Joey Armadillo’s

Warning! Worst service ever. Been going here for 7 years, but the staff is horrible, rude, and Un welcoming. If you have a big group. Go some where else.
Lots of creepy regulars, that stare when new people come in.
When we called to tell them we were coming, they called 5 min later and asked if we could just not come.
Horrible business, it will not last much longer.

Food is great, but the service sucks really bad. The bowling ally is horrible. The bar, is great. Cheap drinks and if your at the bar you might get service.

The Alley size is quite small. Seating if you have a large group of people can be scarce… and chances are if you find enough spots to sit, if another group of people is assigned to the lane next to you, they will now have no place to sit.
The bartender Amy was very attentive and nice but the lady behind the counter at the bowling register was focused on anything but work. Seemed like we were an inconvenience to her forcing her to put her conversation with two friends of hers at the counter on hold, to attend to people that wanted to give the establishment money. All of the tables near our lane were sticky with pop residue from previous customers. Figured they might have someone wipe them down from time to time, but hey, i bet that conversation with the two friends at the register (that went on for well over 30 minutes) was way more important.
The pizza sucked. I had to get a bowl of sauce just to get any flavor out of it. The green peppers were crunchy like they were thrown on at the very end of the cooking cycle. Was very disappointed with this, heard good things, but would never order it again.
I know it’s open bowling so i didn’t expect much but to any bowlers out there… these lanes were beyond fried. My ball was hooking out of the house. Had to use a spare ball just to keep it on the lane. Appears that they oil these things once a month.
If you’re going to come here, stay inside the bar.

Somewhere, maybe in another restaurant or maybe at my job, I heard some redneck say what «great pizza Joey Armadillo’s has».
After living in Chicago for 10 years I am getting bored with the restaurants around Michiana, so, in a touch of desperation I gave this place a try– I REALLY want to find some NEW, good places to eat.
That is what made this ALL THE MORE DISAPPOINTING!!!
A few weeks ago I went to Joey Armadillo’s for lunch and tried the meatball sammich.
This place is a bowling alley, so, I would never have been in here except to specifically try the food, and my initial gut reaction was not good.
A REAL RESTAURANT smells like good food cooking– not stale beer and regret.
The bartender/​waitress ignored me for about 5 minutes while she got drinks for her other customers and the second waitress who was serving the actual bowling alley (I was sitting in the lounge/​restaurant area).
When I got my sammich I knew right away this was not going to be good. The roll/​bun was not toasty warm (like when a GOOD sammich just comes out of the oven), the meat balls looked dried-​out and stale, like they had been in a freezer, the sauce was food-​coloring red, not a deep, dark slow-​simmered Carmine-​red.
I am quite sure this was just heated-​up in a micro-​wave, WHICH I ABSOLUTELY HATE!!!
The taste was not good. The meatballs were dry and had a bad flavor to them.
The sauce tasted straight out of a can– a CHEAP can.
Three weeks later (again, out of desperate hope for something new) I went back to try the pizza.
I ordered the Margarita to go. The pizza cost $ 18.01 with tax, not a cheap pizza!
When the bartender/​waitress handed me the pie I got a sinking feeling immediately. The box was too light for the size of the pizza. I have encountered really un-​believably cheap, low-​grade pizza before (In Florida and Pizza King in Roseland) and one of the tell-​tale signs is a pre-​made cracker-​like crust that costs almost nothing and is probably stored in the freezer already cooked (or at least par-​cooked).
When I got home I opened the box and my disappointment was confirmed. A cheap, flavorless cracker-​thin crust with scant low-​grade toppings that was already cold, even though I had just picked it up 5 minutes ago at Joey Armadillo’s.
The crust has no substance so it cools very quickly.
I choked down a couple slices (I PAID FOR IT and I was HUNGRY) and my disappointment actually became anger that I wasted $ 18 and suffered a bad meal because of this place. I threw most of the «pizza» away. Pizza has to be REALLY BAD for me to not eat it and throw it away!!!
See photo.

I have to say I love bowling, but I would not recommend this place. The lanes are nice (hence the two stars and not just one) but there are half the number of tables required to actually have a nice time. There were 5 adults and one child in my party and we were told there was only one lane available so we took it and expected to just hang out and drink and have a night evening of it. Then the bowling ally put another family of five in the lane right next to us (which was open the entire time) and there was no place for this family to sit!
I spoke with the lady at the counter to see if we could grab a small table off to side that no one was using and slide it over for them. They told me no. Then they told me there were bar stools lining the back wall and that we should «just figure it out».
What an unpleasant experience. They (with their four children ended up eating on a countertop along the back wall while the small table sat empty and we felt guilty for taking up space on our side of the lane.

Even if it is a bowling alley bar, it is a horrible, horrible place. The attention is all on the poker room with little care for belly-​ups and bowlers. Both the draft and bottles were warm and I believe the collective personality of the staff and patrons were that of a dingle berry! Avoid at all cost!

Nov 2010, the place has changed a bit. They served awesome pizza last time I was there, service was a little «relaxed» but none the less, the food was pretty good. Not a shabby place for a drink and has a bowling alley attached to the back. Video games for the kids too.