Painted Duck

Top choice in Atlanta


You enter this incredible basement adult playground under a wordless neon green-and-white duck sign and through a graffitied, black-lit hallway that will make you feel like drinking and gaming is an illicit activity. Once inside: jaw drop! Sixteen lanes of chargeable duckpin bowling against a 50ft street-art-mural backdrop of migrating ducks and wildlife.

And the remaining distractions are free: Belgian feather bowling (a sort of curling/bowling hybrid), snookball (a kind of soccer pool), shuffleboard, horseshoes, basketball and more. There is a long and sociable central bar pouring a surprisingly craft lineup of beer and cocktails, and elevated bar food (fried duck-confit nuggets, pulled-pork sandwiches served on Hawaiian rolls) to go with it. There's also a small and seemingly wimpy (by comparison) air-hockey table – ain't nobody got time for that here!


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Atlanta attractions

1. Center for Puppetry Arts

1.58 MILES

A wonderland for visitors of all ages and hands down one of Atlanta's most unique attractions, the museum – expanded in 2015 – houses a treasury of…

2. High Museum of Art

1.61 MILES

Atlanta's modern High Museum was the first to exhibit art from Paris' Louvre and is a destination as much for its architecture as its world-class exhibits…

3. Breman Museum

1.63 MILES

Atlanta has the largest Jewish population in the South (outside of South Florida, which is its own region). The Breman Museum explores this history of…

4. Georgia Aquarium

1.63 MILES

Atlanta's showstopper. It's crowded, but the appeal of this aquarium, the second largest in the US, is hard to deny: whale sharks, playful sea lions at…

5. Margaret Mitchell House & Museum

1.69 MILES

Operated by the Atlanta History Center, this home has been converted into a shrine to the author of Gone With the Wind. Mitchell wrote her epic in a small…

6. Center for Civil and Human Rights

1.75 MILES

The striking Center for Civil and Human Rights was a 2014 addition to Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park. It is a sobering $68-million memorial to the…

7. World of Coca-Cola

1.78 MILES

This self-congratulatory museum might prove entertaining to fans of fizzy beverages and rampant commercialization. The climactic moment comes when guests…

8. Centennial Olympic Park

1.8 MILES

Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park is the city's focal point for visitors. The park itself features a dancing Fountain of Rings water fountain, a Quilt of…