Does Your Poolroom Allow Players to Eat While Playing?

ChrisinNC said:

One of the hardest rules for us to enforce here for our non-regular players, who come in planning to eat and play pool, is letting them know before they order, that in order to maintain our tables in top condition for everyone's benefit, we don't allow players to eat while playing. That is also clearly stated on our menus. We politely explain to them that when their food comes out, we'll suspend their time, so they are not paying for pool time while they eat.

Sounds simple, and most of our regulars respect this rule, but there have always been people who continue to press the limits on this policy. When you're serving french fries, hot wings, burgers with all kinds of messy toppings, there is absolutely no way they can take bites between shots, even if they use a napkin after every bite, without transferring grease, ketchup, etc. from their hands to the cloth - resulting in a permanent stain that will be there until the table is recovered.

Even our regular tournament players, when they've ordered food during the tournament, try to sneak bites during a match while their opponent is shooting, when I'm not looking. Anyway, just curious how other poolrooms handle this issue, in a constant struggle to keep our cloth free of stains without angering and driving off customers?

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How do you know people had clean hands when they walked in the door? Do you make everyone wash their hands before playing? Sounds like you are making a mountain out of a mole hill. Have napkin dispensers everywhere, hand out wet-naps with messy finger food, and learn to relax.

I'm sympathetic with the OP's sentiments, it really bugs me when folks abuse their own equipment let alone somebody else's table.

It's fighting a losing battle in many establishments, of course. Where I play we just consider ourselves lucky if the beverage spilled is not Guinness or black sambuca.

So I wonder if you halt their table time while they eat? I wonder if you make them turn in their balls with the food order? I wonder if any of the people who abuse the rule have ever gotten ketchup on the Simonis? I wonder if you let them eat Ketcup. I wonder if anyone ever quits playing pool because they got hungry? I wonder if they resumed their pool game, and table time after eating? I wonder if, with anyone eating and playing pool at the same time, anytime they want, and you making money on them 2 ways at a time, if you couldn't afford to now recover a table once in a while in the very rare event it got a stain on it, with the enhanced revenue of more pool being played for time, more people playing longer and no quitting due to hunger, and increased food sales?

And the tourists who haven't figured out chalk, just look how much money they save you in Masters.

I mean really it sounds like if a table starts to show signs of use you may stop using it to keep it looking good.

gesan said:

Tell them any damage to table and or cloth is on them.

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Good luck with that!

A place that is struggling for customers will have to concede to the customer for fear of losing them. A place that is not struggling for customers can make whatever rules they deem necessary to ensure their business remains in the condition they wish it to remain in.

I personally never eat and shoot pool, don't want the distraction or the mess anywhere near my equipment. I do like when my opponent has food delivered. Even the best shooters get distracted when they are hungry and there is delicious food right on that table over there. It keeps at least a portion of their mind away from the table and usually causes them to rush. If they do touch the cueball at any time I am sure to give it a good wipe down at the earliest convenience.

chris do like alot of rooms and have the front tables for the good players and have rules on those tables. have the ones in back for the fun players and let them have fun so they come back.

They allow us to eat and play, but only if we break in the proper direction.

j/k

We order a large order of wings, more than we can finish at once, cuz they are great to snack on with beer. If we were not allowed this, we would play (and drink) elsewhere.

However, it sounds like you have the recipe for success.

ChrisinNC said:

I'm guessing these are some of the same people that would not think twice about using Kamui chalk on tables at a poolroom.

One of the main things I've learned in my 22 years in business here - you can't please everybody.

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Also, probably some of the same people who brazenly expect to eat popcorn in a movie theater, or, gasp, sleep in their hotel beds.

Imagine this:

All the tables are rented and everyone orders food, vacating to the designated eating area.

A group comes in looking to shoot some pool and have a good time. Let's say they're cerebrating a birthday.

They arrive to a ghost town. "Sorry, guys. All the tables are out. Gonna have to wait"
...Not a soul insight.

Eventually, they get a table, settle-in, order some food, and are ready to go... "Not so fast, guys. Not in here, sir... You're breaking from the wrong side. Move those balls to the other end."

Food comes. "Sorry, guys no eating and playing. Gonna have to go over there if you plan on eating that burger.

I know the scenario is taken to an almost absurd level, but still.

