Bryant Lake Bowl

I’ve been coming to Bryant Lake Bowl for years. My favorite would have to be brunch, I’m not into the bowling or the theater. But the food is always great, big kudos to the organic, free range, locally sourced ingredients that we don’t mind paying extra for. My husband always gets the breakfast egg avocado dish with flour tortillas. And I get the breakfast burrito. The servers/​bartenders are always very kind and polite. We like Erica and a middle aged lady her name eludes me right now but she was the waitress on Friends the TV show and she’s such a sweetheart. Brendan and Adam behind the bar are always very professional and personable. We love their Bloody Mary’s for brunch too. BLB feels like home when you walk in especially since for us we live not even a block away. But what a nice little neighborhood gem!

A great place, either for dinner and theater, dinner and bowling or all three. Very casual fun place.

Have a relative you are obliged to buy a Christmas present for, but whom you would actually like to torture? Buy them tickets to Brenda Lucy’s one-​woman show «Letters to Santa… CENSORED» at Bryant Lake Bowl’s back room theater. It is hands down the worst «theater» I have ever, ever seen. Imagine spending a few hours stuck at your awkward neighbor’s 11-​year old son’s middle school talent show, and this basically sums up Lucy’s performance. Except it’s Saturday night and someone actually produced this fiasco. Luckily, Bryant Lake Bowl has fantastic Bloody Marys, delicious burgers, and pretty good Cobb salads, which are what earned the first, second, and third star of this review.

I love to come here for old school bowling, beer, good food and a chill atmosphere. There are maybe 10 lanes or less, but it’s reminiscent if you remember bowling as a kid. I personally enjoy adding up the score by hand, with paper and pencil! Watch your friends though, because it becomes easier for people to cheat. They might say they knocked down 7 pins, but maybe it was only 6. Ha!
The food here is delicious. A lot of the food is local, free range and fresh. I typically order breakfast or BBQ pulled pork sandwiches as my go to. The pork sandwich is topped with coleslaw and pretty tasty. My friend highly recommended the wings. I think they vary each day for flavors.
*Monday is date night, where 2 people will get a bottle of wine (or beers), 2 entrees and a round of bowling for $ 28!

This place is great and I have been here several times with no bad experiences. For the price, the food is right on. I have been here for breakfast a few times and always had a good meal. Lunch a few times as well especially on their taco special day. Good service in a fun space.
I have no complaints and can’t really think of anything major upon which they need to improve. Highly recommended!

Great place for brunch. Good service. Excellent food (especially the Amy’s Breakfast Burrito and the Heuvos Rancheros) and coffee. Very reasonable prices.
I go each time I’m in town by convincing family or friends to meet me there.

I came here on a random Tuesday or Wednesday over the summer. Place was pretty empty, but the décor and feel was pretty sweet, so me and my friend grabbed a seat at the bar. Bartender recommended some local brews (I’m from Boston) which I was pumped to try. Drunk by like 3 pm. Good deal.

Great atmosphere! Super good service! If you can’t score your own bowling game use an ap! Good beer selection and the food was excellent for a olé school bowling alley.

Breakfast in a bowling alley??? HELL YES.
Quirky, hippstertastic breakfast with incredible service and really, really good food.

I like the vibe, I like the staff, and I like the veggie burritos. That’s about it.
The food overall is really nothing worth going out of your way for — it’s mediocre and doesn’t ever impress or delight. I’ve tried a number of things on the menu over the years, and never was able to say, «ooh, this is good». In fact, I’ve had food that tastes stale, and bread that was moldy before (though they quickly took the cost of that off the tab).
I do like the friendly but not overly helicopter-​y staff, and the date night seems like a deal. It’s also helpful that menu items are clearly labeled with allergen information.

Bryant Lake Bowl might just be my new favorite brunch in Minneapolis. I love their scrambles and their fresh baked muffins. They always have a daily scramble and fresh muffin of the day. I particularly enjoy the cream cheese and scallion scramble. Our service was quick and the server was friendly. I have also been here for drinks and bowling, and it is definitely a fun place to go to hang out and have some drinks! I will for sure be back here!

