AMF Southshore Lanes

Customer service was kind of bland and awkward — they stare at you when you come up to the counter as if they’re job isn’t to be helping you out with getting a lane. There was a party going on at the time and there were no more small bowling balls left for kids so we were basically out of luck for my niece. Luckily after 20 minutes, the family next to us left and we were able to get a 6lb ball. It ended up being fun but bowling just seems like it got too expensive now a days. $ 6 per person per game here when I’ve gone to others for $ 9 unlimited play per person. I don’t know if there’s deals like that here but I would assume they don’t have that going on on Saturdays when more people are out.

Had a birthday party for my child here and it was wonderful. Got a call the day before to confirm, the staff was friendly and helpful and the kids has a great time bumper bowling, eating pizza and cake! I would definitely do it again and it was a reasonably priced, easy experience.

This place has gotten better with service. Except the bar. Not real bartenders and dont act like real bartenders. Extremely slow and unattentive. But service everywhere else was decent. Bar is a joke

Food service was sooooo slow! Almost finished 2 games by the time drinks arrived. They were not very crowded but still were slow. Also, I should mention that the balls were extremely old and not well organized if you like to find your size quickly.

It’s worth the drive to go someplace else.
Staff is rude, specifically the girl who was working the front desk with super curly hair, the bathrooms are disgusting, and other people bowling were apparently never taught that there’s an etiquette when people are bowling next to you. The environment as a whole was less than desirable.
Such a waste, the screens and lanes themselves are decent. If you’re planning on bowling here for the holidays, go ice skating across the street instead or outside of the holidays just go to a different bowling alley altogether.

Thought this place was recently remodeled, week they must have missed the restrooms because they were disgusting. All the toilets were clogged the entire night, the restrooms stunk like mildew and urine, and the toilets were falling apart. The ceiling had wadded up toilet paper all over, and the walls were written all over. Absolutely gross.

Fun place but way understaffed. The staff was helpful despite the annoying having to void everything customer. I won’t make an effort to come this far to bowl.

The alley was understaffed and clearly didn’t want to be there. It was also quite a bummer that it took 15 minutes to figure out that the bumpers were not automated (they have a full setup of TVs and such). This means it’s only up or down, you can’t change for any one bowler. Also had to ask several times for help.
I never expect to be waited on hand and foot at a bowling alley, but this place left a bad taste compared to others. Hope they can turn it around — lots of opportunity with the huge array of tv screens above the lanes.

Wouldn’t of crossed my mind to write a review until my husband tells me his reaction to this place. It mirrored mine, and that’s never a good thing. Please have the staff clean the bathrooms. Gross! Had to use more than one toilet cover. Obviously I didn’t go in the men’s, but my husband told me that there was poo all over the place. Don’t you have a list of duties for the staff? Come on!
And the break downs on the lanes. Too many!!!

I’ve been coming here for about 15 years. It’s gone through a lot of positive changes. Good venue for bowling, drinks and wings.
I recently went and had the WORST service ever. Order food at 5:30 and at 7:05 still no food. The manager was cool he refunded the meal no problem and apologized. I hope this was a one time mishap because this is my reliable go to place when I don’t feel like being bother by downtown Oakland.

Odd occurrence tonight. Asked for the TV in the bar to be put on the World Series. Shift manager told me he didn’t know how. Another counter person informed me that only the Manager can and he isn’t here tonight. Overheard several others say they weren’t staying either — just go home and save our money I guess.

Looks like a new outside paint job and interior as well. New lane benches and tables.
My nephew is visiting and we love to bowl. Went earlier in the week in afternoon.
We are not much for dark house bowling and nightclub lighting on the lanes. Not able to see markers on the lanes. It’s cool I guess on Saturday nights or special parties? Also the large screen monitors right over the strike zone is distracting. Be much better if it was showing your score.
The place was not busy but very slow staff. The gal working was nice with our request to bowl away from most of crowd. Gave her a small gratuity.
Large fountain drinks a little expensive. Around $ 3.70
Took almost 20 minutes to get drinks. The staff is just slow and kinda act like they really don’t care.
With drinks and 6 games that afternoon… around $ 49.
Went on Saturday nite peak time. Again the nightclub disco lighting. Nice they had more staff. A lane was available but too expensive. Around $ 7.80 per person per game. Staff member said if we played only one game with shoes it would be around $ 25. Little steep for me.
Also they no longer do hourly bowling charge that I think was around $ 20? If we played 2 games last night it would be around and hour. $ 40 bucks for hot is too much in my opinion.
Nice location cause I live here and fun to bring my friends. I still have hope in this place and will check back in another time.

