As recreational activities go, bowling is far from the most calorically taxing. Facing down pins for an hour burns about 180 calories, barely twice as many as you’d expend by sitting down to read a book.

Yet bowling alleys in recent years have remade their food lineups in ways that suggest rollers are absolutely famished. Long gone are the days when snack bar nachos would suffice as nutritional recompense for a lucky spare or two. Instead, venues’ menus are crammed with piles of fried pickles, bowls of crisped Brussels sprouts, tacos bulging with shredded pork, and triple-decker cheeseburgers.

At Main Event on Philips Highway, for example, the choices include a pair of pizza strip boards fringed by pretzels, mozzarella sticks, ranch dressing and queso dip, a cheese-on-cheese array clocking in at 4,890 calories (although bowlers could make it an even 5K by adding a bottle of Bud Light).

Among the most prominent Jacksonville area bowling locations stressing luxe food and drink is Beach Bowl, which this summer reopened following a multimillion-dollar renovation. Prior to the iconic alley’s sudden closure in 2019, it “served burgers, hot dogs, sandwiches and wraps, along with snacks and other fare,” according to contemporary media reports.

Now, the facility is home to a sit-down restaurant with rooftop dining, plus two separate bars featuring fancy cocktails and dozens of beers on tap. “A bowling center is what we do, but the food-and-drink aspect is what’s going to put us above any other thing around here,” Beach Bowl’s general manager told the press in June.

Customer response, though, has been tepid. Maybe patrons are just hangry from so many frames, but Yelpers’ complaints about wait times, inattentive service, and lackluster chicken tenders have yielded a lowly 2.8 cumulative rating, the online review equivalent of a gutter ball.

Still, it’s possible those assessments were muddied by the lack of a clear standard for modern bowling alley food. Should it be compared to the hot dogs of yore? Or what’s served at a nearby restaurant without lanes? (Prices strongly suggest the latter: Beach Bowl charges $15 for those contentious tenders; $2 more if you want tots with that.)

The fairest evaluation strategy is direct comparison. So, Jacksonville Today recently sampled the most common bowling alley menu item—a signature burger and fries—at all the local alleys with full-fledged food service. While pizza is equally ubiquitous, it typically requires less kitchen intervention, as every kid who’s heated up a Bagel Bite knows. Plus, people need protein to heft those 9-pound balls.

Beach Bowl, 818 Beach Blvd.

Drinks are big at Beach Bowl—literally. When I swung by for lunch on a Friday afternoon, a few hours before most folks would be done with work for the week, a man on his way to the lanes ordered a double Scotch in a pint glass. But if he’d wanted something more gussied up, he had his pick of 24 house-designed cocktails, including a bloody Mary garnished with a green bean, an okra pod and a snippet of sausage.

Most of the cocktails lean tropical, in keeping with the alley’s Jacksonville Beach address. Same goes for the showcased cheeseburger, topped with grilled onion, pineapple salsa and Swiss.

At least, the salsa’s listed as being of the pineapple persuasion. I didn’t detect any of the fruit’s distinctive tartness on my sandwich, which registered as plenty sweet and saucy, thanks to an overly generous application of teriyaki glaze. Also, the so-called grilled onions were purple and raw.

But the major problem with my order was grievous undercooking, with the meat so rare that it made the Maillard effect—the chemical reaction responsible for caramelized flavors—seem like an unsubstantiated rumor. 

Splitz of Orange Park, 6155 Youngerman Circle

From the parking lot, it appears that Splitz is all in on culinary good-timing. Its beige exterior walls are adorned with blow-up photographs promoting its Thirsty Gator sports bar, including a foursome smiling over a shared sandwich, and a hulking cheeseburger topped with what looks like too many pickles.

Inside, though, the dining area is oddly quiet. Perhaps it’s a different scenario on a football Sunday, but I went to Splitz twice, and both times I had to ask if the kitchen was open. The answer was unconvincing the first time around, so I returned another day for a cheeseburger. (At Splitz, there’s only one.)

I’m far from a food snob, but I’m always wary when a restaurant serves Hunt’s instead of Heinz ketchup. It’s never hard to find a rabble-rouser willing to gin up an argument about Hunt’s sophisticated acidity, but a plastic bottle of Hunt’s on the table is usually evidence of cost-cutting. I haven’t seen Splitz’ invoices, so can’t confirm that’s the situation in this case, but its burger didn’t make a high-quality impression. It gushed grease and was seasoned with a mix that tasted industrially calculated for another purpose, such as spaghetti sauce.

Main Event, 10370 Philips Hwy.

An arm of Dave & Buster’s Inc. since 2022, Main Event benefits mightily from corporate ownership. In contrast to other in-alley restaurants, Family Kitchen—the Dallas-based company’s two-year-old dining brand—smacks of professionalism. I lost count of how many times my server responded with some variation of “I got you!” “You got it!” or “Got that coming!”

If you’re intent on eating and bowling at the same time, Main Event is the place for that kind of multitasking—although I wouldn’t rule out visiting the sit-down restaurant portion of the complex even if you don’t plan to bowl, shoot pool or play laser tag.

Main Event’s burgers are sold as sliders or full-size patties, but what matters most is how the meat is griddled. Carefully seasoned and attentively pressed, the burger is a triumph of rendered fat, salt, and char, adorned nicely by robust American cheese and a surprisingly fresh tomato slice. Go get one!

BONUS: King Pins Bowling Center, 5310 Lenox Ave., Ste. 18

King Pins doesn’t quite belong on this list, since the modest alley’s abbreviated menu is longer on frozen slushes and prepackaged candy than ambitious entrees. But it’s worth noting that the lanes at Kingdom Plaza on the Westside are under the same roof as a location of The Potters House Soul Food Bistro, opened in 1998 by the same ministry that in 2002 took over the former Normandy Mall.

It’s hard to imagine any bowling score disappointments persisting in the face of smoky, meaty field peas, vinegared greens, and extraordinary mac-and-cheese, browned in so many places it appears to have been baked in a surface area-maximizing pan. And don’t leave without checking out the dessert case.