Roxy Ballroom – Just have fun!

The perfect place to enjoy time with friends coming out of this draining pandemic – one of the Roxy venues in Leeds, in this case, Roxy Ball Room on Boar Lane.

On Wednesday night I visited Roxy Ball Room with two of my friends for an hour of ping pong. When I arrived I quickly realised I probably should have picked beer pong instead. But ambitious me chose ping pong… the logic behind it was how hard can it be to hit a tiny ball down a table, and how hard to return it? It turned out extremely difficult and if that tiny ball didn’t end up stuck in the light fittings or ceilings it was rolling around the floor getting us to chase it between people’s feet. 

I arrived before my friends and was greeted at the door with sanitizer and COVID rules, of course. These new measures are the new norm of our social lives as we know them. I can’t see this changing for a long time to come.

I was taken to my ping pong table and instructed on the new bar service. I scanned my ‘phone and ordered a French martini. I have noticed most places now have the ‘phone scan to check menus and order as part of the new regime. Food and drinks are delivered to tables, and all tables must be pre-booked.

There is a food menu along with a well stocked bar, including craft ales and cocktails.

It was reassuring for me that everybody in Roxys stayed by their games tables and the overall vibe was respectful and still fun. 

My friends were extremely confused as I’d invited them to play bingo by accident. I kept saying Roxy Bingo like the annoying Fox advert that repeatedly came on during Jeremy Kyle. Anyway, as I mentioned before, not one of us will be turning pro anytime soon. Our ping pong skills are in desperate need of practice, and before that, we are planning on returning to play beer pong. We reckon we will be much better at that.

Roxy’s has a photo booth on the games floor too, so we all decided to document the night with a nice photo of us all. Well, 8 shots later we certainly documented the night, but not as prettily as we’d hoped. There was basically no warning or preview screen of what we looked like while the flash was going off. Double chins, blinking and general gormless poses later, we couldn’t breathe for laughing. It was the perfect way to end the catch up. 

So – when all those cares and woes are crowding in, arrange a trip out to one of the Roxy venues in Leeds and you won’t regret it. It’s an escape you’ll want to keep repeating.

Booking at all four of Roxy’s Leeds venues is essential and can be done online here.

Photographs are by Robyn Wilson.

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