The Bowling Barn

Dennis at the bowling barn was so nice and knew that we were on vacation and in a budget so he let us finish our game even though we only paid for the hour. So nice. Thanks Dennis!

This place is a joke. So dysfunctional they skipped over us in line though we were second, took everyone behind us in line and then gave out all the lanes, putting us on a waiting list. To make it worse, zero customer service and $ 63 for a family of four to bowl. Save yourself and stay in the cabin or do something else.

The 20 minute wait ended up being an hour…

The bowling barn is the place to go for cheap drinks, a few rounds of bowling and some good fried food. We were able to reserve 4 lanes for a large party on a friday night for $ 50. Which was convenient because they were waiting for us when we got there. The staff is really friendly and the rock and bowl was fun. They offer Kareoke on saturday nights, but you cannot reserve lanes beforehand.

Fun cosmic bowling, a little loud but a great place for groups.

A great place to get away from the snow and to hit the bowling lanes. People are nice and such a little fun bowling alley to go to when your bored. A little run down and wished the bar was open earlier.

Showed up and it was full. Waited 15 mins then it’s empty. Bar duznt open til late but bartender will help! If u can’t find a ball 8−9lbs ask in front– they have a secret white cabinet near front door. Otherwise good luck finding anything with medium or large fingers. $ 5 coronas are great!

Wouldn’t honor there buy 2 get one free special because there was a waiting list. Money more important than customer service and their own advertising. Lanes are beat up and tired. So is the staff.

We’ve recently started bowling quite a bit… meaning 1 – 2 times a week. As you may or may not know — this is the only place in town… so kind of a monopoly with no competition if you actually want to bowl. The bowling is fine — lanes are in decent shape, automated scoring… all the basics you’d expect. The house balls seem a bit beat up, but they’re house balls so what do you expect?
My only qualm here is the service. I don’t think I’ve ever been in when I didn’t have to wait for someone either at the front counter or the snack bar… there simply isn’t someone there all the time. Sometimes it’s the same person running both, going back and forth. If you need help on a lane, and they guy is in the snack bar… you just have to wait. Kind of annoying.

Great spot in Big Bear to hang out inexpensively. We bowled a few games for about $ 20 apiece, including shoes, on a Saturday night. Drinks were remarkably cheap. Lighting was fun — dark, neon, blacklights, disco, etc. We only had to wait about 5min upon arrival for a lane to open up. Clean bathrooms, arcade games, & we got lucky: we ended up at a lane at the far end of the alley, plenty of space between us and what appeared to be a child’s birthday party.

Fast and friendly service all around. Exactly what you’d expect from a small town bowling alley with a lot of neon.

City folk like me have a tendency to get bored easily. Even on a recent trip to Big Bear Lake, my companions and I were looking for a reason to move from the safe indoor confines of our house to the safe indoor confines with a group activity. With plentiful alcohol, of course.
Our group made our way here around 7:30p, and we were lucky enough to grab two free lanes on a Saturday night. About 20 minutes after we arrived, the place started flooding in with the nighttime crowd so keep that in mind when you make your way over here. Bowling Barn also doesn’t hold lanes or take reservations either.
As far as the pricing here goes, the per game prices are definitely on the more expensive side. Especially for non-​LA prices. But c’est la vie. When you’re the only game in town…
The bar, was similarly tipping more towards the expensive side. You won’t be getting $ 4 beers from Alley Oops.
But this was my first time doing the «rock and bowl» evening, and it was definitely a fun experience. The music was pretty decent. Enjoyable but not invasive.
I know there are a few more options to entertain at the Lake, but the bowling is definitely a solid chance for some good, wholesome fun. with a couple of vodka-​sodas.

Wow. Put our name in, and they never called us because they knew some local people who took our check in…
Then, after almost two hours of waiting, Amy tried to charge us full price when we asked why it took so long.
She tried to claim it wasn’t their fault we got passed up, why clearly it was as I checked in with her.
I would never return to this place.
If your are visiting I strongly suggest you save bowling till you get home…
Very disappointed.

