Bill M.
Yelp
One perfect item that you can get someone for the holidays is access to an experience like a bowling night, a meal at a restaurant, or tickets to an awesome concert. or, when it comes to Brooklyn Bowl, you can even get them an experience that involves all of the above.
Like most Yelpers, I first officially came into contact with Brooklyn Bowl when Gabby hosted an incredible Elite Event that gave us full access to the food and downstairs bowling. Being one of the people to win tickets to the show upstairs that evening gave me a full preview of how impressive the music venue portion was. But as I gradually went to more shows here the more and more I started to appreciate it even though I was originally wrong about it not being a Ticket Master venue (and I covered many times how I feel about that Ticket Bastard overall).
The downstairs bowling venue is comparable to the likes of North Bowl in NoLibs, and since its a Brooklyn-based venue, I appreciate the murals dedicated to Coney Island carnival vibes. The Blue Ribbon restaurant downstairs also ensures that it has some of the best music venue food out there with its fried chicken, french bread pizza, sliders, and then some!
Concert options here have run the gamut between old-school hip-hop, heavy metal, punk rock, indie folk, goth industrial, foreign electronic, tribute bands, and then some ensuring that it has the best variety of concerts to check out. The upstairs bar carries on the Coney Island carnival theming and you can even splurge on a private group ticket where you and your friends can share a bowling lane while you wait for bands to come on. But when I saw Gogol Bordello and Wolfmother I just enjoyed wandering among the crowd and had no problem finding a spot toward the front.
With shows like White Denim, KMFDM, Tinashe, and Matisyahu on the calendar there's plenty of reason to look ahead to shows in 2024 here.