Lincoln Square Lanes Sports Bar & Grill

I’ve been here more than a few times. My group usually comes for trivia on Thursday nights, but we’ve been there for non-​trivia nights as well.
The food is sub-​par, with the exception of their pizza (the pizza is pretty solid, nothing to write home about but still a decent pie). My main food complaint is the chips and salsa.
Though chips and salsa aren’t their specialty, they should at least be decent. Both times this dish has been ordered, the chips were somewhat stale and there wasn’t a whole lot of salsa provided. On top of that, the salsa is an off-​putting neon orange.
The atmosphere is terrible. If you’re fortunate enough to get a table near the windows, it shouldn’t be too bad. Anywhere else? The bass is OVERPOWERING for a place that isn’t a dance club. Sports typically takes a front-​seat here, so when it’s hockey season, expect a loud hockey-​horn to shout sporadically when the Hawks score (even during trivia events).
Service is also lacking. The waitstaff is extremely slow. When I’ve put in a simple order for a bucket of beers, I can see the waitstaff standing around before going to grab it.
Last time my group was there, we were snubbed for the duration of our visit (~2hrs). The waitress in our section served the tables around us, bumped into our table/​chairs a few times, made eye contact with people at our table but she never asked if we wanted to order anything (despite having menus). We had to go to the bar to place orders or get drinks.
We’ve given this place multiple shots to prove to us that our bad experiences were isolated, but it seems to be the norm here. We’ll be looking for a new hangout.

Big ol dance area, wrap around bar, 6 bowling lanes or so, 2 pretty crappy pool tables, but I love it. Its a fun place, to get hammered and hit on 5’s at the bar. Also they have random performances by tons of different artists. What fun it is to laugh and play while avoiding mean mugs from overly macho dudes swilling buckets.
It can be a shit show sometimes, but sometimes, its allllllriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
2 pool tables.

I absolutely love Lincoln lanes. My local/​neighborhood bar. We usually come for trivia on Thursdays nights. SO MUCH FUN! Plus our team kicks ass… Food is decent. Usually good beer specials. $ 1 beer or $ 2 tacos is usually our fave. Live bands, cheap bowling. You can’t ever go wrong !!

I’m so glad to have an update! It always stinks leaving bad reviews.
The General Manager, Ryan, reached out to me today. He listened to my side of the story and apologized without making excuses. We had a good long phone call and he was honest with what happened on their side. After our very disappointing visit, I am happy to say that my boyfriend and I will be back. The beer selection is great, the food is great, and we know the customer service is great. We have no reason to find another sports bar.
Ryan — Thank you for your prompt customer service. I appreciate you taking care of us and resolving the situation in a professional manner.
Thanks for everything and see you soon!

Noooooooope
Here’s what I knew before walking into this place:
1) It’s in my neighborhood
2) They have Monday night bowling specials
That’s it, and really, it’s all I needed to know to give it a shot. My boyfriend and I had a rare night off together and so we decided to make it a family fun night. He dropped my son and I off around 6:30 while he parked the car. We walked up the stairs and were magically transported from a small Chicago bowling alley to a trendy New York night club. Apparently we weren’t cool enough or didn’t know the right password, because the «bouncer» just laughed at us. Literally, the guy working just laughed and said «Nooooooope» in the most condescending way you can fathom. No explanation, to apology, nothing. I stood there dumbfounded waiting for him to say SOMETHING, but he just stared at me like I was a total idiot. Were they closed for a private party? Do they not allow kids? I may never know. I have never felt so shunned. I knew I wasn’t one of the «cool kids,» but I didn’t know I was too un-​cool for BOWLING.
Drive a few blocks and go to Waveland instead. Arcade games, well lit lanes, actual human beings staffing the place and no «password» required.

I am not sure why our original review was filtered. My boyfriend is an old school Unilocaler with over 250+ reviews. Unilocal has a new disclaimer on every business page about not removing reviews for money. This seems suspiciously suspicious. But I digress and here we go again.
Don’t get me wrong we like this bar. A lot. Some of the bartenders are very friendly and the security staff is top notch.
That being said, here we are once again along with 20 plus other patrons getting kicked out at 12:30 AM. I am sitting at the bar as I write this review and there are over 20 other patrons drinking, talking, and shooting pool. Why would you throw a decent amount of people out an hour and a half early on a Thursday night?!
A bar that doesn’t like money is the oddest thing to me. I have to give the owner mad respect though. He must be inherently wealthy or something. As someone with common sense this sound seems insane to me.
At the very least I would recommend changing your hours of operation from the current 5pm to 2am to «Whenever the fuck we want».
If you do that I will change this review to a solid five stars. At least you would then have my respect for being honest.
If you want to try this place out call ahead to make sure they are in the mood to make money. We have walked in the freezing cold far to many times just to find that they decided to kick everyone out and go home early.
So bizarre.
UPDATE: They have now stopped all their beer specials because of drunken fights. Instead of training their staff to be responsible and to not serve drunk people they simply stop the only thing they have going for them. I guess the responsibility was just to much. LOL. We won’t ever come back. Buh bye!

