Let's start by saying I really like the Landmark. I came here when I was in college at UW-Madison and got completely faded off of pitchers of Sex on the Beach all weekend. That's what it was really called....Sex all weekend. Each of us girls honestly got a pitcher with a big straw of these things. It was an amazing night. Since college I've been here a handful of times whenever I visit my sister. I still have a rad time. No more Sex on the Beach but they do have ridiculously cheap drinks. I love the dive bar. I love the mellow and relaxed atmosphere. I love how you can play pool, bowl, or play darts in one place. My ears always perk up when I hear my sister say over the phone "guess where we went tonight....." Damn you! read more

Awesome location adjacent to North Ave, Von Trier, and next to Oriental location. I am unaware of another bowling alley in so hip an area. I think that on a good day Landmark aspires to be dirty. The carpets and chairs are half a century old. The decor is extraordinarily outdated, but I can get past that. It is the general feeling like no one has taken a mop to this place for decades. And whatever vacuum they use, if they use one, is just as old as the carpet. The Landmark boasts 3 separate bar areas. The music is loud bar type music (aka rap). Bowling is always packed with long wait times. Standard drink fare. We waited an hour and a half to bowl. This would have been fine if any one of Landmark's 3 bar areas was tolerable. Note: They also have a couple of pool tables (maybe 3 or 4?) if that's your thing. We headed over to Von Trier during our wait. The bowling itself: First, after an hour and a half wait, they did not have the correct shoe size for one of our party. He had to squeeze his size 12 feet into the closest available size, 10. The balls, for bowling, were all custom made balls that were super heavy and whose finger holes were very far apart for the novice bowler (I can't do the spin thing). Also, 10lbs was the lightest ball I could find. I have a wrist issue thanks to my computer centric job, and launching 10lbs down a long alley is a lot for my little wrist to handle. And finally, the alley itself is highly warped. Worse, the balls are poorly weighted (heavier on one side than the other). You have to score for yourself, which was actually kind of neat. Moral of the story? Bowling is a different experience due to the lack of ball selection and the warped alleys. It is just as expensive as regular bowling ($10 each for a pair of shoes and 2 games) but you don't do as well and anyone with a big ego on your team might throw a hissy fit. read more

Landmark is a staple in Mke, just like Ma Fischer's. Where else can you go as an adult and comfortably play pinball or DDR in the arcade? Not to mention the fact that they have a skeeball league. Bowling or pool, you've got more options than just the arcade and, duh, it's Mke... so there's a fully stocked bar... or two. :) They've even got extra room if you wanna throw a party! To life, love, and the pursuit of happiness! Cheers! read more

I don't make it over to this place as much as I probably should, but my days of frequenting North Ave went away right after I turned 22. I prefer not to hang out at a bunch of college bars anymore, but this places consistently is on my list of places to go if I do find myself spending my night in the area. I can't tell you how many times I've come here, and I've never once bowled. I have heard it is pricey and I have stayed away from it. However, I do partake in most other things this place has to offer. After a couple drinks, I've tried to impress my friends with my DDR skills (which are superb in my sober state, and maybe a little dangerous when I'm jumping around following a bunch of IPAs). Additionally, this is my go to place for darts. I forget how much it is, but you give a bartender a cash deposit and they give you darts (you can also bring your own). This place holds a special place in my heart for being the place I really learned how to play pool. Sometimes if you go later in the evenings, the tables will fill up but show up at 4pm and play till you run out of quarters. Jukebox has been notorious in my past for gaining all of my cash because when I'm drunk, there's nothing I'd rather do than force everyone around me to listen to New Found Glory and Nine Inch Nails. Other folks who do not channel their middle/high school musical tastes will play Taylor Swift and you will be upset and you will spend money to ensure you don't have to listen to it again. Karaoke is fine. Last time I went there was no one there, but I've seen it bumping in the past. Song selection is kind of a bummer (how am I supposed to get the whole bar to sing with me if I can't do Santeria?). The drink situation us pretty good. I forget exactly what the deal is, but I think its $2.50 bottles on Tuesdays which is great. They usually have some pretty good pitcher deals as well. Bonus pro tip: I write this for you from under the comfort of my electric blanket, but if you are living without an air conditioner in the summer on the third floor of a house and can't seem to stop sweating, this place is your safe haven. Perfect for cooling down, especially when a lot of the bars in the area don't have AC. And like everyone else has said, it smells a little funny but what do you expect from a basement bar/bowling alley? read more

