Karaoke At The Bowling House Norwich!

A couple of week’s ago Jonny and I had a really fun date night at The Bowling House in Norwich. The Bowling House is a kitsch and bijou bowling alley filled with artistic details and vintage feels where you can dine (the food was exceptional on our date), drink (cocktails are pretty special), bowl (obvs) and now you can even hire their private karaoke booth! Basically, there’s no need to go anywhere else if you’re looking for a sophisticated yet fun adult evening out and frankly that suits me down to the ground as trawling from place to place just no longer appeals to my old old bones! One venue, all the love. It works!

The Bowling House is at the bottom of Grapes Hill on Dereham Road just a stones throw from St Benedicts where there are other bars and restaurants should you want to combine an evening out – I mention this as friends have said ‘The Bowling House sounds great but it’s SO far away from everything else’… I’m like ‘Really? No, it’s not really at all!’ Admittedly it’s on the outer edge over the side you might not usually start from but it’s definitely within walking distance to the bustle of the city centre in Norwich should you fancy it. Parking is a bit of a nightmare I will say… The car park opposite costs nearly a fiver for 3 hours which really irks me – it’s actually far cheaper to park in the city (Chapelfield is a £2.50 after 3pm flat rate daily) and walk down which would take about 15 minutes.

Parking aside I can’t think of many criticisms to choosing this venue over the soulless bowling alleys belonging to mega chains. When I told Florence about it she was desperate to give it a try herself and as they allow children before 7pm, in fact they offer birthday party deals, I knew we would have to take her and Jimmy at some point. And then the Bowling House mentioned they had a new private to hire karaoke booth and that sealed it! £20 will buy one hour or, for £30 you can have two, with up to ten people. It’s a snug fit but SO cute and the pressure of singing in front of a crowd is completely gone. It’s just you and your mates, over 30,000 songs controlled by your own phone if you need it to be, two mics, food and drink served directly to the booth at the touch of a button and loads of props and wigs to get you in the mood not to mention a disco ball, lots of glitz and total sound proofing so that no one outside knows what’s going on in there – Florence chose to take 3 of her pals from her theatre group when I was invited to review the booth and they had the most BRILLIANT time!

They actually squealed and whooped with delight as they entered the room and then I left them to it as I was firmly asked to let them be on their own. And why not? A little bit of independence and lots of dancing, singing fun for a gaggle of girls who very definitely thought this karaoke booth was AMAZING! They didn’t have any trouble working the machine and just had a brilliant blast. I went in a couple of times to take pictures and they were giggling and singing and just loving it. What an ace idea to add to a kid’s bowling party… I think the only criticism would be that it simply wasn’t long enough for them… They wanted to be in there for longer so when I add this to the package I’m going to book for Florence’s birthday party we shall make it two hours… Why not?! A bowling party where they get a game and a meal (main, drink and ice cream) is £12 per head which I think is very reasonable and then to add the karaoke on at the end I think would be the icing on the birthday cake so we are absolutely going to book this for Florence’s party which she is doing in the first week of January (she’s a NYE baby so we thought it might be a little too busy on the actual day and it’s fun to stretch things out a bit)!

I had booked the girls in for bowling as I thought ‘You can’t go to The Bowling House’ and not bowl but actually… You probably could you know… The karaoke is way fun but of course they enjoyed bowling too. There was a bit of a tech hitch with our lane so we didn’t actually get a full game meaning we will just have to go back and finish it another day – which the guys at the alley were very accommodating about. It’s not a problem when things go wrong, it’s how it’s dealt with. I was gifted food and karaoke in return for a review but I’d paid for the bowling as an add on and I was offered a refund or the chance to make it up another day – which is what we will do.

And then, before we left our mega play date, the girls enjoyed some food which I think everyone enjoyed. One of our little pals has Coeliac Disease so it’s very important that her food isn’t contaminated by gluten and the chef was very helpful when her mum went to speak to him about the food prep and what she could eat. The chips are cooked in separate oil so that they can be 100% gluten free and he told us their home-made burgers contain nothing more than beef, onions and herbs so when served without a bun this is perfect. There wasn’t a great choice of options for her but there was a thoughtful option on offer which her mum told me isn’t always the case. Florence chose mac and cheese, another pal had the southern fried chicken (she said it was the best chicken she’d ever eaten) and another girls the burger WITH a bun. They all seemed to enjoy it a lot and just sat together chatting I think they felt very grown up.

Karaoke at The Bowling House you have won us right over – think I will need to do this with my friends too at some point and for sure this is going to be Florence’s birthday treat!

Thanks to The Bowling House who gifted us the food and the booth.

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