Magdalen Lanes

Attended a private party last nite at Magdalen Lanes. What a hidden gem this place is! Some friends of ours booked the whole facility to celebrate their daughter's 40th birthday. They had exclusive use of the place from 7 - 11 PM.

If I heard the bartender/bowling lane mechanic correctly, the flat rate to rent the facility is something like $100 per hour. They let you bring in your own food, and the beer, wine, and soft drink prices are very reasonable. The place has ten nice bowling lanes, a pin ball arcade, and lots of places to just hang out and visit with friends.

Among the 150 or so in attendance, there were elected officials with their families, many neighborhood regulars, lots of parents with their kids (we recruited a new catcher for next year's South Sox team), and one lady regular of Magdalen parish. (She has attended every parish event we've ever been to for over 12 years. She doesn't need an invitation. She just shows up, helps out, and keeps the place nice. I get the impression she lives somewhere on the church property, but people say that's not true.)

She said across the street over at Magdalen Church, they're getting ready to remodel the interior of the building (pretty gutsy of them, considering the A-D just closed their school), and that their longtime priest, Monsignor Doerhoff, has been transferred to a parish in South County, so they have a new priest.

Magdalen Lanes offers other affordable package deals for smaller sized groups if you don't want to rent out the whole place.

For a party for one or two hundred of your closest friends, you can't beat it. Stop by their facility off of South Kingshighway to check it out and get more information.