business getting any better or worse?

Sad

My heart goes out to you guys. I wish you all the best of luck in weathering the storm and hope sunny days for all of you are just over the hill.

I'm now off to my local room (as I do just about daily) to help support him during the worst months of the year. As I tell all the regulars there, if you don't stop by in the summer, don't be surprised if it's gone when you're looking for it in the winter.

Ron F
 
Getting better.

My family recently took over Bay Billiards in Fox Lake, IL. At first it was kind of slow but with alot of fresh ideas and strong regular crowd we are picking up business daily, tables are about to get redone, new paint, and upgrades will hopefully kick us over into a sports bar with poolhall roots.
 
One last try

cueandcushion said:
Sorry to hear HighRun55
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Thanks Craig but with some more deep thought I have decided to try to hang in a while longer and see what the landlord does, if he wont work with me anymore i`ll wait and reverse it and let him give me the 90 days notice. that will buy a little more time to pray things get better.

The best of luck to all of us owners.

Highrun55
 
I sure wish you the best of luck, Highrun. If anyone deserves a break and some good customers it would be you.

Danny
 
WOODDALE72 said:
It's a different culture today. Kids migrated to video games and the internet instead of going to the pool room. It may never comeback in my lifetime. Around my area in the western burbs of Chicago almost all the rooms closed up. Oak Park Billiards after a 100 years in business goes under, the Green rooms and 63rd street billiards and the Lyons pool room are out of business. The only good places to play are Chris's, Red Shoes, ProTyme and the Illinois Billiard club.
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Hi,

We are looking forward to the fall season. Summer has been rough but I still remain optimistic about the future.

It's been my experience that the best revenue streams are established leagues 4 or 5 nights per week and the bar business. You need the bar for the leagues. The ball knockers are gone for now but they will return when employment goes up.

Pool halls without a bar will be hard to keep open unless you want to work for free.

Our pool hall is very lucky to have both leagues and a bar and in November we will be getting Slots and Video Pokers Machine sanctioned by the State of Il. That should help thing a lot.

Rick
 
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Michigan ban

Well the verdict is in here in Metro Detroit on the smoking ban that went into effect 4 1/2 months ago and its all bad news.Pool halls and bars and resturants are screaming as well as the lotto business got hit big time from a ban by the smokers in retaliation.Lets face it the non smokers aren't your day to day supporters they just wanted to push their own agenda and didn't care about the impact on the business owner.Like the owners said it should be up to the individual owner.By the way their is NO scientific evidence that 2nd hand smoke in a ventilated room is harmful.
 
Well I disagree about being NO scientific evidence that second hand smoke is harmful. Way too many people who worked in a smoking environment that never personally smoked are getting cancer or emphysema. Hard to argue coincidence for that. I do think it should be up to the state and not cities about smoking bans. Makes business on a level playing field that way. Or it should be federal since Washington is happiest when deciding how everyone should live their lives. Not a town by town decision.

We have two ventilation fans, 4 industrial smoke eaters, 4 ceiling fans, 3 air conditioning units and with all that filtration our room still has smokey nights that drive out customers. A system that can handle all that smoke is cost prohibitive to most businesses and not an option for many.
 
The rooms here in and around syracuse are real slow until traditionally after our state fair. The winter picks up dramatically.
 
Been told by more than one building owner, retail space is worth more empty for the deduction than being rented.............:(:(
 
pool room business...

Here in Upstate NY several of the pool room owners have specials (usually Mondays) where they let us play for $6.00 all day. The place gets pretty busy it seems...would a similiar deal work for other owners or do you think it"s just a regional thing up here?...kingoftow :confused:
 
not here

kingoftow said:
Here in Upstate NY several of the pool room owners have specials (usually Mondays) where they let us play for $6.00 all day. The place gets pretty busy it seems...would a similiar deal work for other owners or do you think it"s just a regional thing up here?...kingoftow :confused:
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Probably could work anywhere, most likely in the rooms that have beer and food, where pool is not their main income.

I dont have either so I would suffer giving that much time away.

highrun55
 
Went past a nice pool room here in Metro Detroit that has been their for at least 20 yrs and it was closed for good!.Another victim of the no smoking ban and economy. I wouldn't even know were to find a decent room here in metro Detroit and the bar owners are saying their business is down 30-40 percent due to the same.Of course the do gooders could careless there looking for their next crusade!!!
 
I am about to have the worst month in 8 years of this place being open. down 40% from last year and 50% from the year before. and we have no smoking ban here. the building owners don't even care for our woes and seem to rent out the other spaces to any 2 bit business thats willing to pay rent even if they are doing harm to the surrounding businesses.
 
Another pool room with food and bar closed here.This place was nice and had been at thi slocation for at least 15 yrs!GONE due to economy and no smoking ban!Hell this is the first year I have no place to play in the winter months without driving 15 miles.Metro Detroit is dying and the politicians are telling us whats good for us!!
 
Interesting that the smoking ban numbers are always the same. A loss of 30-40% of your business. I had the same numbers before I went down the tubes. Losing 30-40% of already crappy numbers just spells t-h-e-e-n-d. It was in my case.
Bob
 
really worried about the poolroom

Im just hanging by a thread, back on rent, just waiting to get my 90 day notice.
things are terrible in eastern pa.

highrun55
 
Yes I understand and what kills me is that the casino's here are excempt.Well the Gov here just vetoed a booze bill that would allow the selling of booze on Sunday along with wine tasting etc up to 9oz.Well she vetoed it saying all the other states have a 6oz limit.Democrats always want to tell us mortals how to live and what is good and bad for us.I AM STILL LOOKING FOR A POOL HALL TO PRACTICE AND PLAY!!!
 
So I am still looking for a place to play and go into another pool room only to find nothing but poker tables.Talked to the owner and she said they have 8 pool tables out of 22 left and that poker seems to be more successful than pool.I then go into another place that basically was pool,food,bar and now is more food and bar.They took out 10 tables for the food space.What really kills me is that the pool halls down south are doing well and also Texas.None of them have a smoking ban as well as the economy is doing alittle better.Guess my search is over.Ready to move!!
 
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