This was a fun spot for a party. A large group of us visited for a birthday party recently. It was a great time — though my understanding is that they had to wait quite a while for their reservation time (not sure why this was). However, we got a bit more space as they gave us 4 lanes vs 3 (but 1 lane didn’t work, so it was only nice to have more room to put our stuff).
Food was good and the service was ok (some folks did have to go up to the bar to order when we were waiting).
The bowling was fun, atmosphere is definitely party-​like and all in all, it’s a great spot to plan a party or just head out with a group of friends. Wrestling statues in the front area may cause some or all of your party to take goofy pictures… just a warning!

Alright. I have some bones to pick about this place…
Pros:
1) Pretty solid for a group of people. I called in a reservation for a game and that was nice since I was planning a surprise party for my partner and had to guestimate on the number of people coming.
2) There was a live band playing, which gave the place a multifaceted feel so if you didn’t want to bowl, you could watch them play or go to the arcade.
3) I mean… there was bowling. That in itself is a pro… The shoe rental prices were pretty good.
4) You CAN bring in an outside cake and decorations. Whooda thought?! I do have to say the cake was awesome.
Cons:
1) There aren’t enough tables for big groups and you can’t reserve floor tables/​ANY tables unless you give them your firstborn child AND at least $ 200 bones+. (And really. who has money like that? If you do… let’s be friends.)
2) There was a live band playing. Yes this was a pro… but the band ITSELF was a con. I just… whatever they were doing didn’t work for me. Or anyone else in my group. Actually that’s a lie… about three people who love grunge cover bands did. *shrugs*
3) Our bowling lane kept getting stuck and having glitches ALL. NIGHT. I mean… my main squeeze was a captain of his bowling team, and I have a mean grannie bowl I couldn’t make happen cause our balls would get stuck in the gutter (no pun intended). I’ll leave it there for your imagination…
4) The layout of the place itself was weird to say the least. Yes they were above another shop, but… the bar was in the center of the room and didn’t use space well. So you in theory could’ve had a dance floor… but in practice someone laughed at people being able to move around comfortably…
5) The lanes were dark, the lights didn’t really work that well.
Overall…this place wasn’t the BEST, but at least they didn’t charge me for the game since the attendant had to fix our lane a million times.
Please enjoy the possum cake made by yours truly. Possums are the man’s favorite. Don’t ask me why.

My review is based on the food only, I didn’t bowl. If I actually come back for the activities, I’ll rethink my review.
Wow. Yes, I know, we are spoiled for good food in Chicago. So freakin’ COMPETE!
The food was SO BAD. Probably the worst meal I’ve had in Chicago and definitely one of the worst meals in memory. The only meal that I can think of that was worse was at the Casa Bonita restaurant-​theme park in Denver.
We ordered nachos, a fish taco, and a pork belly taco. The cheese sauce was orange. It wasn’t even the good kind of «pump» cheese. The nachos and fixin’s themselves were incredibly bland. As for the tacos, they were also bland and had very little meat in them. It was 90% tortilla shell, 10% meat. We were left with swaths of tortilla on our plate.
Get it together, Lincoln Square lanes. This is Chicago. Simple bar food doesn’t have to suck.

This place is amazing. It is so much fun, so laid back, and they are so excited to support the community.
I was there for a charity event last week and had a blast. Thanks Lincoln Square Lanes!!!

This place probably isn’t the best if you’re a serious bowler or want high-​end meal, but for cheap drinks and eats, there’s not better place in Lincoln Square. $ 1 domestic cans on Thursdays. 50-​cent drafts on Mondays. I salute you, Lincoln Square Lanes, for making it possible to drink a beer at a bar for under $ 1 in Chicago.
There’s a lot to do here — pool, shuffleboard, and most importantly, bubble hockey. My one complaint is sometimes there’s too much going on, like trivia or a loud band playing while sports plays on the projectors. I admire the place for wanting to provide a fun atmosphere, but on a Thursday night when the World Series is on, don’t you figure most patrons want to watch the game and not be distracted by trivia? Oh well. This place is still great.

I really loved this place. Tucked into Lincoln Square, and with the interior looking good, I’ll definitely be back. Perhaps the best part was the amazing specials they had here. $ 1 pint drafts, 50c 10oz drafts, 50c wings, wow. Since it was PACKED on a Monday we did have to wait 2+ hours to get to bowl, but in the meanwhile, I enjoyed the wings (delish), the countless beers, and many TVs showing the Bulls game.
I liked the feel of the place as well, there’s even a small loft seating area overlooking the bowling lanes.
This will definitely be a place I come back. I just wish they had more free parking!