AMF Southshore Lanes was not horrible, but not great either.
There was plenty of parking and we did not have to wait for a lane, but the scorekeeper had to be reset before it worked properly and it timed out before our game was over. They charge per game, not per hour and we bowl quickly, so I’m not sure why that happened.
I used the Women’s restroom and it stunk like urine, the sanitary napkin trash was overflowing and the toilet bowl was both stained and lopsided.
We went on a Saturday afternoon and they had the lights turned down, music turned up and black lights on. There were several TV screens above the lanes playing various things, if you were a serious bowler, this is probably annoying, but I thought it added to the lighthearted fun I was looking to experience.
Even with the scorekeeping & cleanliness issues, I’ll probably come back. I had fun bowling and the location was pretty cool as it was across from a little windy beach.

3.5 stars for this place!!!
Bowling with the co-​workers on a Friday night one can expect fun to be had. I still stand by my rating of this place but i should knock down a star due to the girl doing food/​drink service.
Walked in around 5:30 which was pretty empty so we had our choice of lanes… since we had about 10 people we opted for lanes 39/40…guy at the counter was really helpful… i want to say his name was Sebastian who mentioned pricing and packages and said he wouldn’t start our time until we gave the go ahead… area clean, new shoes, lanes and scoring «thingie» worked fine, bathooms ok, bar area clean and friendly staff…
Only issue we had (which is possibly what people are complaining about) was the girl taking food/​drink order at the lanes… NOT a multi-​tasker! She took drink and food order for the party next to us but when asked if we could order… her frazzled response «i have a big order» and took off… alrighty! .well she never came to take our order, focused only on the group next to us and never sent anyone over… no biggie so i went up to the bar and ordered 2 large samplers @ $ 21 each… gentleman there was making drinks and quickly asked what he could get me… nice! in any case, got back to lanes…30 mins…40 mins pass… we finally asked a worker, Dquan who was passing by about our order… he was really helpful and told us he would check and that he did… delivered in about 10 mins… fried goodness of pickles, wings, cheese sticks and nachos… excellent snack food to accompany beer, shots, long islands… so other than that, our experience wasn’t bad!
After our 2 hour time limit, we moved to the bar area… drinking, trash talking, pool, random selfies, downing shots, more trash talking and the nice employee who helped take our group pic was awesome!
If you have realistic expectations about a bowling alley, pricing and not sweat the small stuff (like that food/​drink server!) you’ll have fun! We all did and probably paying for it today!
2 hour time limit with shoe rental, 2 pizzas, 2 pitchers of pepsi for 8 people cost abt $ 20/​person. My recommendation: Dont get the pizza bowling package… pizza was not good… edible but tasted like Bisquick pizza dough with simple sauce and cheese… to absorb the alcohol prob acceptable but not satisfy your pizza crave… pass!

AMF Southshore Lanes you have such a cool venue but such HORRIBLE customer service!
Problems:
1. Takes forever to get help at the front desk
— Very slow service even when empty
2. Employees look like they couldn’t careless about helping you
— The Lady at the «kitchen» was extremely rude and to be honest racist too
— Training needs to be set in place for better customer service
3. Lane malfunctions constantly
— I had to go get an employee too many times to get it fixed
The service does not match the price we pay to bowl here. It is unfortunate to see that such a cool spot can be drilled to the ground by the incompetency of those who have the power to make it better (managers/​owners).
Care enough to make it better please.

