Bowlero

The Place Beyond the Pins

A Bowling Alley with a New Kind of Burger

None 16 Photos Bowlero
This place has bowling and a five-pound burger you carve like a cake.

So it’s really not a question of if, but when.

Meet you at Bowlero, the newly refashioned carnival of lanes, pinball, fishbowl cocktails and carving knives for burgers, opening next Friday in Mar Vista.

Everything’s changed here. For one, it’s nicer. For everything else, read on.

Then: A spread of orange and tan that hadn’t changed since the ’70s.
Now: An actually intentional retro look evoking some surfers’ road trip through Palm Springs. Confirm or deny after looking at the slideshow.

Then: Bowling involved plastic booths, bad carpet and harsh lighting.
Now: Everything’s got a dark glow, with black-light pins, a DJ, leather booths and big screens over every lane showing stuff like Saved by the Bell. Play caffeine pills, play caffeine pills.

Then: You’d come for the chilaquiles at Pepy’s Galley.
Now: There’s a restaurant serving two-foot hot dogs and five-pound bacon burgers that, yes, get carved like cake. The only civilized way to serve five-pound burgers, really. (See the menu.)

Then: You’d fetch bottled beer and well liquor from a dank, windowless dive in back. It was great.
Now: Servers bring you drafts, giant margaritas and rum cocktails in fishbowls that serve four.

And it’s easier keeping rum alive.

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