Pools rooms you don't mind that closed

slach said:

The only pool hall reasonably near me closed down a few years ago. There were no leagues or tourneys or bar. Did have some decent (Gandy) nine footers but with some thick fuzzy carpet cloth on them. Smudgy, generic balls. Rates were way high, like $17/hr for one player in the evening. Catered mostly to well off college students on date nights, otherwise deserted during the day.

The upside to the closing is another room opened in the town over. Leagues, tourneys, big bar, adults only, gold crowns, centennial balls, bar boxes and management/staff that know pool. You see a lot of serious players playing/practicing during the day and a nice crowd at night of people having fun.

Click to expand...

I've been in all kinds of spots over the years but can honestly say i've never celebrated the closing of any of them. The one's i didn't really like i just didn't frequent unless maybe there was easy action to be had. Pool rooms are generally Darwinism-in-action and those that make it usually do so for a reason. No reason to gloat over one that fails. Tough business.

slach said:

The only pool hall reasonably near me closed down a few years ago. There were no leagues or tourneys or bar. Did have some decent (Gandy) nine footers but with some thick fuzzy carpet cloth on them. Smudgy, generic balls. Rates were way high, like $17/hr for one player in the evening. Catered mostly to well off college students on date nights, otherwise deserted during the day.

The upside to the closing is another room opened in the town over. Leagues, tourneys, big bar, adults only, gold crowns, centennial balls, bar boxes and management/staff that know pool. You see a lot of serious players playing/practicing during the day and a nice crowd at night of people having fun.

Click to expand...

Palace Billiards. Villa Park, IL.

I lived about two miles from the place. Always lousy rude staff with some real dumb ass "rules". Went in there once in the middle of winter at lunch, was maybe one of two people in the whole place, and before I could even really get settled in the dumb sh!t comes over and says we have a no hat rule. This was in regard to the knit hat I had on covering my frozen ears. That is how dumb they were. I got up and left. The look on their face was priceless. Also went to the two WPBA events they had there. They tried to run me out of the place because I had the audacity to go over to the bleachers and eat a hot dog while watching the matches rather than sticking to the dinky bar area with the "food". This was also one of the first places I ever went into and they actually wanted to hold a drivers license to get the balls (maybe common now but definitely not back then - never had to at Chris's). The idiots lost my buddy's ID.

Hopefully the guy (Abruzzo?) lost a lot of money. Some people just don't get it. Good riddance.

Now I'm just waiting for the Nits to try to defend the "rules"

The Break, Birmingham, Alabama...downright dangerous. I believe people were shot there more than once.

RichSchultz said:

The Break, Birmingham, Alabama...downright dangerous. I believe people were shot there more than once.

Click to expand...

Multiple shootings or same people shot multiple times??

Multiple shootings or same people shot multiple times??

Let’s just say, yes.

slach said:

The only pool hall reasonably near me closed down a few years ago. There were no leagues or tourneys or bar. Did have some decent (Gandy) nine footers but with some thick fuzzy carpet cloth on them. Smudgy, generic balls. Rates were way high, like $17/hr for one player in the evening. Catered mostly to well off college students on date nights, otherwise deserted during the day.

The upside to the closing is another room opened in the town over. Leagues, tourneys, big bar, adults only, gold crowns, centennial balls, bar boxes and management/staff that know pool. You see a lot of serious players playing/practicing during the day and a nice crowd at night of people having fun.

Click to expand...

Agreed that for avid pool players like us, the closing of a poolroom is nothing to celebrate, but offhand, here in North Carolina, I can think of two poolrooms in recent years that were not well planned out or well managed, and both ended up closing the doors after just a few years.

One was Kramer & Eugene's, in Concord, NC, which opened and closed within just a few short years, roughly 20 years ago. A ridiculously upscale room that had mega $$ pumped in to it, but little common sense planning for what it takes to run a poolroom - particularly regarding managing costs / overhead.

More recently, Chandley's Chalk & Cue in Statesville, NC opened and closed within the past few years. Located in a very small market, it had very little atmosphere with nearly 60 Diamond tables in one large space, poor lighting, poor seating areas for the tables, and poorly managed. Much like Kramer & Eugene's, it was just a matter of time until it was doomed to close the doors.

RichSchultz said:

The Break, Birmingham, Alabama...downright dangerous. I believe people were shot there more than once.

Click to expand...

I was gonna chime in about "The Break" also. There were a couple shootings there I know of, (all around that area & B'ham in general). I was in Southside today and they have razed the building, gonna build condos or something

garczar said:

I've been in all kinds of spots over the years but can honestly say i've never celebrated the closing of any of them. The one's i didn't really like i just didn't frequent unless maybe there was easy action to be had. Pool rooms are generally Darwinism-in-action and those that make it usually do so for a reason. No reason to gloat over one that fails. Tough business.

Click to expand...

"You must spread some rep around before giving any to garczar again."

no real pool room

I can't think of a single real pool room, good, bad, or ugly, that I was happy to see close. I have seen people try to put in very cheap poor home quality tables a few times that I never returned to and was unsurprised to see closed. The tables banked so poorly that I made up my mind the first time I played on them I would make no effort to adapt to them. Cloth that was worn out in a few weeks of play. Pockets falling loose in that same few weeks. I can play on good tables or bad but these hardly qualified as tables!

Hu

jimmyco said:

"You must spread some rep around before giving any to garczar again."

Click to expand...

Not sure what you're saying here.

garczar said:

Not sure what you're saying here.

Click to expand...

..........

Black-Balled said:

..........

Click to expand...

Still have no clue. This place is getting too weird.

---------------------

garczar said:

Still have no clue...

Click to expand...

I agree with you about not celebrating failure.

Black-Balled said:

..........

Click to expand...

Hahahahaha. :grin:

Classics in Crest Hill, Illinois.
Owner was a know-nothing piece of shit.
Cussed at and threw out Don Feeney -the guy who helped him get started. I hope he lost everything and died penniless.

ChrisinNC said:

Agreed that for avid pool players like us, the closing of a poolroom is nothing to celebrate, but offhand, here in North Carolina, I can think of two poolrooms in recent years that were not well planned out or well managed, and both ended up closing the doors after just a few years.

One was Kramer & Eugene's, in Concord, NC, which opened and closed within just a few short years, roughly 20 years ago. A ridiculously upscale room that had mega $$ pumped in to it, but little common sense planning for what it takes to run a poolroom - particularly regarding managing costs / overhead.

More recently, Chandley's Chalk & Cue in Statesville, NC opened and closed within the past few years. Located in a very small market, it had very little atmosphere with nearly 60 Diamond tables in one large space, poor lighting, poor seating areas for the tables, and poorly managed. Much like Kramer & Eugene's, it was just a matter of time until it was doomed to close the doors.

Click to expand...

You mentioned Kramer & Eugenes . . . I was lucky enough to get a tour from Helena Thornfeldt of the private room upstairs. It was a members only area called "The 9 of Clubs" which was not cheap to join. It was just awesome with 1 of each iconic Brunswick antique. Iron Leg Monarch, Anniversary, Centennial, Kling and a 12ft Snooker table. A pool lovers dream. There was also a card room with fireplace and a walk in humidor. I was in no way trying to be a member I was just curious to see because I had heard how cool it was. She was nice enough to give a quick tour.

If I ever win the lottery my mancave will be modeled taking many ideas from the 9 of Clubs. It was awesome.