Colonial Lanes — Local services in Iowa City

Poor customer service last night on 3.26.17. Around 7pm. I called from the parking lot to double check to see if they had lanes open for public bowling instead of just league. The lady who answered the phone at front desk said these exact words. "We have 7 lanes open for public bowling, there is league. However all the 7 lanes are taken but if you come in right now, we do go on a FIRST COME FIRST SERVE basis and you'll be first on the waiting list and I'm sure it won't be too long till one opens up." I replied "Okay awesome, I'm in the parking lot right now I'll be seeing you here very shortly. thank you." At this point I'm like okay, this won't be too bad hopefully not too long of a wait. So I walk in with my party of 3 and go to the front desk and I see the lady who answered the phone along with a man who was working with her. The man at the front desk is whom I talk to and he asked me "how many?" I said to him clearly, "I have a party of 3 I just called like 2 minutes ago and I would like to be put on the waiting list to bowl" he replies "Okay man, sounds good I'll put you on the waiting list" then I reply, to double check, "Alright how many people are on the waiting list?" He says "You're the only one as if right now on it." Then I said "Alright well I'll be over here at the arcade section or in the little food bar I guess come find me when one opens up." Thinking my party is first on this list. A party of 5 whom I knew, comes in next about 5 minutes after we did and also gets put on the waiting list. They walk past us by the mini golf section. I ask the girl i knew from the group how long they told her it would be? she said they gave her this piece of paper that said 1 and she's number one on the waiting list. That's when I'm like this doesn't make any sense I literally just talked to the guy 5 minutes ago. She said you better go get a number. So I go back up to the front desk and ask the guy again who was helping me "How come you didn't give us a number when I spoke to you?" That's when he says "Oh, sorry here you go..." slowly writing a 2 on this small piece of paper. That's when I'm like "How are we number 2? We just spoke to you 5 minutes ago saying we want to be put on the waiting list to bowl?" He then replies "Someone walked in right behind you asking to bowl also so you're right behind them I wasn't sure if you wanted to bowl or not." That's when I'm like "You just told me that we were first on the waiting list, how does that make any sense?" That's when he says "Oh sorry man, I'm sure it won't be too long till more lanes open, it looks like lane 7 is going to open up here soon I'm going to go double check with them and see what's up" That's when I just reply "Okay again I'll be over here" If it wasn't for the fact that I knew the other party and we're friends with some of them I would've wanted to speak to a manager and would have made a big deal out of this situation for their poor customer service and not honoring their word. Even if I did not ask to get a number, (Which at no time did they ever state I needed one) the man should have knew I just talked to him 5 minutes ago about wanting to get a bowling lane. Still not knowing which exact number I am on the waiting list, my party of 3 just goes ahead and plays some arcade games pretty much expecting not to get a lane at that point for an hour. After waiting and playing games for 25 minutes, I look around and can see that the other party was still waiting as well. Nothing opened up after 25 mins so I decided this is just bullshit and we're not going to waste our time any...

Went yesterday (Saturday night), and the place was packed. Customer service was terrible. The guy who looked to be the manager kept swearing. One of the teenagers working behind the counter had an earbud in. It took forever to speak to a staff member behind the counter. When we finally got a staff member's attention, there were over 25 groups in the queue for bowling.

Instead of waiting, we played mini-golf and a couple arcade games. The golf course design is very minimal, but at least it was fairy cheap. It's disappointing that the holes aren't even numbered. This made it chaotic because every group was going in a different order. The arcade games were fun. We won some tickets from the games and wanted to exchange them for a prize. To get the attention of staff, again it took a very long time to get their attention.

We spent for maybe 90 minutes there, and when we left, there were still about 10-15 groups waiting ahead of the spot we would have had. I'm glad there was an alternate activity there because no way bowling would have happened. Back-up activities is what earned the 2 star review instead of 1 star.

Overall, I will probably will not be going back, most definitely not...

What’s the point of “new hours” if you’re going to shut down all amenities an hour before your scheduled close time? We paid for music on the TouchTunes, they turned it off mid song. We tried to order drinks at the bar, they were closed. They all but told us to get out at 10pm even though we were planning to stay after bowling and play mini golf. But we are also not going to stay when they are giving all cues that they want us to leave. It’s one thing to start the closing process around the last few customers still hanging out, that’s completely understandable. It’s another thing to make it a significantly less welcoming environment and stop providing your amenities an hour before closing time in order to get people to leave. It was after bowling league and our group was the only ones left, but even so, you’d hope they’d still let you give them business when 10 people are there, eager to spend money. Might as well close at 10pm and not give people the false impression of a...