This Underwater Texas Bowling Alley Is a Family Adventure Like No Other

Most bowling alleys look the same once the lights go down. Same gray carpet, same rental shoes, same neon strip over the pins. I love them anyway, but I have never once walked into one and gasped.

Then I found out about Uncle Buck’s Fishbowl and Grill in Round Rock, and the gasp finally made sense. Picture glowing blue lanes painted with sea turtles and stingrays, a shark swallowing your ball, and dinner served inside the hull of a shipwreck.

It sits inside the Bass Pro Shops just north of Austin, and it is built for families from the front door to the funnel cake fries. Below, I will walk you through the lanes, the menu, the story behind the name, and everything you need to plan a visit.

Bowling on the Ocean Floor

The lanes are the reason you come. Uncle Buck’s calls them “dock” lanes, and the wood is painted with an underwater scene of sea turtles, sharks, stingrays and other saltwater fish. Roll a ball down one and it looks like it is skimming over a reef.

Look up and the ceiling is full of fish. Sculpted sea creatures hang overhead, and the walls around the lanes carry hand-painted ocean murals, all coral shapes and seaweed and deep blue water. The lighting leans into it, so the whole room glows the way an aquarium does at night.

My favorite touch is the ball return. Instead of a plain metal rack, your ball rolls back out of the mouth of a shark, an alligator or an octopus, depending on which lane you draw. I would pick a lane based on the creature alone.

Bumpers are available, so the youngest bowlers in your group can play a real game without a gutter ball in sight. Up to six people can share a lane, which is a comfortable size for a family or two.

The Round Rock location has a dozen full-size lanes, all decorated the same way. That is enough for a busy Saturday, but not so many that the room loses its cozy, cave-like feel.

Pick Your Ball, Pick Your Socks

Even the bowling balls are in on the theme. Uncle Buck’s custom balls are printed to look like an octopus, a mermaid, camouflage and a few other designs, so choosing one is half the fun. Kids will argue over the octopus. Adults will pretend they are not doing the same.

Rental shoes come with a pair of souvenir socks, which you keep. It is a small thing, but a kid walking out with ocean-themed socks after a strike is a kid who is going to ask to come back.

Did you know? On peak weekends, the lanes at Uncle Buck’s can carry a wait of one to four hours. I will get to the smart way around that in the tips section below.

Dinner in a Sunken Ship

When your arms get tired, you eat, and the dining room is its own attraction. It is built to look like the inside of a wrecked ship, with battered hull walls, nautical netting, old ship relics and a shark or two in the decor. Think treasure-hunt movie.

There is a big saltwater aquarium in the building too, with live tropical fish. Stand in front of it long enough and someone in your group will name every fish. That is fine. Let them.

The menu is comfort food with a fishing-camp accent. Start with the Gator Bites, crispy pieces of alligator served with a spicy house ranch. If that sounds too adventurous, the Ultimate Tots are loaded with cheese, bacon and green onions, and nobody has ever sent those back.

For a table of four or five, the Hook, Line and Dippers platter piles gator bites, fried shrimp, cheese curds and fried pickles onto one plate. It is a sampler built for sharing, and it disappears fast.

Burgers are half-pound patties. The Western Burger stacks bacon, cheddar, onion straws and barbecue sauce. The Rip Tide Smash Burger goes simpler with grilled onions, pickles and a burger sauce. Both come out with a proper char, which is more than I can say for most bowling alley kitchens.

Seafood is the house specialty, as you would expect from a place owned by a fishing company. The Fisherman’s Fry is beer-battered hake with tartar sauce and fries. Shrimpin’ Ain’t Easy is a plate of hand-breaded fried shrimp. The Deep Dive Combo gives you hake, shrimp and chicken tenders together.

The pizzas have the best names on the menu. Shipwreck Supreme, Sea Monster Meatza, Pepperoni Abyss, and Heatwave on the Reef, a buffalo chicken pie on a ranch base. I would order the Meatza just to say it out loud.

The Kids’ Fishbowl

This is where Uncle Buck’s earns the “family adventure” part of its reputation. The kids’ menu, for ages 12 and under, includes a drink and a side with every meal. Choices run from cheeseburger sliders and chicken tenders to fried shrimp, fish bites, a cheese quesadilla and mac and cheese.

Then there are the fishbowl drinks, the oversized bowls that gave the place its name. The kids get their own lineup, and it is the most photographed thing on the table.

The Blue Lagoon is lemonade with blue raspberry syrup and Sprite. The Swamp Water mixes Sprite, pineapple juice and blue raspberry with a puff of green apple cotton candy on top.

Shark Bait is a pina colada style mocktail with strawberry. The Ocean Float drops vanilla ice cream into blue raspberry soda. Reviewers mention that the fishbowl cups are souvenirs you can take home, so budget for a few extra cups in the car.

Dessert is simple and right. Build your own sundae, a classic shake in vanilla, chocolate, strawberry or cookies and cream, or the Funnel Cake Fries, which are exactly what they sound like and come with caramel for dipping.

