Bowling in Quezon City: A Group Night at Paeng's Gateway Bowl

For bowling in Quezon City, Paeng's Gateway Bowl on Level 3 of Gateway Mall 2 has 24 lanes and six billiard tables and is open from 10 AM to midnight daily. It takes group and occasion reservations, and because it stays open past the mall's closing time, the night works best as dinner first and lanes second.

What you get

Twenty-four lanes, six billiard tables, Level 3 of Gateway Mall 2, 10 AM to midnight every day. It is loud, which suits a barkada and rules it out for a quiet catch-up. Expect under ₱500 a head.

Ask for the rate card when you reserve, and ask whether the price changes by day or by hour, so the group chat gets a real number before anyone commits.

Reserving lanes for a group

Paeng's takes group and occasion reservations. Have four things ready when you book:

• the date and the start time
• the head count, and how many of them will bowl
• whether anyone wants a billiard table instead
• whether it is an occasion, such as a birthday

Then ask two questions back: how many bowlers go on one lane, and how long the booking holds if the group is late. Allow about 75 minutes for the whole stop. A big group should expect to split across lanes.

The six billiard tables matter more than they sound. In any group there are two people who would rather not bowl, and they have somewhere to be.

Eat first, bowl second

Araneta City's mall hours end at 9 PM from Sunday to Thursday and 10 PM on Fridays and Saturdays. The lanes run until midnight. Bowl first and the group walks out hungry into a closed mall, so put dinner at the front. All of these take big groups:

• Food Express is a food court on Level 3 of Gateway Mall 1, under ₱500 a head, with stalls such as Bebang Halo-Halo, Sisig Hooray and Salo Lechon Belly Kitchen. Everyone orders what they like and nobody splits a bill.
• Palenque is a regional Filipino food hall on Upper Ground B of Gateway Mall 2. Walk in; no booking is needed. Expect ₱500 to ₱1,500 a head.
• World Kitchens is one floor above the lanes on Level 4, with 15 show kitchens. From Monday to Thursday it closes between 3 PM and 5:30 PM, then runs until 10 PM. On Fridays and Saturdays it stays open until 11 PM.
• Dookki does unlimited cook-it-yourself tteokbokki and Korean hotpot on Upper Ground B.
• Vikings Luxury Buffet takes reservations and serves dinner from 5:30 PM to 10 PM, if the night is a celebration.

A timeline that works on any day of the week:

• 6:00 PM: dinner
• 7:30 PM: the arcade next door
• 8:30 PM: lanes, with no closing time to worry about until midnight

The arcade on the same level

Timezone Gateway 2 shares Level 3 with the bowling alley. It has arcade games, short-lane bowling, private karaoke rooms, photo booths and VR, and it takes party bookings. It keeps mall hours, so it closes two or three hours before the lanes do. That sets the order: arcade and karaoke before 9 PM, full-size bowling after.

After the last frame

If the group finishes by 10:30 PM and still has legs, Cubao X Brewery is an open-air taproom in Cubao Expo that takes big groups and is open until midnight. It is about a 12-minute walk from Gateway. There is no kitchen, which is one more reason to eat before bowling.

More for the group

A costed version of this night for a celebration is in a Cubao birthday for ten under ₱800 a head. The karaoke rooms get their own page in the Timezone Gateway guide, and the tables that can seat eight or more are compared in Gateway Mall 2 restaurants for big groups. To have the whole evening assembled around the head count and budget, start from the night-out planner's barkada night out guide.