Whether you head to Lava Lanes to bring your kids to the arcade, belt out some Sinatra on a Saturday night, bet the ponies, or, oh yeah, bowl, odds are pretty good you’re gonna snack. Lava Lanes’ 300 Sports Bar is named after a perfect game and, likewise, when it comes to their snack bar, there’s no striking out.
Whereas it usually takes inclement weather to drive me into a bowling alley, Lava Lanes’ happy hour is 3-5 pm each weekday. And in 2026 there’s no arguing about $5 pints.
For the beer pairings, not to knock macrobrewers or out-of-state craft brewers, but since the beloved tater tot is indigenous to Oregon, we’re going to focus on pitch-perfect app pairings from homegrown breweries.
While you can order a basket of tots, mozzarella sticks or onion rings on their own, the sheer glory of noshing at Lava Lanes is what they undersell as the “appetizer combo platter.” That’s like calling the Guinness World Records book a pamphlet listing some impressive feats or the last Blockbuster on Earth YouTube, but brick’n’mortar. For those who are faint—or arterially blocked—of heart, look away.
The euphemistically titled appetizer combo platter contains tater tots, onion rings, (a stingy amount of) fried cheese sticks and chicken wings, and the pièces de resistance: lava rocks. A lava rock is billed as “potato bits with jalapeno and cheese.” What it really is is a tot wrapped around a popper, a dream enrobed and encrusted in tubular tuber.
Let’s start with the most abundant morsel in the mountain of yummies. And when I say mountain, while I didn’t bring my scale, I’d hazard a guess devoid of facetiousness or hyperbole that it weighs three solid pounds (or half the weight of the alley’s smallest bowling balls). The only three pounds that turns into 13 if you were able to polish off the platter all by yourself. So don’t you and your friends go ordering this thinking it’s just a side order. If the app combo platter could perform karaoke, it’d sing Lizzo’s “Juice.” I’m not a snack at all. Look, baby, I’m the whole damn meal.
The price tag is $25.95. That’s also not hyperbole.
There’s an expression in the wine world, “If it grows, it goes.” Likewise, the tots beckon to be paired with Widmer Hefeweizen since both potatoes and wheat are two of Eastern Oregon’s biggest cash crops. Don’t deny the lemon wedge, as the tanginess and acidic bite help refresh the palate.
When most of the mound is monochromatically tannish-orangish, the onion rings are as golden brown as Golden Tempo, the most recent winner of the Kentucky Derby, announcing its unctuousness before the first bite shatters its crunchy exterior. To wash these down, you’re going to want a highly carbonated beer like Crux Pilz (though you’re more than forgiven for quaffing with PBR or a can of Vitamin R). The effervescence built into Crux’s classic Czech-style lager that smacks of peppery Saaz hops perfectly complements those O’s.
If you’re lucky enough to get one of the three mozz sticks, the ideal beer pairing is Deschutes Black Butte Porter. The roasted coffee and sweet toffee notes love to offset creamy cheeses, and when you’ve got a bridge of cheese extending from your fingers —need I mention this a little late in the game here, but if you’re bowling and your finger food is being eaten using fingers that repeatedly get stuck into holes that have never, ever been sanitized, you have two choices: BYO hand sani or throw caution to the wind. In this era, when even lettuce can notoriously be to your detriment, you just gotta live on the edge.
The wings —as delectable as they are scarce (three per order)— call for Boneyard RPM IPA. Live like you bowl: boldly.
Finally, the lava rocks. For an hors d’oeuvre so right, there’s no going wrong. That said, this Certified Cicerone and Certified Cider Professional recommends a pairing as unexpected as a popper-filled tot itself: POG (passion fruit orange guava) cider from Legend Cider in La Pine. The duo offers the complete gustatory spectrum: sweet from the apples, salty from the extruded potato, sour from the tropical fruits, umami from the cheese coupled with the nuttiness of the frying oil and bitter from the lack of judgment at having scarfed down so much fried food in the time it takes to bowl two games.
Lava Lanes / 300 Sports Bar
Mon-Thu 11am-10pm, Fri-Sat 11am-11pm, Sun 9:45am-10pm
1555 NE Forbes Rd., Bend
541-318-5656
lavalanesbend.com
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