One Tripadvisor reviewer, Delena H, summed it up in a line I keep coming back to: “We loved this place! The bowling alley is beautifully decorated in an underwater theme.” She also gave the gator bites and loaded tots a thumbs up, so start there.

Why Uncle Buck?

The name is not a gimmick. Johnny Morris, the founder of Bass Pro Shops, created the Uncle Buck’s Fishbowl and Grill concept in 2009 as a tribute to his own Uncle Buck, an outdoorsman and fisherman.

The first Fishbowl opened in Altoona, Iowa, next to the Bass Pro store there. The idea, as I read it, was simple. Give shoppers a reason to stay for dinner and a game, and dress the whole thing up like the bottom of the sea.

It worked. Today there are five Uncle Buck’s Fishbowl and Grill locations, in Bridgeport, Connecticut; Destin, Florida; Altoona, Iowa; East Peoria, Illinois; and Round Rock, Texas. Round Rock is the only one in the state, which makes it a genuine day-trip destination for Texas families.

The Round Rock store opened on June 10, 2015. It was Bass Pro’s 73rd location, a 120,000-square-foot building on the northeast side of Austin, and Uncle Buck’s takes up about 20,000 square feet of it. Johnny Morris cut the ribbon alongside Round Rock Mayor Alan McGraw.

Opening night was an Evening for Conservation. For every dollar spent that evening, 50 cents went to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation and a wildlife museum and aquarium. Celebrity guests included NASCAR driver Tony Stewart and bass fishing legend Rick Clunn.

The city had actively courted the store, and it was the third destination retailer Round Rock recruited that way. More than a decade later, Uncle Buck’s is still the part of the building people talk about first.

Birthday Parties Under the Sea

If your kid has a birthday coming up, this is one of the easier parties in Central Texas to pull off. Uncle Buck’s rents a two-lane bowling “bay” for $100, which holds up to 12 guests, and then adds a per-person package on top.

The Reef Party runs $15.99 per person and includes 90 minutes of exclusive bowling, shoe rental, digital invites, and pizza with unlimited soft drinks. The Shark Party bumps to $19.99 and adds a $10 arcade card for every guest plus a shared cake and gift area.

The Captain’s Party is the full treatment at $23.99 per person. Two hours of bowling, a dedicated party host, themed socks, a $20 arcade card per guest, and pizza and drinks. The birthday kid gets bonus arcade points on every package.

Parties need a minimum of eight guests, and an 18 percent gratuity is added automatically. For bigger groups of 15 or more, buffet options start at $19.99 per person with pizza, slider, taco and appetizer themes.

Pro tip: the private dining rooms are also available for adult gatherings, team lunches and family reunions, so the sunken ship is not only for the under-12 crowd.

Know Before You Dive

Bowling is priced by the lane, by the hour, rather than per game. In Round Rock a lane runs $32 an hour Monday through Thursday and $39 an hour Friday through Sunday. Shoe rental is $4.50 a pair, and the souvenir socks are $2.50 and required with rented shoes.

Split a lane six ways and a weekday hour comes to just over five dollars a person before shoes. For an activity this photogenic, that is a fair deal.

Weekends get busy, and the wait for a lane can stretch to several hours. My advice is to arrive when the doors open at 11 on a Saturday, or come on a weekday afternoon. Put your name in for a lane first, then eat while you wait.

The arcade is a good place to burn the wait. There is also a billiards room called the Black Widow Billiards Room for the teenagers who have decided bowling is beneath them.

Leave time for the Bass Pro store itself. The Round Rock location is 120,000 square feet of boats, fishing gear and the mounted wildlife displays Bass Pro is known for, which is enough to keep a curious kid busy for an hour. Uncle Buck’s is inside, so you park once.

The restaurant is open Monday through Saturday from 11 in the morning until 9 at night, and Sunday from 11 until 7. Delivery is available through DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub if you want the gator bites without the drive.

How to Get There

Where: Uncle Buck’s Fishbowl and Grill, 200 Bass Pro Drive, Round Rock, TX 78665. Phone 512-876-2600.

The store sits right off Interstate 35 on the north side of Round Rock, about 20 miles north of downtown Austin. From Austin it is a 30-minute drive on a good day. From San Antonio, plan on about two hours; from Waco, about an hour and a half.

Parking is free and plentiful, since you are sharing a lot with a 120,000-square-foot outdoor store. Walk in through the main Bass Pro entrance and follow the signs, or just follow the blue glow.

Start Planning Your Deep Dive

I have bowled in a lot of ordinary rooms. This one is not ordinary. Your kids will remember the shark that ate their ball long after they forget the score, and you will remember the look on their faces when they walk into that blue room for the first time.

So pick a weekday afternoon, gather the crew, and head to Round Rock. Order the gator bites, fight over the octopus ball, and let the youngest bowler pick the lane. You are going 20,000 leagues under the sea, and you do not even need a snorkel.

Featured image: Laurent Escoto via Uncle Buck’s Fishbowl and Grill