I've been playing with various things to do in my retirement. I have a wide range of skills from business, as well as some hobbies. Pool has been one of the hobbies, mainly from years ago, but now I have time to play again if I wish, and some of the knowledge needed to look into a pool hall as a business.
I've asked in this forum before on what it would take to have a shot at a financially successful new pool room. I've gotten very solid responses, and thanks to the experienced people who have shared their knowledge and ideas. Things like:
- No waitstaff, one person serves and runs everything at the counter.
- Only canned and bottled beverages (and count the empties against the receipts) - no draft beer, no mixing drinks. You could provide miniatures and set-ups, I guess.
- Vending service for snacks and music, and whatever big screen TV arrangements are needed - but they are needed.
- Try to lock in multiple league nights.
- Poker table tops or folding tables for poker tournaments, if local demand can be created (check city ordinances)
- Enough darts lanes for league play, if local demand can be created, and maybe some dart supplies in a case if that business is good. (But I have read the caution that pool players and darts players tend to not mix well, the darts players being more rowdy, or more sociable, depending upon your point of view.
I would like to work on increasing the revenue from pool play as a component of total revenue. I also think that, even given best practice, opening a pool room today is far from what I believe pool players refer to as a lock.
I know many pool rooms are successful today and have been for years - they have to be doing a large number of things well. The following is about what I think would be needed now and in the future (in addition to the assumed good management, league attraction, etc) to increase the number of sustainable pool rooms. To some I imagine it will sound like "read em and weep" and some will find it outlandish, absurd. Nevertheless...
We can start from a typical strip mall lease, where 1000-1200 sqft per unit is available. We then say we want to be able to potentially put a pool room next to every Schlotsky's or Subway or Papa John's/Domino's, and have it work financially. What does that take?
If you put 7' tables in a room, and even fudge to allow that all space around each table (5' per side) is shared by tables, it takes over 100 sqft per table to play. That's too much space to be able to charge what is needed to be viable as a business renting that space and equipment.
In comparison, you only need about 40 sqft for darts play.
The standard answer here at azbilliards, and I agree, is you have to sell other stuff; alcohol, primarily. So what you have is a bar (the primary source of revenue) that attracts people who like to play pool and drink. I'd like to try to avoid that path, at least as a planning exercise to see what changes would be required. Clearly the floor space per game has to be much reduced.
I looked into British pub pool tables, like the popular Supreme Winner and some nicer and more expensive SAM tables. (I've read that pool is in decline over there, giving caution to following this way blindly.) Tournaments are played on 7' tables, but 6' tables are very common. These tables use snooker pockets (approximate in shape and size, 3.25-3.5") and 2" balls (instead of the US 2.25" or snooker's 2.125").
These smaller tables have positive attributes:
+1 they take less floor space
+2 they continue the move towards equalizing play between people who tend to be shorter (women and younger people) and taller (men). This is positive since it may help attract more women players and another generation of players. This could be a small contribution to a huge change.
+3 they still allow for a game of variable difficulty, since smaller pockets can (and are) used to keep the game at an "interesting" level, and pocket size (and ball size) can be chosen to set how hard you want play to be.
+4 the availability of smaller balls (both pool and snooker) allows games with many balls (like snooker (albeit with 10 reds) and 8-ball) to still be played on these tables.
+5 6' tables as a commercial standard would, if successful, help legitimize the home convertible dining-pool table, for homes with a dining room (perhaps 15'x12', not unusual in the US) but no dedicated pool room. I imagine this may be an attractive tradeoff or compromise for an increased number of spouses (of both sexes) compared to today.
On the down side:
-1. The inevitable massive resistance from those who prefer larger tables.
-2. The floor space requirement is not sufficiently reduced by the reduction of table size, saving only 6.5 sqft, or about 7%. We have to reduce the space between tables to make real progress.
Smaller tables and closer spacing means the cues can and should be shorter so they don't punch out or swing over adjacent tables. I would expect a lot of resistance among people owning their own cues.
We keep things simple, and pick table spacing of 4.5' (54") instead of 5', and put out 52" house cues. That gets us down to about 80 sqft per game, so a 20% improvement over 7' tables with 5' between them.
I bet a lot of rooms actually already space their 7' bar boxes about 4' apart and let the players sort out the use of their 58" cues in the confined space. That also gives you about 80 sqft per game.
Trying 4' between 6' tables gets us down to 70 sqft. That's 30% more tables, potentially, given the right room dimensions, and I would say a significant improvement, and as far as I can imagine pushing it - but not a true game-changer.
I think there is no need to contemplate tables smaller than 6'. There's just not anything to gain in increased floor space.
I'd also try raising the table height slightly, to 32"-34", with the thought it would be a disadvantage to few, may make the smaller area around the playing surface more tolerable for larger people, and would ease the back strain of older players a bit.
If those changes aren't enough (!), the only other thing I can think of is to create (or re-create) cue sports games where players only use one or two ends of the table. This could potentially help a great deal. For chess, opposing players sit opposite each other; perhaps pool games like this exist or could be popularized? Then the tables can be put with only about two feet between them on the non-playing sides. Or, in the extreme, all players play from one end of the table only, like darts, but no walking back and forth - we have ball returns for that. Then the tables could be placed against a wall, saving even more space. These thoughts seem radical to me, but popular games along these lines could make pool rooms much more financially viable, and much less dependent on the sale of alcohol to survive or prosper.
I would need to work on a layout based on 80-85 sqft / table in specific 1000-1200 sqft spaces to get a clearer idea of how well it would work out. First guess would be 10-12 tables -two rows of 5 or 6 running from front to back in the store. Counter, restroom, and storage area in back.