Met a group of friends for a birthday celebration at BLB. This place is so energetic and has such a cool vibe. We had intended to catch the show, but tickets were sold out before 6. Maybe next time. I’ve been bowling here a few times too and the lanes are great!
I ordered a mojito for my drink of the night. This was different from any other I had ever tasted… in such a good way. It had a little something golden on the top that had a fruity taste. A splash of mango maybe? So limey and minty and awesome.
For dinner I had a beet salad without cheese. I love beets and this was chocked full of golden and red varieties. Delicious.
The night got kind of wild after this stop. In hindsight, I should have eaten something a bit more substantial as a base for all those mojitos!
Fun night. Great first stop on the birthday train.

While I’ve never eaten here, I enjoy happy hours here and the tap beer selection. I hear brunch is decent here and the cheap date night is a nice idea with bowling (something a bit different).

This place has it all! Decent beer list, good food, bowling, and the theater!
I have come several times for separate reasons:
FOOD: Have tried Nachos, Mole Spiced Wings, and Grilled Flatbread. Wasn’t impressed with Nachos cause it felt more like chips and cheese with barely any toppings. I did not like the mole spiced wings cause they are dry rub and have a funky spice on it that didn’t look too appetizing. But I did LOVE the Grilled Flatbread. It has Spinach and Artichoke on it and it is delicious! Service was good even though it was very busy.
BOWLING: Such a blast! Note that you will probably have to wait. Came on a Tuesday night and waited 1.5 hours and ended up leaving. Came back on a Monday night and waited 1.25 hours. So, it would be a good deal to put your name in for bowling and then enjoy dinner/​drinks while you wait. Note: you have to score yourself so touch up on those math skills before you come!
THEATER: Love everything about this. I have come for the Theater of Public Policy events and have always had a good time. The theater is pretty small so I love how intimate it is and how there aren’t any bad spots to sit. You can order beers (not sure about food) while you are in the theater. Excited to come back for more shows!

I want to like this place. I REALLY REALLY want to like it but every time I go I am disappointed. The only saving grace is that the waitress we had last night was AWESOME and the place is a bowling alley. Friday night at 7pm and we didn’t have to wait for a table-​score bc we were trying to get to an 8pm show. We ordered a California burger with greens and Reuben with potato salad and one beer. The burger was dry, the Reuben was even worse. Additional 3 bucks each for salad and potato salad and 6 bucks for a beer came to over 50 bucks for bad food and great service. Again, out waitress was really nice. Our food came out quickly so we could get in and get out. This may be a place to hang out but never eat. I’ve had the pulled pork before and a couple appetizers and those were bad too.

Bryant Lake Bowl (aka BLB) is such a great Uptown gem. I like their cheap date night on Monday’s because food + wine + bowling. It can’t be beat. The only catch is that you have to keep score of bowling by hand. I must have skipped that day of gym class, but fortunately there’s an app for that. Or you can cheat. Whatever.
If you ever get a chance to go to a show in the BLB Theater, definitely do it. It’s a very intimate setting (around 80 people for capacity) and it’s so cozy. I was recently there for a private show and was blown away by the experience.

This place is horrible. Went on sunday with group of friends to have lunch and drink beers. Server was rude the whole time. Food was really bad, they put salsa all over the burrito so by the time it came to table, it was all soggy and tasted really bad. That bad burrito costed 15 bucks.
I had my License clipped, didn’t brought the paper with me so they didn’t let me have beers although i am way over 21 as they can see it on any of my licenses. It was pretty annoying because that was the only bar who didn’t accepted.

Man what an interesting place! Came in on a Monday night and it was surprisingly very lively. This place is split into a dimly lit, intimate bar setting, with small tables and waitresses checking IDs by candle light, and then a very brightly lit bowling ally straight out of the 70s in the back with about 8 – 10 lanes.
We started by grabbing a beer before starting our game. Not a bad list of draft beers. They had a full bar, I enjoyed the ambiance of the place. Like everywhere in uptown it had a hipster feel to it that screamed counter culture, at least in the bathrooms which were covered in graffiti. The bar wasn’t to expensive being in uptown. After a beer, we grabbed another round and headed over to the ally to play a couple games.
The bowling ally is very old school and out of date. Very out of date. I don’t think they’ve thrown any money into that bowling ally in about 15 years, but I think that’s the feel they are going for. The projectors (I think that’s what people used to call those things) were all broken, along with all the lights above the pins that show the arrangement of pins left standing. It was hard at times to determine how many pins were still up because all the lights were burnt out. The equipment wasn’t too badly worn. I liked that you could just go up and grab your own shoes, and bowling balls. You had to keep score the old fashioned way via paper and pencil.
The service was decent. Our server kept seeming like she was mad at us all night. We were with a large group of about 12 or so and she was not happy with all of us sitting at one lane (Only 6 people per lane) even though there was plenty of room because there were only two people at the adjacent lane. She also scolded us because she found a beer bottle near us that they didn’t sell at there establishment even though none of us had brought in/​left that bottle there.
Overall I had a decent time, maybe I’m bias because I suck at bowling and only got a 66. I need some more practice. I would go back again If my friends wanted to kick my butt at bowling again.

