Do you support your local bar/pool hall?

chris_williams

chris_williams

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Or do you
1) Stop at a fast food joint on the way because your not paying the prices at the pool room

2) Search online for the best price on cues/accessories or buy out of someones trunk that is a half rate dealer to save $10.

I see posts like Mike Janis' "another pool room falls victim to the smoking ban" I mean no disrespect to Mr. Janis but there has to be more to it than a smoking ban. It is from lack of customer participation. Pool rooms are closing every day. There are more ways to support the pool room than paying pool time.

The same goes with tournaments. Most of the tournaments that are not in pool rooms (hotels and convetion centers) rely on hotel kickbacks and food and beverage rebates to make any money. The players get upset when the promoter takes a registration fee but have no problem going out to Mcdonalds or stay at another hotel 5 miles away to save a couple of dollars.

Just for the record, I am not a pool room or a bar owner and only promote 1-2 small events a year. I apologize if this post seems negative as that wasnt the intention. It was more for a reminder that we all (myself included) can do more to support the people who support our sport.
Chris Williams
 
i like to think i do but sometimes the prices piss me off. i mean i bought a bottle of water today for ?1.50 (about three dollars i think). just a plain bottle of spring water. if i walk to the shop opposite i can buy a bottle of coke for about 70p ($1.40) - less than half the price. food is ridiculously expensive too. i'll continue to spend a bit there though - the last place i played in not long ago closed down - might as well do my bit to ensure here doesn't too. they've got to make their money somehow.
 
one shot

I bought something from a local pool room once. The tool would have cost me four dollars and fifty cents online. I didn't ask the price just bought the tool. The price charged was nineteen fifty plus tax. I never batted an eye just calmly paid what was asked, and a tip! Enjoy it because it will be a blue day in hell when I buy something else in there that I can buy elsewhere.

Rip me once it is your fault, rip me twice it is mine. If a local pool room needs over four hundred percent profit on tools to survive it's time for them to die.

Hu




chris_williams said:
Or do you
1) Stop at a fast food joint on the way because your not paying the prices at the pool room

2) Search online for the best price on cues/accessories or buy out of someones trunk that is a half rate dealer to save $10.

I see posts like Mike Janis' "another pool room falls victim to the smoking ban" I mean no disrespect to Mr. Janis but there has to be more to it than a smoking ban. It is from lack of customer participation. Pool rooms are closing every day. There are more ways to support the pool room than paying pool time.

The same goes with tournaments. Most of the tournaments that are not in pool rooms (hotels and convetion centers) rely on hotel kickbacks and food and beverage rebates to make any money. The players get upset when the promoter takes a registration fee but have no problem going out to Mcdonalds or stay at another hotel 5 miles away to save a couple of dollars.

Just for the record, I am not a pool room or a bar owner and only promote 1-2 small events a year. I apologize if this post seems negative as that wasnt the intention. It was more for a reminder that we all (myself included) can do more to support the people who support our sport.
Chris Williams
Click to expand...
 
I have basically spent money in my local room everyday for the last 14 years. I have played in any and every tournament they have held (except APA and UPA), cut them deals on recovering their tables, advertised for them and much more. The sad thing is, there is one table that is tripple shimmed for the regulars and the gamblers and it never fails...when someone starts gambling on that table, the employees will put the next group of people right next to them. Even if every other table is empty. I have seen 5 different owners come and go....thats why poolrooms close. People jump in and think they are gonna run it like a bar and that simply DOES NOT WORK! JMO.

Southpaw
 
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I can see drink prices being higher, the bar is probably only 10% of the total area of the room and has to make 90% of the money. Some prices are just too high though. I would like to see memberships for regulars with discounted pricing. When I go to a room I drink (7-up) and eat there.
 
The prices for food at my local room aren't unreasonable, the food is really good too. I play pool and eat there every weekend. I also bought a $85 Players cue there that I could have got for $65 online but that didn't matter to me.

If prices were outrageous like some of the other posters have mentioned, I would not be eating at the pool room. Overcharging is a bad business model, I don't care what type of place it is.
 
I support mine, although I don't buy food there. All they have are frozen cheeseburgers and bad pizza.

