Cambrian Bowl

I just called to inquire about the kids bowl free program they offer each summer and was told they are closed for good as of yesterday.

It’s a good thing this place is closing. I feel bad for the future employer who hires the guy at the front desk. Rude as hell.

I’ve been coming here at least 15 years and Ive had a relatively positive experience every time. The gentleman with a mustache goatee and gauged ears has worked here forever and is always really nice. The bar is pretty good and is one of the few places that still has coin operated billiards, which is a huge huge draw for me.
Unfortunately this place has gone horrible downhill in the matter of months in my opinion. Gauged ears man has been replaced by chubby glasses crooked teeth man and he is just awful. So customer service has gone to hell. I feel like unless you are a buddy of an employee and bring your own shoes, ball, bowling bag etc. you are treated horribly. That’s how I was treated. Extremely rude, horrible customer service. I can’t even begin to describe how upset I was.
Well it just so happens on the same visit, I discovered that the Cambrian bowl is closing down on May 22^nd and I know exactly why. Good riddance.

alright so!
my friends and i came bowling after work at 12:30am. There was one other group bowling. I asked the guy at the counter when they close cause i was nervous we came too late. He condescendingly responds «whenever youre done» and i was like.what.and then i asked «what do you mean» and he said «when you are done. there is one other group bowling.»
SO RUDE!!! still cant believe he said that. Then i checked online when they close and it said 2 am. what! Awful service buddy I would never say that to a customer.
Also the last 2 other times i came we had a similar experience with rude employees, one being the bartender and one being some older woman at the front.
Also looking at the reviews below I notice the main review being the horrible service, I suggest finding a way to fix this and that way you will get more business.

Taking one star off from my last review, much to my disappointment.
I really want to love this place. It’s one of the few old bowling alleys still around that does not cost an arm and leg. However, I do not think you are even getting what you pay for here.
First, the service. The guy who was working the counter Friday night (maybe it was his April Fools joke on all of us) was the worst. He acted like a disaffected millennial who couldn’t be bothered and was better than the place he was at. We were the only ones at the counter, waiting, while he talked to someone else in a non-​service capacity. It was not till the person he was talking to stopped him and had him help us. Later, when our lane was stuck, the 8 year old girl that was bowling with us went up to the counter to tell him there was a problem with our lane. She came back on the verge of tears because he told her he couldn’t hear her and for her to get someone else to come up. Lastly, he verbally berated another co-​working in front of all the customers for not being around to help him. Very unprofessional. I didn’t get his name, but he looked like Kevin Smith’s less attractive brother in his tie-​dye shirt and purple SF hat.
We were on lane 16 and I couldn’t tell you how many times the lane got stuck and we had to reset it. Also, this was happening to the lanes around us as well. The mechanical offerings leave much to be desired.
We might just have to start paying more to bowl at places that work and have friendlier service.

You know I brought my kids out expecting to have an awesome time! But the manager in the pink shirt ruined it for me with his rude remarks and his smug smile. This is a manager that has serious control issues and has no drive at all to please the customers. Long story incredibly short. their lanes didn’t work and the manager thought it would be okay to blame it on my kids not being able to bowl hard enough. he said he would refund the money. and then took back what he said when I tried to reason with him on simply bowling another game for free to make up for it. after wasting my time with talking to him I was able to have a conversation with the Co manager to make things right. I will only be bowling here on mondays. Tuesday and sundays. when Mr. Pink shirt stupid earring smug face isn’t working. :) I hope you read this and I hope a bowling ball lands on your big toe.

Yes, this place is old and run down, however, you get what you pay for! $ 3 for a game of bowling on a monday night ain’t too shabby!
My good friend, roomate and some of her coworkers went out bowling on a monday night, and to be fair, it wasn’t all that bad. Yes, the programs they use to tally score for bowling were probably developed when the first Mac Dos came out, and yes, the service is a tad sluggish, however, for what you pay for, it’s still a fun time! I’m no pro, but i was still able to help my lovely friend throw a ball down the alley. I was still able to laugh when I shot a gutter, or enjoy a nice beer with my peers. I still had fun, which to me is what mattered. However, if I were a pro, and wanted to properly keep tally, I would probably be livid.
Overall, you really do get what you pay for depending on what you want out of this place. We had a good time, so for me, it was a steal!

Just terrible. None of the lanes were operational. No mechanics on site. The only reason that they get one star is because of the service from the guy at the front desk. He tried to make us happy but when nothing works at all there’s nothing he can do. Don’t waste your time and money.

I am seeing negative reviews here about Cambrian Bowl lately. Yes, it is going downhill, things seem rundown, things seem broken. Cambrian Park Plaza was sold to a new developer. Cambrian Bowl announced last year that they would not be able to «re-​lease» the property due to the new owners plans for the property. I think the least is expiring in April or May of 2016. While its sad for the center be looking not so good, I can understand if they are not allowed to renew their lease and only have months left. Its just a matter of return on investment, and they do not have time to get any return.
Cambrian Bowl was a great bowling center in the past, I wish the new owners of the property could figure a way to work some of the businesses currently in the center into the new plans.
Bummed they are leaving

I really wish someone would buy this bowling alley and give it an extreme makeover. It is very rundown, dirty and just plain old. I’ve been coming here for about 18 years and I don’t believe anything has ever been updated. Given its location and affordable prices, it definitely has huge potential. In the meantime, I’m going to be visiting the Oakridge Mall lanes instead.

