The siren call of Queen of Hearts being down to one card is what brought me to Saint John's bingo recently for the first time. Knowing that a night with a guaranteed $7K+ QofH payout would be a madhouse, my BFF and I got there early to snag our spot. They have a weekly game on Saturdays at 7pm. The bingo hall is in a basement-level room with stairs to enter. There is plenty of free parking in the church lots.
It is not a huge space, but they pack in as many tables as they can to accommodate a decent crowd. I went again the following week, (after not winning the QofH grand prize, boohoo), and there was still a decent crowd, so going early to get a table amidst this hall of dedicated bingo-goers is a good idea. With the tables crammed in, it is hard to maneuver once people start filling the room.
The concession window in the back can be challenging to get to in the tight, narrow aisles between tables. But once you make it, they have hot dogs, pizza slices (both pepperoni or mushroom, the vegetarian being a nice option you don't see everywhere), as well as a variety of homemade sheet cake slices for a dollar each (last weekend's pistachio cake and pineapple spice cake slices were YUM), and your usual candy, snacks, coffee, tea and sodas.
Admission al la carte is $3 for a three-face, or they offer a $25 packet with nine-faces of all regular and special games included, plus one early bird. On top of those games, they run a special Letter-X game for an additional $2 per card, a special tic-tac-toe game for $3 each, pull-tabs, and as aforementioned Queen of Hearts. Regular round robin games payout from $40 - $100, with specials paying a $200 consolation and up to big progressive wins that have been over $2K.
One downside to this hall is, since it is in a basement, there are several pillars that obstruct the view of the called numbers board. For the early bird, they do provide a worksheet to mark numbers and bring back to your seat, so you don't have to stand next to the board if you can't see behind a pillar. I don't love this of course, but if you get here early enough, you can get a spot with a clear view of the board.
One perk of this hall though is their frequent player punch card. With every punch, you get a raffle ticket for a chance at a fun raffle basket each week. Ten punches gets you a free early bird. I play at several halls, and don't know of any other that has a free raffle chance each week for loyalty players, so very nice indeed.
Overall I like the atmosphere of this bingo hall. It is bright and clean, and although a bit tight on space, the folks crammed in are friendly and fun. And ... drum roll please ... for my second visit I won a regular bingo all to myself and took home forty bucks! A win definitely has a way of making you like a hall more, haha. Even so, I genuinely enjoy playing at Saint John's, and look forward to my next visit! read more