116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Backyard BBQ brings restaurant, sports complex to former Westdale Bowling Center
Eat pickles and barbecue as you play pickleball and basketball
Nov. 5, 2025 6:00 am, Updated: Nov. 5, 2025 8:52 am
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CEDAR RAPIDS — An old pastime in Cedar Rapids is finding new life in other sports such as basketball, boxing and barbecue.
Six years after Westdale Bowling Center closed in southwest Cedar Rapids, the complex’s massive 43,000-square-foot space reopened over the summer with a few new sights and smells.
Two Cedar Rapids entrepreneurs, one with a pedigree from well-known restaurants, have brought the outdoors indoors with Backyard BBQ.
If you go:
Address: 2020 Scotty Drive SW, Cedar Rapids
Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.
Phone: (319) 247-0747
Website: backyardbbqiowa.com
Details: Find Texas-style barbecue with Asian-inspired fusions in a cozy atmosphere. Then, try your hand at a variety of sports available just down the hallway.
Food available for dine-in and carryout with online ordering.
How it happened
For years, the seasonal nature of Space Walk, an inflatables rental business for things like bounce houses, has posed a conundrum for owner Khamnoth Lovanh.
Every October, as temperatures drop and business draws to a close for the year, his seasonal employees are forced to look elsewhere for winter work.
“After that, it’s always letting my employees go and then trying to find new employees (the following year,)” Lovanh said. “I wanted to create something where it’s like the backyard, where summertime never ends.”
In addition to the significant storage space Backyard BBQ’s building allows for his inflatables during the off season, the restaurant space allows employees to make a living throughout the year.
Westdale Bowling Center, 2020 Scotty Drive SW, closed in November 2019 before sustaining significant damage in the 2020 derecho. The property changed hands once before it was sold to Lovanh in 2023.
What started as an idea for a restaurant quickly turned into a multipurpose building as sports teams asked Lovanh to use his facility for practices.
What’s inside
For two years, Lovanh and partner Sandy Ting gutted the entire facility with their team, transforming what was more than 40 bowling lanes into two primary spaces: a cozy restaurant and a large, multipurpose gymnasium.
Inside Backyard BBQ’s dining room, repurposed bowling lanes line tabletops, matching the warmth of modern wood paneling lining the walls.
With seating for about 70, barbecue smoke is the first thing diners will smell at the bar and tables beneath lush green accents that bring the outdoors inside — all lit by strings of Edison bulbs.
The rest of the space is dominated by an all-in-one gym. Inside, pickleball courts, batting cages, cornhole setups and a boxing ring surround a central basketball court.
Pickleball is available by reservation from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. Los Primos Boxing Club runs the boxing ring, and other tenants keep the gym busy with weekly practice for baseball and softball teams.
On the sidelines, a faux food truck painted on the wall comes to life when its kitchen windows open, allowing sports patrons to order from the same menu as restaurant diners. Wood picnic tables nearby give them a place to refuel in between swings and throws.
The food
“What goes well with backyard?” Lovanh asked.
Barbecue, naturally.
Ting, who previously owned the storied Teddy’s Bigger Burgers in Iowa City and whose family owns Ting’s Red Lantern in Cedar Rapids, brings the experience necessary to make a restaurant concept come to life with Lovanh.
With Texas-style meats and inspiration from their Asian heritages, the couple’s new menu offers a unique fusion. Trained on barbecue in Mesquite, Texas, their centerpiece’s style stays true to Texas. Brisket bark is heavy on black pepper, seasoning sticks with salt and pepper, and all of it is smoked over white oak.
“White oak is the most mellow smoke, so it doesn’t have an overpowering flavor,” Lovanh said.
After taking a barbecue tour of the country, they decided on a Texas style that allowed for low, slow cooking and a more artistic flair. In addition to the flavor, Texas barbecue was where they found a strong sense of community.
The menu offers two curated pages of classics like Pile High Frito Pie macaroni and cheese, smash burgers and pulled pork sandwiches. Pickled onions are made from scratch, burgers are made with succulent brisket trimmings and cocktails are made with an outdoors theme.
Sauces are simple: an “original” sweet barbecue, and a sweeter than average mustard style.
But Lovanh’s Laotian heritage and Ting’s Taiwanese heritage bring something new to the table that sets the menu apart from the rest of the barbecue crowd.
Diners can order fried rice with their choice of meat — pulled pork, ribs or brisket. Egg rolls are stuffed with pork ground in house.
Soon, the couple also hopes to incorporate other Asian inspirations, like pho and ramen noodles, in addition to other barbecue classics like cornbread with honey butter.
“We want to be more inspired by what we grew up with,” Lovanh said.
The owners met nearly 10 years ago, when Lovanh was making boba tea at Asian Fest.
“I was introduced (to her) because boba tea originated from Taiwan,” he said.
As they started to become better acquainted, one of their favorite date spots was in the backyard, where they would relax and enjoy food.
Now, the thing they loved is the thing they do for a living together.
Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.
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