It still feels like a trout swimming upstream, though.
Is parking on league nights or tournament times an issue for anyone?
Lee
I've asked in this forum before on what it would take to have a shot at a financially successful new pool room. I've gotten very solid responses, and thanks to the experienced people who have shared their knowledge and ideas. Things like:
- No waitstaff, one person serves and runs everything at the counter.
- Only canned and bottled beverages (and count the empties against the receipts) - no draft beer, no mixing drinks. You could provide miniatures and set-ups, I guess.
- Vending service for snacks and music, and whatever big screen TV arrangements are needed - but they are needed.
- Try to lock in multiple league nights.
- Poker table tops or folding tables for poker tournaments, if local demand can be created (check city ordinances)
- Enough darts lanes for league play, if local demand can be created, and maybe some dart supplies in a case if that business is good. (But I have read the caution that pool players and darts players tend to not mix well, the darts players being more rowdy, or more sociable, depending upon your point of view.
I would like to work on increasing the revenue from pool play as a component of total revenue. I also think that, even given best practice, opening a pool room today is far from what I believe pool players refer to as a lock.
I know many pool rooms are successful today and have been for years - they have to be doing a large number of things well. The following is about what I think would be needed now and in the future (in addition to the assumed good management, league attraction, etc) to increase the number of sustainable pool rooms. To some I imagine it will sound like "read em and weep" and some will find it outlandish, absurd. Nevertheless...
We can start from a typical strip mall lease, where 1000-1200 sqft per unit is available. We then say we want to be able to potentially put a pool room next to every Schlotsky's or Subway or Papa John's/Domino's, and have it work financially. What does that take?
If you put 7' tables in a room, and even fudge to allow that all space around each table (5' per side) is shared by tables, it takes over 100 sqft per table to play. That's too much space to be able to charge what is needed to be viable as a business renting that space and equipment.
In comparison, you only need about 40 sqft for darts play.
The standard answer here at azbilliards, and I agree, is you have to sell other stuff; alcohol, primarily. So what you have is a bar (the primary source of revenue) that attracts people who like to play pool and drink. I'd like to try to avoid that path, at least as a planning exercise to see what changes would be required. Clearly the floor space per game has to be much reduced.
I looked into British pub pool tables, like the popular Supreme Winner and some nicer and more expensive SAM tables. (I've read that pool is in decline over there, giving caution to following this way blindly.) Tournaments are played on 7' tables, but 6' tables are very common. These tables use snooker pockets (approximate in shape and size, 3.25-3.5") and 2" balls (instead of the US 2.25" or snooker's 2.125").
These smaller tables have positive attributes:
+1 they take less floor space
+2 they continue the move towards equalizing play between people who tend to be shorter (women and younger people) and taller (men). This is positive since it may help attract more women players and another generation of players. This could be a small contribution to a huge change.
+3 they still allow for a game of variable difficulty, since smaller pockets can (and are) used to keep the game at an "interesting" level, and pocket size (and ball size) can be chosen to set how hard you want play to be.
+4 the availability of smaller balls (both pool and snooker) allows games with many balls (like snooker (albeit with 10 reds) and 8-ball) to still be played on these tables.
+5 6' tables as a commercial standard would, if successful, help legitimize the home convertible dining-pool table, for homes with a dining room (perhaps 15'x12', not unusual in the US) but no dedicated pool room. I imagine this may be an attractive tradeoff or compromise for an increased number of spouses (of both sexes) compared to today.
On the down side:
-1. The inevitable massive resistance from those who prefer larger tables.
-2. The floor space requirement is not sufficiently reduced by the reduction of table size, saving only 6.5 sqft, or about 7%. We have to reduce the space between tables to make real progress.
Smaller tables and closer spacing means the cues can and should be shorter so they don't punch out or swing over adjacent tables. I would expect a lot of resistance among people owning their own cues.
We keep things simple, and pick table spacing of 4.5' (54") instead of 5', and put out 52" house cues. That gets us down to about 80 sqft per game, so a 20% improvement over 7' tables with 5' between them.
I bet a lot of rooms actually already space their 7' bar boxes about 4' apart and let the players sort out the use of their 58" cues in the confined space. That also gives you about 80 sqft per game.
Trying 4' between 6' tables gets us down to 70 sqft. That's 30% more tables, potentially, given the right room dimensions, and I would say a significant improvement, and as far as I can imagine pushing it - but not a true game-changer.
I think there is no need to contemplate tables smaller than 6'. There's just not anything to gain in increased floor space.
I'd also try raising the table height slightly, to 32"-34", with the thought it would be a disadvantage to few, may make the smaller area around the playing surface more tolerable for larger people, and would ease the back strain of older players a bit.
If those changes aren't enough (!), the only other thing I can think of is to create (or re-create) cue sports games where players only use one or two ends of the table. This could potentially help a great deal. For chess, opposing players sit opposite each other; perhaps pool games like this exist or could be popularized? Then the tables can be put with only about two feet between them on the non-playing sides. Or, in the extreme, all players play from one end of the table only, like darts, but no walking back and forth - we have ball returns for that. Then the tables could be placed against a wall, saving even more space. These thoughts seem radical to me, but popular games along these lines could make pool rooms much more financially viable, and much less dependent on the sale of alcohol to survive or prosper.
I would need to work on a layout based on 80-85 sqft / table in specific 1000-1200 sqft spaces to get a clearer idea of how well it would work out. First guess would be 10-12 tables -two rows of 5 or 6 running from front to back in the store. Counter, restroom, and storage area in back.
It still feels like a trout swimming upstream, though.
Is parking on league nights or tournament times an issue for anyone?
Lee
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