Boondocks Food and Fun - Parker

Boondocks Food and Fun opened December 2016 at 18706 Cottonwood Drive in Parker as the Colorado outpost of the Utah-based family-entertainment chain (Salt Lake City has the original). The Parker site covers eight acres and packs three go-kart tracks (Road, Slick, Rookie), 24 lanes of bowling, two 18-hole mini-golf courses landscaped with waterfalls and bridges, bumper boats, an XD Dark Ride simulator, laser tag, a 38-foot-high ropes course with rope bridges and zip lines, and a deep arcade. The BD Restaurant and Bar serves food to the lanes and the patio.

For DougCo families, this is the default rainy-Saturday venue and the default 8-12-year-old birthday-party site. The 4-hour attraction pass at $35 covers unlimited go-karts, bowling, mini golf, bumper boats, ropes course, and laser tag (does not include arcade games or food, which run separately on a card-load system). Two adults plus two kids on the pass plus a meal lands around $200, which is steep at full price but reasonable with one of the coupons that float around (the Parker Sentinel mailers, the Boondocks app's birthday discount, or the buy-one-get-one weekday promos).

The go-karts are the headliner. The Slick Track is wet-surface drift karts; the Road Track is the traditional fast-loop layout. Both meet the height-restriction needs of typical 6-12 year olds, and the queues move faster than at the comparable suburban-fun centers in Denver proper.

The food is mid-tier: pizza, burgers, wings, the standard family-entertainment-center kitchen. Reviews are mixed and the consensus is to eat before or after, not during. The bar at the BD does serve real beer and a small cocktail list for parents, and they'll bring it to your bowling lane.