ChrisinNC said:

For those that think they are entitled to do anything they want, when they want, and not follow our simple rules, we don't need them here. I love to eat in here and I love to play pool. I don't feel like it's unreasonable to ask players to take a break to eat instead of eating while playing. Our food operation is good enough that nearly 90% of our customers that come through the doors here have never once played pool here, but nearly 100% of our customers that play pool here also eat here.

All of our regular players respect this rule, though sometimes they have to be reminded. They realize how good they have it here particularly when they happen to go to another poolroom, but they always make the effort to come back here, even after they've moved away.

This thread has been enlightening to me in understanding how selfish many people are, in regards to having respect for others and respect for rules, or lack of. I'm guessing these are some of the same people that would not think twice about using Kamui chalk on tables at a poolroom.

One of the main things I've learned in my 22 years in business here - you can't please everybody.

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So that's it? Your take away from this thread is that people are selfish?

If you don't want to hear the truth about how people feel why did you bother asking?

You are absolutely correct that you can't please everyone and everyone isn't your customer. And when enough of people aren't pleased and aren't your customer you will be yet another room closing the doors. And you'll blame everyone and every thing but yourself. Wait for it.

JC

ChrisinNC said:

You're right - I will admit that I'm sacrificing potential food sales as well as potential pool table rental income by having and enforcing this rule. So be it, I've clearly accepted that I've made this concession to keep our pool tables in top condition, and at least for now, I can live with that.

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I play regularly in probably the busiest pool room in the country with over 40 gold crowns. This place is busy from noon til closing almost everyday. They offer free pool with lunch, which draws a considerable crowd. I could not remotely imagine how much business they would lose if they adopted the policy that you enforce.

This is a players room and most of the regulars are very picky about the equipment and do not allow other patrons to abuse the place. So the equipment remains in very good shape, although we all complain when a ball rolls off. We are pool players afterall.

As a former pool room owner myself, I rarely had any cases where the equipment was negatively affected by a food-eating pool player. It just doesn't happen enough to justify the policy. By my calculations, one regular player, who might come in the room once/week would be worth roughly $100/month. That rate goes up significantly if that customer is a food eating pool player. I could easily stomach the cost of replacing the felt even if I had to recover a table once a month on avg.

Anyway the bottom line is you will and should do what you think is right. If it were me, however, before I would implement such a policy, I would raise my food prices to cover the cost of table maintenance before I would restrict your most valued customers from enjoying a meal while shooting pool. What I hated more than seeing sticky fingers on the felt, which was extremely rare, was seeing a group leave the room to get a bite to eat. As a side note, I had a bigger problem with spilled drinks vs. food anyway, and there was no way I was going to stop selling drinks. :wink:

$2.00 per Day x 350 Days per Year = $700.00 per Year

When I asked a former room owner in my area about the wear and tear on the cloth from the food and drinks crowd his response was this... If a table can't make me $2.00 a day so I can recover it a couple times a year then I am probably in the wrong business. The $$$ from food and drinks definitely off sets the cloth maintenance expense for the year. When he put it to me that way I completely understood why he let them do it.

Have a great day evryone...!!!

I never heard of this one before and I ran several rooms that all served food. The only rule I had was no drinks on the rails! We always had tables and shelves by the pool tables for people to set their food. I was in the business of running poolrooms/bars for well over twenty years and never had a problem serving food. My attitude was that by serving people food they would stay longer. It seemed to work out pretty well but what do I know? :grin:

ChrisinNC said:

I guess I was hoping serious pool players here would respect my position on this matter, but apparently based on the majority of responses, I was wrong. It's kind of depressing for me to realize this is the way it is these days. I guess for most players, just playing pool isn't enough - it's the entire experience of playing pool, eating, drinking, smoking, etc. that they are after, and likely not in that order of priority.

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I am a serious player and I don't play worth a darn if I'm too hungry. The entire experience you speak of is called "living". Serious players play a long time and that requires food. And they don't like a half hour down from playing just to exclusively eat. Life is too short and pool is too important.

It has nothing to do with "these days". People haven't really changed all that much. Lighten up and enjoy your business. It sounds like you have a really nice thing going on there.

JC

Maybe, serve no food whatsoever, and nothing to drink. No soda machines, nothing. Have a water fountain in the corner.

But, by the way, see if you can stay in business. Some hazards come with the business.

