Primrose Lanes Restaurant and Bowling Club (Instagram | Website), the fancy new bowling-themed venue that we’ve been writing about for almost 6 years, is almost ready to open to the public and we got an early behind-the-scenes look at the buildout earlier this week.
Colonial Bowling Lanes, which opened in 1959, was purchased in 2017 by Titan Properties, at which time the original developer had plans to completely knock down the building and replace it with a three-story personal storage facility.
Local investors swooped in an attempt to save the lanes before playing a subsequent game of developer hot potato before it ended up in the hands of the current owner, Team Market Group. TMG purchased Colonial Lanes in June 2021 and has been working on an extensive renovation of the property, which in its final form, is more of a restaurant with a bowling alley, than a bowling alley with a restaurant.
The original 32 bowling lanes have been trimmed down to eight and all of the wood from the lanes was salvaged and reworked into new bar and table tops throughout the facility. Old bowling pins have been repurposed into decorative features and the entire space is full of historic ephemera, including an original T.G. Lee milk carton on display in the restaurant.
Guests are also being invited to bring in photographs of past visits to the original Colonial Lanes to have them featured on a special cork wall in the shoe changing room near the restrooms (see our video at the bottom of this post to get a look at the wall).
TMG made headlines in January 2023 when it became public that they had succeeded in winning Chef Jason Campbell away from the award-winning Luke’s Kitchen + Bar (Website) in Maitland, to spearhead the kitchen at Primrose Lanes, alongside TMG corporate chef, Nick Grecco, which will serve a menu of elevated bowling diner fare like USDA Prime Creekstone beef smashburgers and from scratch hotdogs made onsite. Chef Campbell has worked with Ravenous Pig and Mary Eddy’s Kitchen x Lounge in Oklahoma City and has a reputation for serving up some amazing dishes here in Central Florida.
The space also features a second location of TMG’s popular coffee shop concept, the Robinson Room, which will serve a selection of coffee and cocktails.
The new Primrose Lanes is set to soft-open on Friday, August 4 at 8 a.m. and will be open until 2 a.m.