Horrible service. Rude people and waits are horrible, you pay for what you get, lanes always break down and there are always problems

This is the most HORRIBLE bowling alley I have ever been to in my whole life. First of all, we waited 8:30 to 9:15 PM for a lane and the lady charged us for the 9PM and later rate even after we asked her to change it. The front desk people are extremely rude and incompetent. They have no idea how to work the equipment nor talk to their customers. The lanes are not worth it whatsoever. They constantly break down and have problems. The staff is equally rude in assisting with these problems.
All in all, I am recommending that you do not waste your time with this place. Save your money and get a nice dinner instead.

I am usually a very patient person but the staff at this place pushed my patience beyond the edge. If my 10 year old wasn’t with me I probably would have ripped into the rude and completely incompetent two women at the counter.
I don’t think we will be back. Oh and they desperately need air freshener or some kind of ventilation in the restroom. Yucky

We took advantage of the program where kids bowl free all summer this past summer (2015). I noticed that they will be closing down fairly soon, and so it seems they’re sort of letting it go slowly. Everything is pretty old and shoddy and doesn’t work quite as well as it maybe used to.
Reminds me of so many bowling alleys of my youth where dad had league play and I got to go wild at the snack shop and play video games all night. Wood paneling, pro shop, ambience of a bygone era. Definitely an old school family-​friendly place. Not snazzy in any way, but gets the job done!

I went on a Saturday night for cosmic bowling. It wasn’t too crowded to the point where we had to wait for lanes which was great. They had a full bar which was cool so we can have some drinks while we bowl but their food place closed too early so we had to get munchies from the vending machine. The computers at the lanes were SUPER OUTDATED; they were counting strikes and spares for 0 pins hit. For that reason I gave it a 4 instead of a 5. Other than that, it’s a good place to have some fun with your friends on the weekend.

I bowled my best games here, and also some of my worst. I’m going to miss it.
Since they will be gone, be warned that they kind of stopped maintaining the lanes. Countless times the pins drop while resetting, gate gets stuck, knocked pins are not registered.

Cambrian Bowl is located in Cambrian Plaza. Look for Bank of America or Dollar Tree and continue to drive to the Camden side of the plaza.
I bowled here with my team on a Wednesday. Its great how all games are $ 3.25 on Wednesday, too. It was easy for us to get lanes considering how quiet it was during the afternoon. We got 4 lanes to ourselves, since 16 of us were bowling.
The machines were a bit difficult to use. It took me a while to figure out how to enter our names for each bowler. Our lanes kept breaking, so we had to keep resetting the pins. This was a bit annoying and made our game longer than expected.
Overall, this bowling alley is ok. Its great that they are open during the day, which is why we decided to bowl here.

This my jam. A greasy bowling alley with a kitchen that serves equally greasy food. Plus a little dive bar inside that has a pool table, darts, and jukebox. Not to mention the old arcade games lining the hallway.
All good things.
Came here on NYE. It was packed. We waited close to 2 hours before we were able to usher in 2015 with gutter balls galore.
(The prices have gone up big time since I frequented this place as a kid, which is a bummer. But I get it.)

Is it just me or has the price of bowling seemed to increase a lot in the last 5 years? $ 5.25 per game seems a little steep, especially for the old alley’s like this one.
Jon S. & I decided to spend our NYE living it up at ye olde Cambrian Bowl, and the divey/​mellow vibe did not disappoint.
Things to note about bowling on NYE (and probably just at Cambrian Bowl in general):
1. Apparently everyone had the foresight to reserve lanes for the whole night — Don’t expect to walk in and just get a lane. There were literally only 6 available that night and we ended up waiting over an hour to get a lane (at 10:45pm) and just hung around in the bar and played a few games of pool.
2. If you decided to start bowling as late as 10:45 all the good bowling balls will be gone. Also don’t expect to get priority service if your lane is malfunctioning.
3. Someone will inevitably get extra turns here. I kept getting 3 – 4 extra turns because the pins were not resetting for some reason. Though, this still did not work out to my advantage because I suck at bowling and guttered it a good 98% of the time.

Broken bowling to the max.
At least people get 2 – 3 extra tries per turn as the sensors seem broken and sometimes don’t read the balls even after they’ve gone down and around. However only some people get the extra tries, while the others don’t. So inconsistent! At least if it’s gonna be unfair, it should be fairly unfair across the board, right?
One star for the good cheap food and the good cheap beer! Right on. One extra star for the friendly staff who came around and refilled our beer whenever it seemed to be emptying up. Now THAT’s customer service!
Because of the above positive attributes, a bowling party here can be an awesome time with your friends. It’s just difficult to know who is actually good at bowling, since there is no way to accurately evaluate this.
TIP: Come here if you just want to have fun and don’t care about the scoring.
DATE TIP: Same. But perhaps your chances will improve if the broken sensors favor your date’s turns. Higher scores mean higher scores!