The Lightning Bug - MARS

Do not go here! The restaurant is dirty, understaffed, and the employees are disrespectful. My children refuse to come back and I am surprised they are still open.

We had a birthday party here a year ago and it was not a good experience. I forgot to write a detailed review at the time, but decided to overlook it because our kids enjoy this place. However, after visiting today, I feel it's time to leave a negative review. Unfortunately, my daughter broke her arm while playing on the jungle gym slide, which may not be the restaurant's fault, but it's a sign for us to avoid returning. On top of that, many of the machines are not working properly and the place appears to be poorly maintained with a dirty floor. During our previous visit for the party, the room was not cleaned before our arrival, with cake crumbs and dirty utensils left behind. I would recommend spending your money elsewhere.

I am updating my review from about a year ago. The Lightning Bug is a convenient restaurant near Mars. The prices are a little higher than Fun Fore All nearby, and kids can quickly spend $20 to $30 in just 30 minutes. I always hesitate a bit at the value for that money. Unfortunately, more and more of the arcade machines are not working properly, yet still accepting money. The staff is friendly, but the lack of maintenance and care is making it less appealing to visit. The food is similarly overpriced and of poor quality. It may still be worth a quick outing, but it is becoming less and less attractive over time.

A lot smaller than expected. It was clean though. Not much for a young toddler to do; more for older kids. The playground area is definitely for older kids and was over run with bigger kids so no little kids could even play. It much much smaller than expected as well. The food was awful. We had to send our burgers back because they were not cooked. They were just greasy and tasteless. The gluten free bun was hard as a rock as well. When we first got there we saw 2 employees and we had to wait 10 minutes for someone to take our order. Throughout our stay more employees showed up and the majority were helpful. Overall kinda disappointed; we were expecting much more.

We arrived at 545 on a Friday. It wasn't very crowded so we ordered food right away. Cheeseburgers, a bacon cheese hotdog and a large order of fries. The food was pretty good for child's place. The burgers were angus beef and somewhat flavorful. Buns were a step above your standard bun. No seeds, just plain and soft. The french fries were like shoe strings fries but a little bigger. The service kind of sucked though. My son's burger and my burger came out first. My husbands hotdog and our fries didn't come out until we had finished the burgers. They also had salad, pizza, ice cream and coffee. My husband had to ask about the rest of our order before they made the rest. After we ate we went to buy a card to use in the arcade. The cashier informed my husband that there was a family package deal going on that included pizza and a game card for $50 the food counter workers failed to mention. So we ended up spending more than what we could of. Although no one wanted pizza. My son played in the jungle gym for about 10 minutes or so. No shoes allowed. Lots of younger kids come here. Seems appropriate for kids 2 8. There were a couple older kids but mostly younger children. The arcade part has games of all kinds and they are made shorter so young kids can play. We won tons of tickets and had a great time. We also played the black light mini putt putt. That was only $5 per play or 50pts from the game card. There was a ton of really cool paintings and statues that glowed under the black light. After we were done we cashed in some of our points. Lots of options for prizes and seemed reasonable. We didn't use all of our points since we plan to come back another time. I used the bathroom while I was there and the toilets were clean however there were paper towels on the floor. My 3 year old said it was great and he loved it there. That is exactly why we went! It was a good time for everyone. I think this would be a great place for a birthday party.