Landmark Lanes - Bowling Near Me - Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Somewhere in the great north woods of another Wisconsin, there's a bar with human taxidermy, Ed Gein sausages, and all the Rhinelander you can drink. Cross the threshold of the Landmark and enter if you dare. In the heavy layers of dim, smoke-diffuse light, the bar's flanneled patrons flick hazily between trollish grotesquerie and sluggish, dead-eyed, beer-numbed hostility. Centuries-old Packers games play endlessly on faded-out black and white televisions. An ice-fishing demon fights with his mother, who drops blood-flecked ice chips like worry beads one at a time into her beer. Ogres play poker with human teeth instead of chips. Oh, Landmark, thy wood-paneled walls and pool tables! Thy incongruous top shelf Irish whiskeys! Human quarry in disguise, yea, I eat thy chili. I drink thy Knappogue. I bowl using a human skull for ball. Not so human as I thought. I'm home. read more

For some reason, being in Milwaukee for the weekend made me want to go bowling. I'm a terrible bowler, but a sucker for manual scoring. Maybe the act of recording a "9" in every frame serves as a distraction from how terrible I am. Anyway, this underground bowling alley is a gem. Along with manual scoring, it has a jukebox and an arcade with multiple pinball machines. Score! Only downsides were complete lack of cell service (ugh, AT&T) and presence of glow bowling. read more

Pinball. Skeeball. Old school bowling. Karaoke. Cheap drinks. No cell phone service. That my friends, is Landmark. read more

If you are looking for a no-nonsense bar with relatively cheap drinks and TONS of other stuff to do whilst enjoying said drinks look no further than Landmark Lanes. This is no high-brow establishment and that's part of the charm- sure, you can order yourself a nice cocktail or you can order a PBR. Great location for large, informal gatherings as the bar is absolutely huge and there's so much to do! All I can say is that it's a classic bar located on Milwaukee's east side. read more

Big Buck Hunter. Skee-ball. No cell service. Nachos. THREE distinct bars with great specials. And the BEST karaoke on Thursday nights with Rockin' Roy. This is my favorite Milwaukee bar hands down. Oh, and they have bowling too. The owners are very nice. The employees are mostly nice. If you don't like dive bars that still smell a tad smoky years after the smoking ban, don't come here. If you don't like karaoke featuring awful singing that everyone cheers for, don't come here. If you don't like free popcorn, don't come here. If you are a prissy jerk whose favorite bar is CANS, don't come here. read more

Very nice place! Spacious with a different vibe in each room. The bowling provides enough alleys and lane space so you're not overcrowded by your neighbors. The bar has plenty of darts and pool tables so you don't have to wait. And it's extremely spacious so you don't feel claustrophobic. The beer selection offers several local beers on tap and drinks weren't too pricey. The location is excellent; it is surrounded by other business and restaurants in a very pedestrian friendly area of Milwaukee. My only gripe is the jukebox didn't have a lot of songs...in this day and age you should have the ones hooked up to the internet so you can get nearly every song! read more

Great place to spend a Sunday night. Except the fact that the $3 bloody mary's are only decently made by one bartender. Once you're done choking down the first one, hopefully the right guy will start his shift and make that shit bomb. read more

We were there an hour, and for $5, we were able to play motorcycle racing, air hockey, pinball machines, basketball, a shooting game, and that game where you roll the ball in a hole for points. Hot doing that with a mask on though. read more

I took some friends from out of town here, hoping to show them a good time and some midwestern hospitality. We had to wait an hour and a half for one game, at the completion of which we were kindly told to get back in line. Beer was overpriced and the nickeled and dimed us for shoes, balls, etc. Worst of all, the service was TERRIBLE!!!! I would have expected the attendants to be friendly; instead, they were rude and unbecoming. read more

Lanes were available but there was a league playing so we weren't allowed to bowl. I was really excited about coming here, but we didn't even get to do anything. My boyfriend bought a beer and it tasted weird, as if the machine which dispensed it hadn't been cleaned and had mold growing out of it. The place looks nice but it was a let down. The person that informed us we couldn't bowl also wasn't nice about it, nothing exceptional about the service. I'm sure another day it'd be better but two stars from me. read more

Eclectic crowd on a Tuesday night. Good, stiff drinks at a really good price and really cheap arcade games. Staff is great and always on point with getting your next drink. Overall, a great time. Worth the visit. read more

