Are there thriving pool rooms?

mikepage

mikepage

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
We frequently hear about how this is a down-time for pool and how a lot of rooms are struggling.

Can people name some examples of thriving pool rooms right now? If so, what do they do that's different--or are they just in the right place?

Are there places that have been successful bring new blood into in-house leagues? Are there places for which pool league is the cool upscale thing to do for lawyers and bankers and the like?
 
Amsterdam Billiards...

The busiest room I have ever played in was the original ABC, on the west side of Manhattan. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Paul Sorvino there once, at the time he was playing with a Schon cue very similar to one that I have. Saw Jerry Seinfeld playing on the table next to me, eavesdropping on the lssons I was giving to a new friend. Too bad they lost their lease. Haven't been to the new location yet, but from what I hear on this board, it will probably be even busier, just more crowded. I will miss the original on the west side.
 
mikepage said:
We frequently hear about how this is a down-time for pool and how a lot of rooms are struggling.

Can people name some examples of thriving pool rooms right now? If so, what do they do that's different--or are they just in the right place?

Are there places that have been successful bring new blood into in-house leagues? Are there places for which pool league is the cool upscale thing to do for lawyers and bankers and the like?
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Mr. Cues II in Atlanta is very successful. They have a league going every nite during the week and they have tournies on M,W and F. Their weekend traffic is strong too. They have a full menu and their bar business great. I have never seen them on a true "downtime".

Southpaw
 
We've got two within a few miles of each other with booming business.
One is just a super established place - been around for a few decades and is known as the action spot. All the players come threw here - there is a big 9-ball tournament (it actually got coverage in a recent newspaper article). Danny D' stops by regularly, Jennete Lee, Vivian, Ming, Corey Deuel are all faces not to uncommonly seen.

The other is a newer pool hall, 21 tables (18 of them cheap Gandy's). It's just filled with high-school / college kids. They have decent looking girls behind the bars, and friendly guys working the bars. The new owner is a real cool guy - he does 'Scenic Saturdays' where everyone is invited to join in dressing up for whatever theme it is.

For the $$ I'd go with making it a hang-out for the college kids, if there isn't any in your area then you've just got to push the action - and start a hell-of-a weekly tournament.

Leagues help a lot too.
 
Magoo's in Tulsa, OK generally has a 1+ hour wait for a table on Friday/Saturday nights...and that's with 40+ tables. They get a lot of the bar crowd in there, from what I can tell.
 
Barry Behrman's Q-Master Billiards in Virginia Beach seems to be doing very well. He has worked his ass off for years, in good times and bad. He has established a formula of overall quality and does his best to maintain that year after year. The amount of fans that frequent the US Open year after year can attest to that.
 
msh1283 said:
Magoo's in Tulsa, OK generally has a 1+ hour wait for a table on Friday/Saturday nights...and that's with 40+ tables. They get a lot of the bar crowd in there, from what I can tell.
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Magoo's was a nice place, but it seemed to have a lot of people trolling around making sure there wasn't any gambling. Everyone I talked to seemed to look down on it when I implied I might be looking for a game. Buncha nit yuppies! Billiard Palace down the road was more player friendly to me.
 
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Try Gold Crown Billiards in Erie,Pa.I would rate it as one of the nicest rooms in this country.It was going strong when I went through about a year ago. My most favorite though, is The Palace in Anchorage,Ak. Mark Griffin owns it,or did when I was there about 5 years ago.Its in the basement of a 50's motif restaurant and it really blew me away when I walk in. Every table in the place was an antique Brunswick's worth 10's of thousands, including 2 snooker tables he had brought up from the Palace in Frisco when it went out of business years back.I thought I had died and went to pool heaven.And if I'm not mistaken he was only charging 6$ an hour to play.I hope its still open and doing well. Thanks Mark Don:cool: :cool:
 
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