All the best,
WW

ChrisinNC said:

As I've said before, we have very few serious players. Almost all the people I'm having to enforce this rule with are not gamblers, they are not even pool players. They are families and kids - many who have never played before, and most don't have the common sense to wipe the ketchup and grease from french fries and hot sauce from hot wings off of their fingers as they are eating between taking shots.

They'll rake the balls around with their sticks, they'll all at the same time have this game where they'll hit any moving ball on the table - all doing it at the same time. The young ones will take the butts of the cues and use them to hit the balls - dragging the butt of the cue across the cloth and putting black streaks on the cloth from the black rubber bumpers dragging across the cloth. They'll sit on the rails, which breaks the cushions loose from the subrails, requiring repair.

You cannot believe the kind of damage people can do to a table if allowed to do what they want, unsupervised, and that includes adults, and the parents are oblivious to what their kids are doing on the next table, right in front of them. Then the parents will get upset at me if I (as politely as I can) ask them to tell their kids to stop what they are doing - that we don't allow that as it causes damage to the tables / balls / cues. They usually leave shortly after that. I assume that's my fault and I should just let them to whatever they want, huh?

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Chris, it sounds like you have some real slobs hanging around your nice poolroom. My last poolroom was in the "hood" in South Central L.A. I don't even want to tell you what kind of crowd I had coming in there. Let's just say it was not a high end clientele. And we went out on a limb serving things like nachos with cheese (so messy), burgers with all the toppings (luscious but dripping with stuff), double cheese pizza (you know what a mess they make), overflowing burritos with everything but the kitchen sink thrown in, and the list goes on. Of course we were also serving drinks, including alcoholic beverages, with all this food. Just one more opportunity for them to do some serious damage to the cloth.

You would think I'd need an army of helpers to clean up the mess every night, but all I had was my day man who kept busy cleaning the cloth and the balls after he opened. I'm trying to remember how much time he spent cleaning food stains off the tables and cues, but for the life of me I don't remember him ever telling me about that. I do remember the blood stains and hair from one of the two fights that took place on my premises, but even they managed to keep their food on their plate. I guess I was just lucky!

By the way, if I ever saw anyone banging the balls with the side of their cue or shooting with the butt end or sitting on the rails, they would get just one warning. If it happened again they were out of there! So in that respect we're alike. My clientele kind of knew what I expected (my poolroom was neutral territory and strictly there as place to have fun and enjoy themselves) and conducted themselves accordingly. When the no smoking ordinance went into effect, I added an outdoor patio for the smokers. If they tried to smoke inside they also got one warning. On the second occasion I would got over and politely remove the cigarette from their mouth and put it out. Some people didn't like this tactic and I had one gangster type tell me that he would kill me if I ever did that again. I told him he would have to kill me and eat me, because those are the rules in here. All his buddies started laughing after I said that. He tried not to laugh, but pretty soon he smiled and put his pack of cigs away.

ChrisinNC said:

I guess I was hoping serious pool players here would respect my position on this matter, but apparently based on the majority of responses, I was wrong. It's kind of depressing for me to realize this is the way it is these days. I guess for most players, just playing pool isn't enough - it's the entire experience of playing pool, eating, drinking, smoking, etc. that they are after, and likely not in that order of priority.

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If by "serious pool players" you meant touring pros then you should know most of them have been run off az forums long ago. But if you mean people who are passionate about the game of pool I think you have had many reasonable responses here. Just because they didn't all agree with you doesn't mean that they are wrong, that you are wrong, or that they are not serious players. I worked at a pool hall for many years. We served food. I can't remember one case where someone ruined the cloth from food. Trying masse shots when they shouldn't have been? Yes. Trying illegal jump shots when they shouldn't have been? Yes. Food? Never. It just never happened. Now if you are serving wings dripping in sauce and you are convinced those will be the end of your business, then don't serve them.

You mention people not having respect for the tables, hitting the balls with the end of the cues, raking balls with the cues, etc. But those things don't involve the food which was the crux of your question. People can love playing pool and still need to eat or still need to drink something and that doesn't diminish their love for pool. Honestly I understand where you are coming from, I like my equipment to be in pristine condition, and as a player I am sure I would love to come play on your tables. That being said, the reason the replies are so one sided is because you run things in a very unusual way from most of the rest of the business. As many have said, it appears to be working for you so that is great and best of luck in the future but please don't think that just because the responses are not the way you hoped that means there is a lack of serious players giving input.