Hey, this place! One of the first joints I somewhat frequented when I started hangin' out in this big scary metropolis. You can read the other reviews if you need to know the popular gist. I'm not here to hold your hand, Sally. It doesn't smell as musty as it used to. That's good! The drinks are cheap, I like bowling, shooting pool, and pinball. The crowd is mixed and WEIRD, MAN. Cool. This was stop number 1 on a Landmark Bowl-Ma Fischers-Von Trier-Oriental Theater binge of North ave. Great way to start your day! Drinking I mean, not bowling. But I bowled sober anyway. One time me and my Chinaman friend came here on a Sunday morning/early afternoon and there were dudes taking bloody mary shots. I was all "Dudes, why? That's gotta annoy the barkeep and you can just get a big one". Apparently, they were at home and only had enough shit for shots, and decided to stick with the plan all day wherever they went. I suggested they get a large, real bloody mary made with that sick bubblegum flavored vodka, 'cuz my friend did that once on a dare and drank the whole thing. These dipshits happily complied and I watched the bartender retch from the smell as she mixed it. What the fuck, eh?!?!? I ran into the same 2 guys (they were actually cool) a few weeks later at Charm School and they reported the aftermath. One guy was sick for days and the other had a stomach of the ironiest iron. Dipshits!!!! All the bowling balls weigh the same and none of them will fit your hand correctly! There's this one guy who works there with kinda shitty tattoos who doesn't really know shit bout shit but he's nice and seems to be trying. You can get hammered here and forget where you are. Easily. No windows. There used to be streetcars in here. No BS. Sometimes there's dumb people who had kids and think it's a good place to take the kids. I'm still gonna drink in front of your kids, weekend dad. DDR! I hate it! Landmark is fun. If you can't have fun here, you're probably uptight since you got molested or something. Get a therapist. Stop bumming your friends out. I read more

Also, spend a dollar and get one of those vibrating chair massages. You will look like a total weirdo but you will feel like a thousand bucks afterward. read more

Apparently everyone grew up going to Landmark Lanes but me. At 35, this was my first time at Landmark Lanes. It is exactly how I remember bowling. No fancy digital scoring, no big screen TVs playing music videos, no fancy metal bumpers that are controlled by the flip of a switch. Just old school bowling! We got there at about 8pm on a Friday night. Had absolutely no problem getting a lane. By the time we were done bowling 2 games the younger crowd started to show up and fill the place. That was our cue to move on. I had a Blast and will definitely be going back!. read more

By far my favorite place in Milwaukee to chill and drink. Why? Three bars all with a different feel, skeeball, bowling, pool, and just plain nice people that work there. I love drinking many places but if people just want to go out and kick some back in a rad place, I end up here. read more

This is by far my favorite place to get drunk on Milwaukee's East Side. There's actually three bars here, one main bar with several pool tables, a second bar with mostly dart boards, and a third bar with bumper pool. All three bars have seperate jukeboxes, stocked with everything from solid classic rock to rap. Bartenders are cool, they pour a STIFF mix and be prepared to get tipsy pretty quick, especially on their famous "Two Dollar Tuesdays" where every damn drink in the bar (save for top shelf liquor) is TWO DOLLARS. I spent countless Tuesdays here getting plastered, while spending less than 20 bucks. Now THAT is what I call a deal. One negative is that the smoke hangs in the air and if you're not suffering from black lung, you might be by the end of the night. read more

It may be stinky, but that's OK with me. I can find at least one awesome drink special (once because I had tattoos) and play Mortal Kombat. FATALITY!!!! read more

if you love drinking you'll love landmark.you'll be so distracted by pooltables, games, 2 bars and the eclectic in and out crowd to make time fly by. It's a bit in need of a makeover like some paint and flooring. but if you're up for a taste of different in the milwaukee nightlife without so much pretentiousness you'll pop in at Landmark. read more

World's greatst dive bar. And they've got a bowling alley! What more can I say?

Turned off music at 9 pm. Said you had to pay for touch tunes in order to play any music. Terrible!

Excellent arcade games, great beer list. Much larger than you'd expect from the exterior.

The Landmark is a Milwaukee institution. Sure, it has a crowd that feels like a combination of old drunks, shady characters and people whose IDs should have been checked more closely. Sure, it has the distinct smell of urinal cakes that hits you when you walk in the door. Sure, the music blaring overhead is questionable at best. But the drinks are cheap and there's just something about it that, in spite of all its inadequacies, you still love. Funny how that works, isn't it? read more

A Milwaukee superbar. On Milwaukee's now trendy East Side, this place remains a vestige of the more dark and dank pubs that dotted the city. The best part of the Landmark lanes is that the place is subterranean. Head down the long flight of carpeted stairs and you will be confronted with the largest game room in the East Side, a bowling alley and three bars, each in their own separate room and each with their own bevvy of drink specials. The aforementioned review by the Reagler proclaims the two dollar drink promotion, which indeed brings the crowds to the Landmark. Unfortunately, it also brings clouds of smoke so be prepared if that is not your thing. Each day from 3-7pm, the bar has happy hour where all domestic taps are $1.50 and all imported taps are a measly $2. Before Summerfest I downed four tappers of Strongbow and all that pre-drinking cost me less than ten bucks. read more

I go here to play pinball. But it still smells horrible. I thought it would get better after the smoking ban, so wrong. Haven't bowled or drank here in over a decade so the review is solely based on pinball options and the video game area. read more

THis is a great bar/bowling alley/arcade! THere is a lot to do there and always an odd assortment of people. It has three bars in it depending on the day of the week so its never really over crowded. Cheap booze, good people, fun games (air hockey) that is all I have to say! read more

If you're an eastsider you might love this cave. If you like cheap drinks you might love this hole in the ground. If you like coming out reeking of some stink you might love this dive. But I don't like drinking cheap drinks in reeking caves so it's not for me! read more

This is like a flash back in time! Love Landmark Lanes... coupon or not. It's the East Side's best kept secret. Shhhh....

