and maintenance upkeep, we had constant issues with our lanes.
The thin blond woman working here was very nasty… I have no idea what her attitude was about but at one point I wanted to bowl at her face and knock out her teeth.
The sad thing is, this could be SUCH A COOL SPOT! People love bowling and duckpin is the best! Why can’t they invest a few thousand bucks and pull up the disgusting carpet or buy new computers? I hate to see such an historic place in such run down conditions. It deserves to be remodeled. I love charm and character in a place but if its between that or cleanliness and efficiency, I choose the latter.
The only thing that saves me from giving PBC a 1 star review is because its BYOB and its duckpin in Baltimore.

I’m not a huge bowler so duckpin bowling (mini bowling balls) is far more enjoyable for me than regular bowling. Patterson is old — like antique old — and a bit grungy, but with the cozy old-​school vibe and the BYO aspect, you’ll be fairly forgiving. Now that I think about it, the whole establishment is probably a hotbed of bacteria… gross.
Very small (6 lanes total), and I think reservation-​only. Bring booze! and a few anti-​bacterial wipes lol. And good luck finding street parking.

My dad was a professional bowler and between the ages of 12 – 18 I bowled multiple times a week back up in New Jersey. During that time frame, I had heard of duckpin bowling one time. So, when I saw that this existed within driving distance my fiancée and I decided to make a date of it.
Parking was brutal. We circled the block for a solid 20 minutes on a Thursday night. We got in and there was a large crowd of mid 20 somethings blocking the doorway. We squeezed through and talked to the exhuberant woman at the front desk. She set us up on a lane and explained the rules (they are only slightly different than regular bowling).
For an hour lane rental we paid $ 12 each. Between the two of us we were able to get in 3 games a piece. It was a really great time, although I was starting to get over it after 40 minutes or so.
The building is old, but cannot be accused of lacking character. From the outside, it essentially looks like a house. There are two floors, each with 5 lanes. As everyone else has mentioned it’s BYOB and they are perfectly fine with you bringing in outside food.
If you are seeking a really outside the box date idea or a really different night out with friends, then I would recommend Patterson Bowling Center.

I had no idea that Duck Pin bowling was an East Coast thing… or that Patterson Bowl was the oldest duck pin alley in the country. Thanks Michelle H for sharing that info! It’s an older place with retro shoes and we bowled for an hour including shoe rental for $ 12/​person. Two of us bowled 3 games in an hour, no problem. The place is in a little row house with 6 lanes downstairs and 6 upstairs. Not sure how they supported the 2^nd floor enough to have lanes upstairs but they did! It’s tucked away near Patterson Park and you can find street parking in the neighborhood.
The pins are so cute and short… like ducks sitting there waiting to be bowled over. But then you have to use this small little ball with no holes. And it’s still a little large for my tiny hands. They’re definitely bigger than bocce balls and I had to be careful not to drop them :-)
I got the hang of it though and got some strikes and spares! You get 3 balls per frame. I think I almost busted 100. It’s BYOB and you can bring in your own food. I would recommend stuff you can eat with forks though because your hands will get nice and oily from the lane oil that gets on the bowling balls. Good thing they had paper towels in the bathrooms to wipe them down. Make reservations by calling after 4pm!

This is the best — and most affordable — place to slam byo-​beers whilst hucking softball-​sized stones at upright ceramics.
Not a place for the noise– or fun-​sensitive crowd.

This is a great place to start the night. It’s really fun to bring people from out of town to try it out. The best part about it is that it’s BYOB! You can bring anything except for liquor. The lanes will break down from time to time but we really don’t care since we are drinking our own drinks! The lanes get fixed pretty quickly. Make sure to make reservations in advance for weekends!

I love this place and also Duckpin Bowling in general.
I have never been to a bowling alley this small. Where I’m from, bowling alley can best be described as complexes. This is more like someone’s house.
The best part of this place has got to be that it is BYOB with no corking fee. I mean, what could be better?
Came here with two friends while visiting Baltimore and decided to come here on a Saturday night. Brought two bottles of wine and bowled for 1.5 hours. It was awesome.
I can’t imagine a better way to spend a Saturday night.
I wish we had this in New York. Now I have to go back to regular bowling.
One thing that may be improved in my opinion is the availability of hand sanitizers or cleaners on the walls. The balls are all very dirty and after a couple of rounds, your palm will be black. Other than that and the somewhat outdated machinery — sometimes the balls never made it back — I think this establishment is perfectly lovely.

DUCK BOWLING!!! I had no idea what it was until a few weeks ago. My friends rented out the top floor for a post-​rehearsal dinner party. IT.WAS.PERFECT. We bowled, we drank, we ate, we danced, we took our shirts off, we put our shirts back on. Yeah, it was that kind of party! The venue added the right flavor to our craziness.
As for the duck bowling, it’s fun and weird and I really want to shot put the ball. By the end my arm most certainly hurt but it was worth it. If you are looking for a space for your party, it’s worth a looksy.