The Bad:
The food staff, during my last two visits, was extremely unprepared to deal with more than a few orders at once. I waited 20 minutes for fries, and when we did get them, they were cold. I went to the bar to order a drink and found the bar tender facing away from the counter, playing on his phone. I waited about 30 seconds before finally saying "excuse me", and he turned around, seemingly annoyed that I was interrupting him.
The Good:
The house-balls are chipped and dinged, be sure to bring your own ball if you are at all worried about consistent bowling.
First, this bowling alley is severely outdated. The scoring computers are still the old CRT monitors from the early 90's. While that in and of itself isn't a huge problem, it's the fact that the system often messes up and gets confused, and will skip bowlers on its own or assign the wrong score to the wrong player, or even count pins that never fell - or NOT count pins that DID fall.
Train your bar tenders to keep an eye on the bar. There was a mirror right in front of his face, but he was too focused on his phone to even notice me standing there. At the very least, if you're going to play on your phone, face the bar so you can see people walking up.
Grand blanc lanes is 1 of 2 bowling alleys in grand blanc, both owned by the same owner. Only this alley is fare more neglected by the owner than the other in Grand Blanc. All of the staff here is extremely friendly, and is deficated to working at a bowling alley, I cant say the same about the staff at the other Alley (Galaxy Lanes) Their is a back alley called the annex but i believe that they don't use any of the lanes back there anymore, the lanes were destroyed anyway so its more of a blessing thet they dont put oeople on those lanes anymore. the biggest issue is the equipment. yesterday I started on lane 41 and the ball return would jam almost every throw, i moved to lane 27 and it had issues where the computer would stop keeping score. Food is suprisingly good for an alley. This alley is home to me, I refuse to go to galaxy because of the worker mentality. The biggest downfall is the heavily outdated equipment that never seems to work right anymore. If the owner put some money into this alley it would be a really great place to throw, but he's probably not going to anytime soon. Sometimes youll get lucky and youll get placed on a lane that functions flawlessly, but that occourence just gets more rare as the old lane equipment continues to get older. Dont be mad at the workers if the lanes have issues, they deal with these problems everyday and are well aware that the equipment is on deaths door. And the workers are a main reason this isnt a 2 star review, if this was just a review on the equipment it would be. But overall its a good place to go bowling in a casual or competitive way.
Food here is okay. Seating is limited for a large group.
The entire property feels fairly run down. The outside lighting was not on when we arrived at 8PM, and still was not on when we left at 10:20PM. The interior feels dingy and dirty, no doubt due to the decades of "smoker friendly" bowling, but nonetheless it seems like they could do a better job at making the place feel more inviting.
Wanted to go bowling. All alleys were full in front and no open bowling in back. BUMMER!!! This was on a Wednesday.
Decent place and the lanes worked as desired. Staff werent very welcoming but...
Recommendations:
I would strongly recommend taking steps to update the equipment. There's likely a massive overhead cost in doing this, but in the long term it will pay off. Grand Blanc Lanes will get left behind while places like Galaxy Lanes keep with modern times. The computers specifically need to be upgraded, maybe not even to TODAY'S technology, but a touch screen system from the early 2000's would make it a much better experience than what is available now.
Train your food staff how to operate under high stress situations, such as when the line has 5 or more people in it. I understand being bottlenecked when everyone wants fries but the fryer is currently full of orders, but even so there should be some sort of plan in place to manage the chaos. Instead, what I witnessed was a complete break down, orders getting lost, forgotten, etc.
I'd also recommend hiring someone to paint a mural on the outside of the building, and repairing the lot lights. The place would look dead and abandoned if not for the cars in the parking lot, and if not for the sign, you wouldn't have any idea that this is a bowling alley - it's just a big, square building painted white.
Lastly, it's time for new interior decorating. The place looks like it's been the same since the 90's. Time for an upgrade.
Bowling seems fairly cheap, the staff seems relatively flexible.
The pin setter screwed up a lot, dropping pins or completely forgetting them at times. The ball return is the only thing that seemed to function flawlessly.
Our game was stopped twice by frame 5. Our pins were reset in the middle of someone's turn multiple times. You could throw a gutter ball and get credit for knocking down 3 pins. We used a coupon for a free game and didn't finish it.
If you're bringing kids to Cosmic Bowl, understand that sometimes the music can be pretty vulgar. Not swearing, but songs that are sexual in nature. This doesn't bother ME, but I have to imagine people with small children might take issue with it. I do have to say that it is a little awkward to be bowling with your father in law while the song in the background is talking about booty poppin or whatever.
Grand Blanc Lanes is a US Bowling Alley based in Flint, Michigan. Grand Blanc Lanes is located at 5301 S Saginaw Rd, Flint, MI 48507, USA.
Please contact with Grand Blanc Lanes using information above: Address, Phone number, Fax, Postal code, Website address, E-mail, Facebook. Find Grand Blanc Lanes opening hours and driving directions or map. Find real customer reviews and ratings or write your own review.