However, I spent 5+ nights a week there. They can count on between 20-35 hours a week of table time from me, plus a bottle of water per night. I'd say that's enough support. In fact, they even appreciate the regulars enough that we get free coffee and discounts on table time. It's win-win for everyone.
 
I have 2 pool halls in my town. One is all flash with trendy food, live music, original art on the walls and "no two tables alike!". I figure they don't need my money.

The other is more of a player's room with nothing but cold sandwiches and a very limited bar. I make a point of spending money there beyond table time (even though they don't have any decent beer).

I won't buy equipment at either place though. Selection too small and prices too high.
 
Southpaw said:
The sad thing is, there is one table that is tripple shimmed for the regulars and the gamblers and it never fails...when someone starts gambling on that table, the employees will put the next group of people right next to them. Even if every other table is empty. I have seen 5 different owners come and go....thats why poolrooms close. People jump in and think they are gonna run it like a bar and that simply DOES NOT WORK! JMO.

Southpaw
Click to expand...

God I hate when they do that! Happens where I play too:rolleyes:
 
Southpaw said:
The sad thing is, there is one table that is tripple shimmed for the regulars and the gamblers and it never fails...when someone starts gambling on that table, the employees will put the next group of people right next to them. Even if every other table is empty. JMO.

Southpaw
Click to expand...
Have you ever mentioned it to them?:confused:
 
1( Yes the smoking ban has put a lot out of business. I have seen it first hand.

2)Price of rent sq ft. Usually forcing them to put their room in a bad location. A lot more seven footers would help.

3)Prices of everything have gone up while it's hard to raise prices hourly on table time.

4)There is just so much more to do now a days. Most of the new blood was brought up on video games.

5) The Internet and gambling. Poker, casino, Greyhounds, Horses.

6)A large percentage of new rooms are opened by people with no business background or schooling. Just loving the game is not enough to make a go of it.

I could go on and on all night. There are just too many negatives to make it in the billiard business now. Johnnyt
 
Johnnyt said:
1( Yes the smoking ban has put a lot out of business. I have seen it first hand.

2)Price of rent sq ft. Usually forcing them to put their room in a bad location. A lot more seven footers would help.

3)Prices of everything have gone up while it's hard to raise prices hourly on table time.

4)There is just so much more to do now a days. Most of the new blood was brought up on video games.

5) The Internet and gambling. Poker, casino, Greyhounds, Horses.

6)A large percentage of new rooms are opened by people with no business background or schooling. Just loving the game is not enough to make a go of it.

I could go on and on all night. There are just too many negatives to make it in the billiard business now. Johnnyt
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I agree, but at the sametime I think it is an optimal time for someone who has the background, education and passion to enter the business. I look at the three local rooms in my area and constantly think how much more business they could be doing if the effort was put into making some changes to increase their market share. I just feel that you see too many room owners who are content with their current rate of business, and even if they aren't, they aren't doing much to improve their situation. Its almost as if they have that attitude of "business will come back around eventually." Hell, one of the pool halls I go to doesnt even have a credit card machine, so if you dont have cash you're screwed. Can you imagine how much business the owner is missing out on just because of that?!
 
worriedbeef said:
i like to think i do but sometimes the prices piss me off. i mean i bought a bottle of water today for ?1.50 (about three dollars i think). just a plain bottle of spring water. if i walk to the shop opposite i can buy a bottle of coke for about 70p ($1.40) - less than half the price. food is ridiculously expensive too. i'll continue to spend a bit there though - the last place i played in not long ago closed down - might as well do my bit to ensure here doesn't too. they've got to make their money somehow.
Click to expand...

NUMEROUS studies show that municipal water is AT LEAST as free of objectionable stuff as true spring water. The rest of the "purified" water is either distilled with minerals added back so it doesn't taste like crap or just "filtered" tap water that has already been filtered up to the state of the art...BY LAW.

Just buy a couple of those nipple bottles for convenience and refill it with tap water.

Bottled water at $12.00 a gallon (128 oz/gallon) is one of the biggest marketing con jobs of ALL TIME!!