How can I say this most emphatically.
DO
NOT
EVER
COME
HERE
I gave it another shot, and it got worse.
Price: They did away with renting a lane. I’m not sure if they did, that’s just what the person at the front desk said. You never know really. Anyway, used to be $ 20 for 2 hours. Now you get to pay for every single game! Add on shoes and that’s a quick $ 37 for 2 hours. Have you ever been to a bowling alley this expensive that wasn’t covered in plush and full of bros in black collared shirts? This place is supposed to be the cheap, low-​key alternative to Plank. What happened?
Drinks: Overpriced and under-​poured. A lot of the time, only one bartender working so everyone gets to stand around the lane while you wait in line for drinks.
Bowling: Shit is constantly breaking. It counted pins that weren’t knocked down, it refused to send balls back, it lagged for minutes in counting scores, it turned off early.
Misc: At 3pm on a Friday they turned off all the lights, put on Sussudio by Phil Collins, and played some shitty live-​action Nickelodeon show on half the screens.
If your kid is having a birthday party and you want to spend hundreds of dollars throwing balls in zig-​zag patterns off the bumpers, you should come here.
If you want to have a chill day just bowling a few games and drinking some beers, you’re going to leave broke and pissed every time.

I like this place, it really stands out. The lighting is great, the alleys, the balls, heh… balls, the seats are really comfy like a couch. Theres even a beach close by that I made out with this girl at.
Its a pretty romantic spot, the bar serves drink perfectly.
Hell I liked it so much I almost got married so she could have a greencard.
The night was swell, the night was bowling .
I owe it to this bowling alley for making things go soo smooth and perfectl

I’ll never understand how this bowling alley has less than a perfect 5 out of 5 stars, especially because there isn’t another venue of the same sort to compare it to in the immediate area. Alameda is an expensive town, so if I’m able to find a place to take my family out for a few hours of entertainment and not pay an arm and a leg; I’m with it. This establishment usually offers a Groupon deal, which is perfect for parties of 2 or more and can save you up to $ 40 per visit (Paid $ 25 for 4 shoe rentals and 2 hrs of unlimited bowling). If you happen to miss the Groupon deal, don’t fret because you can always visit on Tuesdays after 8pm and pay only $ 2 for each shoe rental, game, and PBR beer :)

Okay. here goes: Went back to give them another try. Not at all good; at least, not entirely. You see, I still like bowling and because this is the closest place to where I live, this is where I can get my bowling fix. So, I was contacted via email re: my prior 1-​star review of this location but did not really get any resolve since. I went back to see if management made the changes to improve their customer service, but nothing has changed. Still takes a good 10 – 15 minutes for 2 parties ahead of you to be helped before it’s your turn. The rates are still way too much for bowling. They really need to improve on their level of customer service.

The service is so bad that it’s actually extremely comical.
I came here with 4 other people on a Saturday night recently. I don’t work in customer service (albeit a brief stint at Starbucks), and I can’t imagine it to be very hard… but the workers working when I visited AMF Southshore Lanes made it seem like their jobs were extremely difficult. Let me list the reasons why.
1– It took extremely long for the workers to ring up customers and to assign everyone to their lanes. There was only two workers on a weekend night, but I observed that they spent the majority of their shifts staring blankly into space and chatting with one another. They took so long that a lot of people just left out of exasperation.
2– The workers are extremely incompetent. The woman who rang us up was very inefficient and had difficultly remembering our shoe sizes… even though she took them one at a time.
Worker to my friend: Shoe size?
Friend #1: size 7
Worker to my other friend: yours?
Friend #2: size 9
Worker stares blankly into space. Goes to retrieve size 7. Comes back and gives size 7 shoe to Friend #1. Somehow forgets Friend #2 and goes to me.
Worker: shoe size?
Me: 7
Worker walks around several times looking for a size 7, despite the fact that she JUST got a size 7 for Friend #1. She hands me the shoe, and goes back to Friend #2 AGAIN.
Worker: size?
Friend #2:…size 9…
And so that pretty much summed up the service for the night. I won’t even go into the service at the bar, but it took me 5 mins to get an empty cup even though the bar was empty. Yea.
3 — We wanted to play a second game, and unfortunately had to stand back in line to pay for that second game. We were the only people at the counter for about 15 – 20 minutes and not one person came up to help us. The guy at the counter (the original incompetent worker went on a break… probably exhausted with all the hard work she was not accomplishing) went up to us, asked if we had been helped (We responded no), and he walked away and didn’t tell his other coworker, nor did he help us himself. So we eventually left.
It really shouldn’t be this hard to go bowling in Alameda. This place has a set a new low for customer service.