Meridian Bowling Lanes — Local services in Meridian

Showed up on a dead Tuesday around 2:30 PM and was told we could only bowl for an hour—unless we wanted to wait an additional hour and a half. That made no sense, considering the place was maybe 30% full at best. We agreed, bowled for 45 minutes, and then got cut off on the final frame. No heads-up, no warning, just shut it down.

Joke’s on them, though—I finished that last frame on the empty lane next to us purely out of spite and landed a turkey. That was the only satisfying part of the visit and literally the only time ive ever broken alley rules.

We asked if we could get another hour since the place had emptied out even more—maybe 15% full tops. Still got a hard “no.” No reasoning, no compromise, just flat-out denied. And that’s wild to me. I’ve been bowling over 20 years, and we were a respectful group. Nothing disruptive, no issues. But apparently flexibility and common sense aren’t part of the customer service policy here.

Worst part? We brought someone bowling for the first time, and staff refused to raise the bumpers for her. Like seriously—how are you gonna make it harder for a newcomer to enjoy the game? She had a terrible time and probably won’t ever want to try again.

I get that regulars are important, but people have to actually be in the building in order to be one. If you want new people to come back, maybe don’t make them feel like an inconvenience. Especially when your lanes are sitting empty on a weekday afternoon.

We ended up going to Big Al’s after—even though it costs more—because at least there, they actually let us bowl. Imagine that. This iant an endorsement for Big als, as they suck eggs big time, but at least they actually did what they advertise.

Go anywhere but here. If you do decide to go here, leave the kids at home so they dont have to experience the alcoholic smokers that use the whole plaza as their local...

After 2 hours of bowling, we were asked to move to the other side of the lanes because our 4 year old son was getting too close to the league bowlers which had an entire lane between them. When we left our lane and went up to the counter, they then gave our previous lane to a family with 4 kids and they used the same child bowling ramp we had. When I asked why we should have to move, to the older blond female league bowler who was telling the two gentlemen behind the counter that we needed to move, she said we were in their way. They then complained about the father and son bowling next to us, saying they were also interfering with their game. Apparently these league bowlers decide who can frequent this establishment and who makes the rules. Hopefully they can afford to keep their business afloat through these uncertain times. Enjoy the backside of this pandemic. I do appreciate your response but there was an open lane between us, but apparently that wasn't enough space for them. Then they asked for the father and son next to us on the other side, to be moved.Then your staff gave our lane to a family with 4 kids, using the same child ball...

Kinda dirty. But I guess that's most every bowling alley. I do end up enjoying myself whenever I've gone bowling there the rare occassion I ever bowl. Employees were pretty nice and very helpful and service went off without a hitch So it's a slightly dirty and dated bowling alley in a strip mall in meridian. So it wasn't claiming to be anything else. But something about the people there both on the employee side and the customers always make the few times I went there pretty positive experiences. So I actually think the place isn't to bad and we might skip a few larger giant bowling alleys that charge more and keep coming to meridian lanes. It's cheap. It's always fun. Everyone is nice and helpful and it's kinda kool how it goes from dated looking and dirty looking to nostalgic as hell for the bowling alleys I grew up around. You know the ones parents would ocvassionally drop off a difficult to manage sized group of their kids they didn't want to deal with for an afternoon totally unsupervised. This place feels like that in a good way. I shouldn't like this place. But I...