Killer Food, Killer specials throughout the week, and a great staff. Lots of Tvs and options to watch games. Although the lanes are older and have problems here and there, they keep the old school feel of the place, and who cares if you have to keep score yourself.
On the weekends they have lots of great bands playing as well! Truly a hidden gem on the northside that everyone needs to check out!

Typical gentrified honky hangout. At one time this was a dive, the kind of place, where ladies did lines of coke before making love in a stall. Now it’s the kind of place that families have birthday parties for kids with last names as first names. Dad can get wasted on handcrafted beer as mom tends to the babies playing roll the ball on the pool table. I on the other hand came alone and ordered poutine. It was fine but I felt cheated on the curds. The prices are a lil high due to the fact that some dudes put 1.5 million into the place. I’m not quite sure why one would do that but it may something to do with the time value of money. It’s a nice sports bar but that’s about it. If I had 1.5 I would turn it back into a dive.

I celebrated my birthday here on a Saturday afternoon. My group of about 12 waited for lanes for about 2 hours even though the place was nearly empty, then only got one lane, so most didn’t get to play. There was an empty lane next to us the whole time but we couldn’t use it because they said there was a big party coming in. The party didn’t come by the time we left.
The guy managing the bowling was very rude to my group even though we were all super nice. We all felt he was discriminating against us because we’re queer. The servers and bartender were totally nice.
This place was much cooler before the makeover. Now it’s basically another sports bar with no charm. If you are a heterosexual meathead who needs sports on every square inch of the place, definitely go here.

I came here on a Saturday night with my 2 year old son (yes, we bring him everywhere) and my husband. We needed dinner and knew they had Not Your Father’s Root Beer. It was 6:30 and not crowded at all.
Let me just say, ORDER THE ROOT BEER!” Seriously, the best beer I’ve ever had. You won’t know it’s beer until you’re like «oh, I’m drunk a little.» So good and not many places in the city carry it. We also ordered both sliders, the beef and the pork belly. YUM! Both were delicious.
We didn’t bowl but my son was loving the noise and liked to watch. We will be back for sure to explore more of this place!

Had a lot of fun here when I came for my girlfriend’s birthday party.
We got two lanes all to ourselves and bowled for a few hours.
They have a full bar so the waitress was bringing us drinks the whole night.
Their beer list is quite extensive and pretty impressive for a bowling alley.
Later in the night they even had live music, a big surprise to me.
The only downside is that you have to keep track of your own scores which is difficult if you don’t know what you’re doing.

I swear, I’m getting old. This place would easily be five stars if the band wasn’t so fucking loud.
Yes, I hate myself for making that statement.
Old school bowling digs with actual handwritten scoring happening here. You can roll like the Jesus did back in ’82.
HUGE bar. Cheap-​ish beverages. I dig.
Couple making out and dry humping so hard outside the front door I swear he was trying to get her pregnant through her clothes. Slightly awkward, but appealing if you’re a voyeur?
Git yer bowling on.

Did we stumble upon the one evening when Lincoln Square Lanes was working like a well-​oiled machine?
I frequented the lanes when it was a dump — a dump that had 3 – 4 MORE bowling lanes. That said, those lanes gave way to a slick mini pool hall, foosball, pinball, a beautifully renovated bar (and kitchen! no more toaster-​oven-​only pizza) and an all-​around open layout concept. The ONLY gripe I have with the renovation is the decline in actual bowling lanes and the otherwise really tight bowling quarters. Every time my friend went up to roll, his foot would swing behind him and smack into the ball return mechanism. If you’re tall, and want to use further away dotted starting line, your feet will hang off the alley portion. It felt too close and too cramped. That said, I’m no pro bowler and no one I know is, so… whatever.
Our waitress (tatted ladygirl with longer hair) was super sweet, fast, efficient. She brought every beer with a smile. We played two games in two hours on a Saturday at 6:31 p.m., the total came out to $ 60 ($ 10 each — shoe rental is $ 4) and they had $ 4 beer specials. Not too shabby, LSL. Oh, and there’s free popcorn near the 7^th lane. Just be careful not to salt it as it’s probably already been overly seasoned.

The beer prices at Lincoln Square Lanes are stellar. $ 2 for Hamms & Schlitz (On the evening I went, it was Schlitz all the way!), $ 3 PBR, but they also got some good stuff like Daisy Cutter for $ 6, Anti-​Hero for $ 5…and then their on tap stuff! 16 ozs of Fat Tire for $ 4, Domaine Dupage for $ 6, Lil Sumpin Extra for $ 6, and some other good ones. And would you believe some of those prices get even cheaper when they are having specials! I had $ 1 cans of Schlitz the night I went of. $ 1 anything in the city is unheard of.
Lincoln Square Lanes is not just bowling! It’s a super chill place to hang with the regulars and get a few beers.
On Thursdays they have open mic night and you’re liable to find Casey M. on guitar belting out some Creep (I have video for those interested: oP)!