(-:
Jim
 
av84fun said:
NUMEROUS studies show that municipal water is AT LEAST as free of objectionable stuff as true spring water. The rest of the "purified" water is either distilled with minerals added back so it doesn't taste like crap or just "filtered" tap water that has already been filtered up to the state of the art...BY LAW.

Just buy a couple of those nipple bottles for convenience and refill it with tap water.

Bottled water at $12.00 a gallon (128 oz/gallon) is one of the biggest marketing con jobs of ALL TIME!!

(-:
Jim
Click to expand...

My dad use to laugh all the way to the bank. He would say "imagine people paying all this money for frozen water" He was an iceman. Johnnyt
 
I usually have a baguette and some beers when I play, in my room that's the norm.

They charge every guest 3 Euro (appx. 5 USD) at the entrance which is handed over as a voucher, so everybody needs to consume something or pay money for the entrance.

I don't think it is a flourishing business, but it has helped them to cover the last 20 years. They celebrated the 20 years in january :-)

Regards,

Detlev
 
> I try like Hell NOT to,to be honest. It's usually about 80 degrees in there,humid as Efren's home room,it stinks,no one wants to play for more than an hour,unless I'm not around :(. The tables are 8 footers with bar rag cloth and 2-car pockets,the best ball set in the place is over 15 years old :eek:,and people look at you like you're an idiot if you use the bridge instead of climbing up on the table :confused:. I went in there a year or so ago,about 5 in the afternoon and planned on playing until they close at 8-9,and was told as soon as I walked in that if I wasn't there to play Hold 'Em,I wasn't welcome :mad:.

I still play in there maybe once a week if possible,in case it wasn't clear how bad I want to play at times. I'd probably trade a testicle for a place with a 9 foot Diamond :p. Tommy
 
Tommy-D I can somewhat feel your pain, however the situation here is not that bad - but it's fairly bad enough.
It is in a two-story building with the better, 9ft Metro tables at the top floor so when the Sun burns everything up outside it heats up the whole room extremely. It is very difficult to play in 40 Celsius (= 105 fahrenheit) but... like you said: sometimes I want so bad to play and those times I cannot refuse. On the lower floor there are 9ft Centurions with pockets that are wider than the rails so that's not much of a challange. Also, it's been two years since we contact the owner and he always promises air conditioning but it does not happen... It is real soon that we are not going to play there.
 
Tournaments and table time is what they will get out of me,sometimes I do buy food and drink there but try to eat before or after.I wont buy cues or anything from a poolhall,why spend $200 on a cheap cue at the poolhall when you can find something on here thats good for that price.I try to help poolhalls out here and look forward to doing more live streamed pool events at their establishments and improving their business. :)
 
I have moved from Oslo to Stavanger, and I was fortunate enough to get a chance to be member of www.147.no.

In Stavanger there are not any more good places to play pool, and if I want competition and a nice place to play I will have to travel... I still practise a lot at the barn of Team 147, but it's not a poolhall, so I haven't been in action or played much tournaments the last months, and it hurts my game a bit.

Whenever I walk in to a poolhall, I always spend money there, try to buy food and drinks, especially if the poolhall is nice.
 
roughly the same as coke

Jim,

I agree with you and the researchers agree with you, if your local water supply isn't adding too many chemicals to the water it is often better than bottled water. My well water from a well over four hundred feet deep beat them all in my book. I was tied into the same aquifer as the community water and didn't put all kinds of chemical in my water.

I have to point out that water is little more of a con than soft drinks though. Twelve ounces of a soft drink costs only a few pennies more than the water to produce. The rest of the cost is containers, distribution, bottling or canning, advertising, and profit.

Hu




av84fun said:
NUMEROUS studies show that municipal water is AT LEAST as free of objectionable stuff as true spring water. The rest of the "purified" water is either distilled with minerals added back so it doesn't taste like crap or just "filtered" tap water that has already been filtered up to the state of the art...BY LAW.

Just buy a couple of those nipple bottles for convenience and refill it with tap water.

Bottled water at $12.00 a gallon (128 oz/gallon) is one of the biggest marketing con jobs of ALL TIME!!

(-:
Jim
Click to expand...
 
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