Lower Columbia Bowl — Local services in Astoria

I had the worst experience of customer service. I JUST left after bowling one game, the minute we walked in, the lady working behind the counter was super rude. My friend had 2 coupons for buy one game get one free and she also had a coupon for a kid to bowl free. Sure we were needy customers and we asked for the ramp after we started bowling but during our game the lady came up to my friend and told her kid she needed to stay on our lane even though there was nobody using the lame next to is. She also told my friend that her daughter needed to be wearing her bowling shoes which were too big. My friend said the bowling shoes were too big for her daughter the last time they were here and the person working told her that her daughter could wear socks. In the process of our game, the lady came back up to us to tell us that you have to wait 24 hours to use the kids bowl free coupon after signing up. We went up to the counter after that to ask how much our game would cost and the lady acted like she was being asked for a million dollars. She was super rude and told us it would be a total of 21 dollars. Which didn't help us out much because we both had our kid and planned on paying seperate. So we both could tell this lady wanted nothing to do with us so we took her answer and bad attitude and finished our game. At the end of our game I told the lady we needed to pay seperate and the lady replied "who are you paying for?" I replied nicely "an adult and a child." And the lady said "what?" And I realized she wanted our names so I told her our names. She then said 14 dollars. I gave her a 20. She handed me my change and said very rudely "thanks." Then my friend asked her "so how much are kids?" And to end the night with an extremely rude attitude the lady replied "same as adults." Now I'm an adult and I don't feel it's ok to be treated so poorly by someone working in a customer service job. I paid 14 bucks to be treated like crap. And seriously I'm going to call this place tomorrow and talk to someone higher up because I deserve an apology. Beware of the rude bitter old hag that apparently works on...

My wife, 2-year-old and myself showed up 20 minutes before closing. We described how it was an inconvenience and we would be glad to leave if they did not want to let us start a game. they had begrudgingly given us shoes and told us we were on the last lane. My child had thrown the first ball that got stuck halfway through in the right hand side and my wife had stepped out on the technician side about 10 ft into the bowling aisle to dislodge the ball, the woman at the counter who gave us our shoes yelled to say that she should get out of the lane and then told me that I should probably tell my wife that there's oil on the lane and we were breaking rules. I mentioned that my wife didn't want to inconvenience since we had just shown up and knew of the oil on the lane. An older gentleman at the same time came down the lane and asked "why did you get assigned a bowling lane when there's only 20 minutes before we close?" and berated my wife for trying to dislodge the ball from the technicians Lane. I decided that we were going to leave by turning our shoes back in since it seemed clearly inconvenient, and we were once again ridiculed.

I asked the couple while leaving why they thought that it was appropriate to be so rude to guests paying for the service, and they told us to get out.

The older gentleman then approached me face to face, which I asked him to back up, and he pointed to the door and said to get out.

0/10 experience. Never argued with owners at a bowling alley before in 33 years. Came from Albany, stayed in Astoria for 2 days and this was the most disappointing experience of all our visits. A few dollars is a small price to pay to know not to deal with an...

Yes, though increasingly rare, they do still exist: bowling alleys actually designed for BOWLERS. And this is one of them.

The employees all bowl regularly and actually know a lot about the game of bowling itself (unlike the staff at most bowling centers these days, where the emphasis is more on food and "family fun" than bowling per se); there's a pro shop with an actual, highly qualified PRO in it (with over 50 years' experience); the lanes are well oiled and well maintained; and the overall atmosphere is one of classic, old-school bowling.

That being said, their pinsetters break down a lot and probably need to be replaced. Even when they appear to be functioning properly, the pins seem a tiny bit off-set much of the time, which results in a lot of flat 10-pins and solid 7's. Also, balls seem to get stuck in the backstops with inordinate frequency; balls get trapped in the ball returns more often than is typical at most bowling alleys; and mechanical problems in general sometimes abound.

Nevertheless, I'm going to give LCB 5/5 stars, because every bowling alley has its issues, and when the overall service and experience are as good as they usually are here, minor blemishes can be...