Gateway Lanes — Local services in Helper

We probably won't ever go there again. My family and I went this last Saturday (2-18-17) we were looking forward to having a fun day bowling as a family. We got to the bowling alley and immediately had to wait for service 10 plus minutes. It was then we realized the bowling alley was being run by one man only that day. Since we knew that we were trying to give the guy some slack, I mean, we know how hard it can be doing something all by yourself. He finally got us shoes and assigned us a lane. We put our names in the computer and somehow they ended up deleting the other lanes names and adding ours to the wrong lane. We needed help twice to fix that error delaying the start of our game another 20 minutes. Once we got that figured out we started playing. Everything went pretty smoothly for the first 6 or so frames. Then the lane started breaking down. About every 2 to 3 rolls it would just shut down and you couldn't do anything, the reset button wouldn't work so we had to go to the desk and have the employee reset it manually. With him being there by himself he always had a line of people at the counter so we had to wait 5 to 10 minutes every time we needed to ask. I have 7 children and to say they were getting stir crazy is an understatement. We also had ordered 4 pretzels which we recieved at various time increments the last one arriving just shortly before we left (so about an hour after we ordered it) We ended up not even finishing our game and leaving about 3 hours after we entered. We thought maybe with all the problems we might have gotten it for free or at the very least a discount. But no we paid full price! $50 bucks and a frustrated family day... Very dissatisfied and everyone frustrated. I realize this is probably an isolated incident (hopefully), but we won't be back...

I USED TO enjoy bowling there but today we celebrated my daughter's birthday and had reservations. The woman was very nice (she's the reason I'm not giving it only 1 star). The man, however, kept poking around and inspecting our things every time someone new in our group arrived - to see if we had brought in outside drinks. He even stole one someone had brought in and hid it instead of just asking it to be removed. The person whose drink he stole was only there for the party - didn't bowl. He wouldn't allow this person to buy a dinky little drink with a debit card. So this person brought his own. The guy then got after ME though I was not the offender. The sign on the front door does state "no outside food and drink" however we had called days in advance to ask about their policy in regards to food. They said we could bring in pizza and cake. I guess those in my party who brought in their own drink after being refused service were mistaken at not knowing it's OK to bring in pizza and cake but not soda. We were also a few minutes (less than 5, mind, you) past the time we were supposed to be out (granted it was due to malfunctions with a lane) and so he kept glaring at me. Then before we could finish he pushed our stuff out of the way to wipe the table. In the process of basically pushing us out the door someone in my party lost her phone and didn't get it back. I have never felt so unwelcome at a business - and I was a paying customer! I certainly won't be going back...

Kinda scammy feel. They leave the games open even if you pay up front for one game. We heard another couple who ended up being surprised to have to pay for three games. We made sure to only play one and had three different employees stop us to ask us if we had paid up, when we paid originally for one game and only played one game. Just make sure you watch and know how many games you are playing and be aware of the open games. We were followed by another employee to talk to the lady we paid to make sure we were "square", I'm guessing people don't expect for the game to continue after the amount they paid for and end up with...