This ain’t your grandpa’s bowling alley, bucko! [Poweroutage]

The next time a bolt of lightning hits the transformer outside your apartment during a game of Wii bowling, you could always hit the bricks and try your hand at the real thing.  If it’s RL bowling you’re after, the coolest venue around is the new RedPin Restaurant & Bowling Lounge in downtown Oklahoma City’s Bricktown, an upscale combination of contemporary food, drink and solid maple-and-pine lanes.  Located along the canal just west of the Harkins Cinemas 16 (and downstairs), the RedPin occupies 12,000 square feet on the ground floor of the Centennial Building and boasts a posh restaurant that seats 175, a lounge with a unique one-of-a-kind red recycled glass bar top, and an available VIP room (that seats 20) just off the RedPin’s 10-lane alley.

The bowling experience at RedPin is about as high-tech as it comes, with bowler-specific automated bumpers, flat-screen HD monitors at the score keeping tables and the very cool option of personalizing the giant video screen at the end of your lane.  Each lane features a ‘mini-lounge’ where you can relax while critiquing your friend’s armswing (or lament your last baby split) and every lane has access to the RedPin’s restaurant-style dining service.  Rates are a user-friendly $4 per game from 11 am until 5 PM, then just $5.25 after that.  Bowlers can also rent lanes by-the-hour:  $45 before 5 PM and $55 thereafter.  Hourly rental includes bowling for up to six and shoes.  Speaking of shoes, rental is $2.50 if you’re not doing the hourly thing, and you’ll be setting your dots in kicks custom-made for the RedPin.

Now let’s talk about food.  In a sport that uses terms like turkey and Swiss cheese ball, you’d be excused for imagining that culinary interests are right up there with ball beveling and lane condition for the average bowler - and you’d be right.  At the RedPin, however, a chicken wing is much more than a style faux pax at the line and the food is about as far removed from standard bowling alley fare as - oh, I don’t know - Neptune is from the Sun! 

On my first visit to the restaurant, I had stone-baked pizza (is there really any other kind?), and it was the best I’ve had anywhere.  Mine was a Meat Your Match, which included a tantalizing combination of pepperoni, smoked bacon, grilled chicken, salami, seasoned beef and hot peppers.  There are five other flavor combinations (which I’ll be trying on my next five visits).  Besides pizza, diners in the restaurant can enjoy five different varieties of stuffed panini sticks, an imaginative collection of sandwiches, including RedPin Sliders (mini-burgers with center-cut smoked bacon and cheddar), Grilled Chicken Sliders (you guessed it:  grilled chicken with honey dijon and red onions - or a choice of other toppings and sauces), Grown Up Mac & Cheese (with Parmesan truffled fontina cream sauce, no less) - and more (and, yes, they do have chicken wings - I mean, Flying Elbows).  Several entree choices feature the RedPin’s special upgrades:  guests can order ‘Spares’ (which feeds 1-2 with the selected menu item) or ‘Strikes’ (which feeds 2-4).  All of the food at the RedPin can also be ordered on the Events Menu in party-sized trays designed to feed 20 people - and they’ll customize your order to specifically satisfy your group.

More food-related bowling terms:  sour apple, pumpkin, cheesy cakes and jam.  Sure all of these actually refer to bowling, but they make me think about dessert. At the RedPin, I wasn’t disappointed.  How about Red Velvet Cake with whipped cream cheese icing or Chocolate Lava Cake with a ‘molten’ chocolate center?  Of course, there’s also a traditional Cheesecake, a Four Berry Creme Brulee or even Sinkers and Suds:  fresh doughnuts from OKC’s famous Brown’s Bakery, served with coffee.

Coffee is, of course, for the serious bowler (like me), who doesn’t want the edge taken off his game.  For everyone else (at least everyone else over 21), the RedPin Lounge offers an astounding (really) array of beers (draft, foreign and domestic) as well as unique signature drinks and wines (red, white and sparkling - by the glass or by the bottle).

So the next time the power goes off or you forget to pay the electric bill, cruise down to Bricktown and check out the RedPin Restaurant and Bowling Lounge.  You can stay from 11 am until midnight Sunday through Wednesday and from 11 am until 2 p.m Thursday through Saturday.

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