I love the Bryant Lake Bowl! Any old bowling alley is cool by me, but this place also has theater, concerts, and comedy! I love the layout and it makes you feel like your in another time! Maybe 1978 to be exact!
I have been here now a couple times and both times were great! Naturally I thought it was West on Lake street, from Lyndale so I took Ashley on a bit of a walk trying to find it! SHOULD HAVE USED my Unilocal APP! But we finally turned around and made our way to that Glorious PBR Sign waiting for us!
Now sweating after a bit of an unnecessary walk, I decided that even though we were getting breakfast I would have one of those PBR’s!
We both ordered Veggie Curry Scramble, her’s with Rye mine with an English Muffin and Peanut Butter!
Both meals were fantastic, huge and hit the spot! The scramble had tomatoes and onions, with a great Curry flavor!
The staff ruled always keeping our water’s and my beer full! I love that they have a bottomless cup of coffee and I love the amount of Vegan food on the menu!
This is a must for anyone who is bowling fan or just anyone who wants a cold brew and some good food!

This was NOT my first time to Bryant Lake Bowl… but after a long day of team offsite shenanigans, we needed some FUN!
Given it’s Uptown location, parking is either paid (metered or ramp) or SMALL private lot in back. The lot fits about 15 cars and is TIGHT… so, if you don’t want your ride to get a pretty door ding, find somewhere else to park.
What I love about this place is the divey, old school, hole in the wall feel. We stopped here for bowling and drinks only (had lunch somewhere else). There are about a dozen lanes and they’re circa 1970’s, maybe older? There is no fancy digital accounting, it’s all done old school; for the Millennial, it’s called paper and pencil.
All things bowling are self service, get your own shoes, find the right bowling ball to hit strikes and of course keep your own score. They do have HH (starts at 3pm) and food/​bev service in your bowling lane (plenty of room too!). They have a decent assortment of local/​national/​international brews on tap, bottles and rail drinks
This place is all about having a good time with friends, keeping a steady flow of adult bevs and getting right into the atmosphere of this throwback classic in Uptown. How can you go wrong with dark, kinda dingy, beat up bowling balls while shenanigans ensue in your lane?

I live just steps away from Bryant Lake Bowl. But, the heavily tattooed, plaid-​donning, cig-​puffing crew that impedes pedestrian traffic flow on the sidewalk outside of BLB ²⁴⁄₇ served as psychological bouncers who telepathically warned me that I was far too conformist to be granted access into this hipster haven.
And whaddya know? I was totally wrong! Something about books and covers.
BLB is a perfect neighborhood bar, hipster or not. There are many different types of people, skewing young (20’s-30’s), who chill here. It’s intimate yet lively, with a bowling alley and theater appended to the back.
I’d had a hunch that unless I was into beer-​guzzling or cheap wine, I’d strike out on drinks. Wrong again. They’ve got a fine cocktail menu. I ordered the Pear-​E Como (vodka, pear liqueur, lemonade, fresh ginger)…flawlessly crafted and only $ 9 with a favorable balance of vodka/​liqueur to lemonade… if ya know what I mean.
On top of it, the staff is attentive and good-​natured, particularly in light of some of the shenanigans going on here (nothing bad that would deter a customer, but potentially a handful for servers to handle).
I’m eager to grab a bite sometime soon. A locally-​sourced, sustainably-​minded menu means plenty of healthy, veg-​friendly options to sample. Fear not, my carnivorous friends, burgers and more are available to satisfy your predatory urges.

This is a three part experience.
1) main dining and bar area is a small space but has a classic retro feel. Drinks are good but the food is average as stated by most all reviews.
2) bowling area is quite the star here. Nice seating and a real classic alley. No stupid animations of gimmicky lights. Can be a bit of a wait as there are only a few lanes.
3) theater is connected via the bowling area and has decent tiered seating. They also serve food. Just pick the show wisely — not all shows are created equal here.
I’ll be back to confirm my review. I want to give 4 stars but I can’t until I have another shot here.