We came here on Friday night after an afternoon drive up to Big Bear. Looking for something fun to do, I turned to my Unilocal*app, and found The Bowling Barn! Now, I like bowling. but I enjoy Cosmic Bowling even more! It’s just fun to do, and as an adult, with a few drinks, it’s just funny half the time!
It’s a little outdated, but no worries because it’s pretty clean! It’s a huge red barn, which I thought was really cute, I mean. you don’t often see a bowling alley in a barn? Right? Anywho, it was around $ 20 for one game plus shoes for two adults at around 9:30pm on a Friday. It wasn’t too crowded but there are 18 lanes, and about 5 were occupied by about 10 – 15 teens. They weren’t obnoxious or anything, so we were still able to enjoy the night! There is a clever little bar attached to the bowling alley called Alley Oops, which has a few halfway decent beers, a few cocktails and some food. We had walked to the alley as we had already enjoyed a few cocktails with dinner, so I can’t say much for the food or the bar. Maybe next time?
I would come back to The Bowling Barn, it was a fun, cute little place that has a chill, funky vibe to it! Really fun, I mean, there’s not much to do out here at night, but this is definitely a quirky date night spot I think (^_​^) we will be back.

This place is fun! My boyfriend and I came to Big Bear this past weekend and wanted to go do something at night and figured — why not bowling! It was quite crowded on a Friday night and we had to wait about 40 minutes before a lane opened, but there is a bar attached to the bowling alley, which also has several pool tables as well as an arcade so that you can be entertained while waiting.
Prices are pretty standard — around $ 20 to bowl one game with the cost of the shoes. What’s great is that it’s glow-​bowling at night! Super fun :)

This place is a total dump but they are the only bowling place in town so what’s their motivation to improve? We went there around 2pm on a Tuesday and the place was packed. We got the last available lane. Kinda pricy but I guess it’s a tourist town and there is literally no competition so… I think it was $ 20 for my wife and I to bowl 1 game each with shoes. Yikes. The balls are the WORST. These are some garbage balls, people. These balls have been through hell and back, deep gouges, you name it. These balls fought in WWII. Absolutely no light balls with adult sized finger holes. My wife likes a 10lb ball. Oh hell no, you’ll never find that here. The bathrooms are scary. I’ll leave it at that.
This place is straight out of 1995. They are the only bowling in town so if you have to bowl, suck it up and deal, I guess!

I’m gonna give them 4 solid stars even though I hate bowling. Mostly because in a town like this bowling is about all you can do at night other than eating. They had a decent little snack shack and I got a couple appetizers before we ate downstairs. The people I was with played a couple games of bowling and it was fun while we waited the couple hours for a table. It reminded me of back home in Michigan where bowling is actually big and always attached to a pretty decent bar. Same case here and we had a great time. Good for families, good for young and old alike! The guy at the snack shack was a little crotchety but hey it was late and he was older and probably wished he was home drinking a beer himself. It passed the time well and before we knew it our reservation was being called.

Fun and affordable! After a long day of hitting the slopes this was the perfect activity to cap off the evening. :-)

One of the things to do past time in Big Bear. Don’t expect to much. Balls were mostly all chipped and the lanes were not properly oiled. Otherwise good family time if you want to kill some time.

An ordinary bowling place. Our plans of going boating & mini golf all got shot down when the skies opened up and we got rained on :(Oh sunny Cali, I thought you were in drought season. Of all days you decide to rain on 4^th of July!
We decided to give this bowling place a shot. As we pulled up to park, there was a little boy hurling on the side of the parking lot. That must be some extreme bowling going on inside! Shoe rentals were ~$ 5 as were each game. Our party of 9 played two rounds of bowling. The lightest ball we could find was a 9… I blame my low score on not finding a 6 ball or maybe I just need to bowl more often: P It was neat that the monitor indicates the speed in which you rolled the ball. The guys were having a great time competing on fastest speed.