The competitive socialising boom has given London a lot of places where you throw something, hit something or roll something while holding a drink. Most of them are a pub with a gimmick bolted on and a queue for one machine. A few are genuinely well run and worth booking.
The difference is almost always the same thing: whether the venue was designed around the game or the game was added to a venue. This is what is worth your evening, sorted by activity.
Darts
Flight Club invented this category and still does it best. Automatic scoring, so nobody argues about arithmetic, oches arranged around a private booth, and food and drink brought to you rather than queued for. Multiple London sites including Shoreditch, Bloomsbury and the City. Book a booth by the hour, bring six to eight people, and note the automatic scoring makes it genuinely playable for people who cannot throw darts.
The important detail: this is not a darts venue that serves drinks, it is a bar with darts as the reason to stay at the table. That distinction is what most imitators get wrong.
Shuffleboard
Electric Shuffle, from the same people as Flight Club, takes the same approach to a considerably more forgiving game. Shuffleboard has the advantage that anyone can play it immediately and it does not require a throwing arm, which makes it the safer choice for a mixed group. Sites in Canary Wharf and London Bridge.
Crazy golf
Swingers is the grown-up version, with courses in the City and West End, a clubhouse aesthetic, proper cocktails and street food traders inside. Over-18s only in the evening, which is the entire point.
Junkyard Golf Club is the opposite approach: loud, scrappy, built out of salvage, and considerably less polished. Better for a group that has already had a few and is not looking for a refined evening.
Puttshack sits between the two, with tech-scored holes and a more corporate feel. Good for a work thing, less good for a night out.
Ping pong and bowling
Bounce in Farringdon and Old Street does ping pong on tables with tracking tech, and has the advantage of being genuinely central. Lane7 does bowling plus karaoke, darts and pool in one building, which makes it the most flexible option if the group cannot agree.
The more unusual ones
Clays does virtual clay pigeon shooting in the City and Moorgate, which sounds ridiculous and turns out to be the most fun on this list. Teams, scoring, actual skill involved.
Sixes does cricket nets with a bar attached, which works far better than it should even for people who do not follow cricket.
F1 Arcade in St Paul’s puts you in a racing simulator with a drink holder. Competitive, quite expensive, and the closest thing on this list to an actual sport.
Hijingo in Shoreditch is bingo rebuilt as a light show with a soundtrack. Ludicrous. Extremely good for a large group that needs something to do with no skill floor at all.
Cocktail making classes
A slightly different proposition, and better than it sounds if you pick the right one. The good ones are run by actual bars rather than events companies, which means you learn something and the drinks are worth drinking. Several of London’s serious cocktail bars run classes in their quiet hours, which is the version worth seeking out: a professional bartender, a real bar, and four drinks you made yourself.
The ones run in function rooms by companies with no bar attached tend to be a lot of sugar and a certificate. Ask where it is actually held before booking.
Booking and practical notes
Book, always. Every venue on this list works on timed slots and walk-in availability on a Friday is essentially zero. Two weeks ahead for a group of eight on a weekend.
Know the minimum spend. Most of these charge per person per hour for the activity and then have a food and drink minimum on top. A group evening at one of the polished venues adds up faster than people expect.
Check the age policy. Most go over-18s only after a certain hour, which is usually what you want.
Group size matters more than venue. Darts and shuffleboard are best at six to eight. Crazy golf works at four. Bingo and cricket scale to much larger groups. Pick the activity to fit the party, not the other way round.
One activity, then go somewhere else. Ninety minutes is the right length. These venues are designed to keep you in them all evening and the drinks are rarely good enough to justify it.
Which is the useful part: treat this as the first half of the night. When it is done, the best bars in London covers where to go next, and the cocktail bars list is there if the group wants something better than the venue was pouring. The whole evening sits inside our main London guide.