A Day Out at Boom Battle Bar Lakeside

[Ad- gifted experience] I got the chance to go along to the new Boom Battle Bar at Lakeside as apart of their press day. The self-titled ‘Adventure Bar’ chain is an interesting twist on pubs, as if bars had gone down a different path than ‘more taps’ and instead focused on the pub games. Cribbage and horseshoes are out though, and while darts remain it does so with a twist and is joined by axe throwing, nail hammering and fun-fair style physical games.

Where I’m from we have a lot of pubs, there’s probably a pub for every 3k people in the town, and it’s a big town. We also have clubs, chain bars, and you can drink at the restaurants too. When you walk into most of the pubs though, be that your King’s Head, Red Lion or White Hart, they’re all pretty similar. Lots of tables and low seating, a row of stools at the bar, a tv in each room. A lot of these places feel tired (and tend to be filled with the retired) and certainly don’t feel welcoming – it feels like it’s uncommon for places to gain ‘regulars’ based on proximity, more so on association. Boom Battle Bar in Lakeside feels like a response to that, an attempt to try and make an actual destination that does a lot of things that pubs used to do decades ago; to be a place to entertain, meet up, play a few games and relax.

The first thing that really stood out to me about the Boom Battle Bar at Lakeside was the way that space had been used. It was about two, maybe three, store units wide, but aside from the central bar, everything was really spaced out. A cluster of faux arcade machines – actually all manual, player launched, and with no charge beyond what you pay at entry – were in one area, near a ‘pool golf’ and clever pachinko racing game where you moved elastic bands around to make a course. The Axe throwing off to the side. Even though it was a busy venue, there was more than enough space to move around, and quite a few more of the machines (including a hoop-catching, and pole spinning machine) were off in separate ‘rooms’ at the back. At the other end of the bar, there were digital dartboards, with fun machines and sub-games dancing around the board. Between them were some pool tables, tree trunks where you could race at hammering nails into the board, and more. There were also VIP Darts rooms, and areas separated out for Beer Pong. Needless to say, there was a lot going on.

Needless to say, the activities were more than enough to keep most of the people there entertained, but there was also a decent food and drink menu. They had their own twists on the Long Island Iced Tea, Margherita, Pina Colada and Old Fashioned, as well as several beers (including their own) on tap. There was also a decent-sized mixer and wine section – easily enough to match most bars, which included eight gins and 10 wines. I didn’t get to try out any of the food, unfortunately, but the menu is filled with fries, coleslaw mac & cheese and wings – with cauliflower alternatives available at the same price as the bone-in wings. Their wing flavours included some classic ones like Teriyaki and Buffalo, but they also had ‘Atomic’, ‘Garlic Parmesan’, ‘Lemon Pepper’ and more, all sorted on the menu by heat. You could grab 50 pieces (of bone-in, or cauliflower) in five flavours for £30, which is actually incredibly reasonable considering the normal price of wings.

One thing I didn’t mention earlier is that I actually went along alone. This is almost certainly something that wouldn’t normally happen in a place like this, which clearly thrives on banter and camaraderie. Despite this I still had a fantastic time, the ‘arcade’ games around the venue were fantastic fun, I had a great time throwing axes, and the staff were incredibly friendly. It felt like something really new and fun, something that I would love to get along to as part of an evening out with a few buddies, and I’ll almost certainly be doing that in the near future.

Boom Battle Bar Lakeside is actually the first of their venues to open in Essex, but seems to be their 10th venue. At the rate they’re springing up I’m pretty sure they’ll have one in every major city, if not town, very soon, and that’s a good thing – this is a clever use of retail space and makes for a really fun destination for people to meet up and hang out.

You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!