My boyfriend bought a deal to Landmark Lanes through Living Social or a similar deal site. Pizza, a pitcher of beer, and an hour of bowling for some good price - how could you go wrong? Easy - not live up to your end of the deal and have aggressive, unfriendly staff work for you. Unbeknownst to us, we chose the day of the St. Patrick's themed North Ave bar crawl to try out "Cosmic Bowling." We showed up only to find out that they were out of pizza thanks to the hungry bar crawlers. OK, so could we substitute another pitcher of beer for the pizza? The gentleman working the bar said no, but since our deal was going to expire in a few days he promised us a one-month extension on our deal, writing an I.O.U. which he had us leave at the cash register for another time. Satisfied, we grabbed some pizza from Ian's and bowled a round anyway. (A note on the bowling - you have to score yourself, which is kind of fun if someone knows how to do it. The bowling balls we used were all beat up with chips in them and were not well labeled regarding weight so it took quite a while to find one that was appropriately sized. The lane we were in froze with the pin-clearer down so we had to wait for someone to climb down and reset it. Later it cleared the pins after my friend only bowled once. Overall, a poor bowling experience that we were willing to overlook because it was convenient and with friends.) Three weeks later we decided to return to celebrate my boyfriend's birthday with bowling. We had 3 of the people who went the previous time and one new person. As soon as we started to tell the man at the cash register our story, he rudely interrupted saying the deal was expired. We continued, explaining we had been given an extension, so the guy searched the cash register. There was no note to be found. When we tried to reason with him or ask him to talk to a manager, he got an attitude. In fact, he became aggressive and said he didn't like the way my friend was looking at him. At this point I was crying and scared he was going to punch my friend, so I took off. My friends stayed a little bit longer, trying to straighten things out, but the man was just incredibly rude, short-tempered, and aggressive. My boyfriend contacted Living Social the next day and got our money back. At least that part worked out. I'm sorry that this business got the money from us from our first attempt to use the deal, as I certainly wouldn't support them if they choose to employ such rude and threatening people. The only thing that saves this from a one star experience is that the gentleman the first time had appeared to be helpful, but then didn't come through. If I was just rating this on the bowling, I'd give it a 2 or 3 as the equipment is poor. read more

This is a cool place to hangout to play some pool, there's even a jukebox! The bartenders are usually super nice- until it's closing time. Every single time I go there, the workers are very rude when it's time to close. Last time I was there, with 10 minutes before close, I was asked to finish my drink in the lobby. Then, a few minutes later (still not finished with my drink), I was asked to leave even though it still was only 1:53! Another time, about 5 minutes before close, I had to use the bathroom on my way out. One worker was banging on the bathroom door yelling "EVERYONE OUT, WE'RE CLOSED" ...... while I'm still on the toilet.. Fun place to hangout, but if you see that the closing time is 2am, it's really 1:45, because you'll be kicked out (probably literally). read more

This place takes your money at the jukebox and says that the company changed their policy but really the bar tenders play whatever they want and leave the customer paying for a song that will never play. Ya and they have beer... read more

Why do people like to bitch so much? This place is awesome and its vintage ambiance is what makes Milwaukee great. If you are looking for Fine Dining and the chic place, head to the wards. If you are looking for a great place to kick it old school, this place fits. It's massive in that there are many bars and spaces. Like most iconic landmarks, you'll miss them when they are gone. read more

This place is great! $2 beers on a Tuesday night. Its a nice small bowling alley, but there is a huge bar area with a ton to do other than just bowl. The staff was very friendly too. We really did have a blast and will go back. read more

The drink specials are good, but my fondest memory of this place will always be Freeway getting all worked up over a game of Pac-Man.

Gave us a wait time of one hour, and then after two hours of waiting we we're told our games were limited two one because it was too late. Despite many lanes clearing and being filled during our wait. Not worth it. read more

This place is dead as hell and has no phone service. But they have a DDR machine, Skee-ball, air hockey, and a pinball machine! Just as good! read more

Oh goodness do I adore this place! The bowling alley, pool, darts, the almost-casino feel of three bars under one roof, the differing (crazy cheap!) drink specials depending on which of the 3 bars you are in. I dig that despite that this bowling alley is smack in the middle of the city they do not try to hose their patrons with overpriced bowling fees. Oh and in case none of this is entertaining enough... there's an arcade. read more