A room owners question

mvp

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
My local pool hall was a great place to play $4/hr on 15 gold crowns with a typical wait time to get a table. Any way the owner replaced all tables with 7ft diamonds. But now they refuse to rent hourly and they're a buck a game! The "players" have pretty much boycotted the place. I stopped in on wed (normally packed) and I was the only one there. I chatted with the manager, he claimed the owner will never rent hourly Again because the customers he lost by paying quarters he let go 3/4 of his staff and still comes out ahead! To you room owners, is it possible to get this guy back on hr rates? Even if it's a higher rate? The players relize the owner has bills to pay also!
 

Tronpocket

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Assuming. ..pool is the main source of revenue.

Points and reasons for hourly are....

Regardless of wether their hourly or "quarterly" .....someone still has to man the counter. You save nothing there.....

Quarterly?
Yes........1 or 2 "good"players can easily run thru a roll of 1/4s in under an hour .
10 a hour, sound like the MAXimum per table you can potentially make.....150 per hour for the room. Sounds ok.
But wait....thats a perfect scenario. ....it wont ever happen....ever.
At the other end of the spectrum....is you recreational customers.....they play for fun and entertainment ...there might be 4-6 people on a table, taking turns (and space)and taking a half hour per rack of eightball .....nets you 2 bucks. per hour.

At an reasonable hourly rate per player...or a hourly group rate per table you get paid per head per hour... not however long it takes to actually play a complete game......which is why you keep the rates low.
3-4$ p.p.days....4-5$p.p. nights and weekend. With 1 hr. Minimum and pro rate thereafter.
Group special maybe.
Maybe a day special like ten bucks from noon til 5 so the daytime regulars and retired can come and play /socialize.
If you get just 10-20 reliable regs that show up daily, covers most of the daily operations costs.

Really....Your "public bangers" are your bread.....the regulars are the butter.

And last. By going hourly.....you can bring back a few 9 footers just because you should accommodate all pool player/ pool enthusiasts preferences.
But keep most of the bar boxs .


Summary is you loose alot of potential revenue by using quarters.
You can have a full house of recreational bangers on a Saturdaynight... and make 40$ an hour.

Now, i was assuming the main bulk of revenues come from table time..
If this place has a profitable Bar/restaurant ?..i dont think you have a chance of swaying the owner back.

Good luck.
 

808billiards

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I will keep my reply very short. The pluses need to exceed the minuses. I always made the mistake of judging how profitable a business is by how busy they are. Always remember that only the owner and management know what their expenses and revenues are. It may not make any sense to pool players why pool hall owners implement certain things but I am will to bet that there is a logical reason for them implementing them. A lot of hours and time has been spent weighing out the positive and negatives for their actions. Bottom line is that revenue MUST exceed expenses.
 

Dan_B

AzB Gold Member
Gold Member
Silver Member
OP,
It has been not quite a month yet, what's business like now?

Are leagues filling the gap?

When you were there on that usually packed wed, did you drop a few bucks
of 1/4's or just chat a bit and then see ya later?
They had 15 GC, were they 9', how many 7' now?
We have 8 - 7' 1/4 drop diamonds, only busy an hr. before/during league
and fri 10ball tournament, Sat is party time from what I here don't know
what the table play is like, were open on Sunday but no more. The one
thing about coin drop for an owner is you get paid for all the play.

Would you play more 1/4 drop tables if the price was .75 or even .50
I've never done it, what if you brought another set of balls and dropped them in the table, when the coins drop you'll get 2 sets of balls, just
thinking here.

... the game with management more interesting. :smile:
 

mvp

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
The place is a ghost town! They have a APA league that's keeping it alive one night but word of mouth is killing it. I've heard it 2$ a game (untrue) but that's what the players are telling everyone. It's sad, but on the bright side a bar owner 20miles away installed 10 7ft diamonds and charges 5$/hr.

The failing place had (I may be off a little) 5-6 valleys for leagues/coins, 8 8ft gold crowns 5$hr, 4 9ft gold crowns 6$hr they sold all gold crowns, kept the valleys, replaced all others with 7ft diamonds.

Yesterday (Saturday) I stopped in at 3pm and they had 1 young couple with house cues on a valley, so I drove the 20 extra miles (farther) and the place was packed!!!! I guess when one door closes another one opens! And the new place started a league and 2 weekly tournaments.
 
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