From Good to Bad, pool rooms that went downhill

[hang-the-9]

Cdryden started a post about a room that is going downhill.

I have one locally also, and would be nice to hear about what others have experienced.

A new place opened in MA, fairly close to me, many years ago. Full restaurant with a side room with 8 new GC tables, setup well, played great. The manager was a pool lover who also filled the wall displays with high-end cues for sale, AE cues, several other $1,000 value cues, dozens of them. Had an APA team there.

After a while the bar area there started to add tables, which started to get in the way of a few of the pool tables. The tables started to need some work and the house cues were in bad shape. No-one re-clothed the tables in some time.

A few years later, half the tables were taken out.

A few years after that, the tables that remained were basically in storage, covered up, in the dark, with most of them having old crap stored around them. I don't think most of the staff there now even knows that there was a pool hall there, or that those things are pool tables.

As you can see, not a single mention of any pool tables in the place now http://fireflysbbq.com/index.php I doubt there are even any there anymore.

 

[CreeDo]

Well, I could mention the one in Portland, ME, home of the "Maine Event"...
Efren's first straight pool tournament.

They used to draw real players, you saw local legends like Dave "Eagle" Hall all the time,
and occasionally Grady, and I believe Mike Zuglan has been there too.

Started out with like 30 tables. Started to struggle. Opened a restaurant in back.
Never saw a soul in it. They cut the pool room in half and set up a dance floor with small stage.
You'd have a DJ and occasional live acts. Now those have dried up and that half of the room is dead.
What will happen with the other half? Who knows.

But the SADDEST story is the Shark Club. I've seen this place mentioned on AZ several times.
I went there a few times when I was just a banger and I didn't understand this was a great room.
They had a huge aquarium with small sharks in the center of a wraparound bar.
Each table got a comfortable set of circular couches (!) and a low table for your food 'n' drinks.
Walled off area (for darts?) and lots of decorated glass windows.

New management, becomes a Fast Eddies.

A few years later I went in, where the hell are the tables?
Gone... in their place, a tiny stage and a mechanical bull. I ask, and am sent downstairs.
What's down there is pathetic... an unfinished basement with concrete floors, heating pipes etc. overhead,
a small bar with a guy who looks bored to tears. Tables are the worst I've seen... beat, with rolls
that send a ball off over a foot. 3 cheap plastic racks to share between like 6 tables.

You know it's sad when google's reviews average 9 out of 30.

 

[BlindWizard]

Seeing a great pool hall go downhill is really sad.

I won't name the hall, but my favorite place to play a few years back went down the toilet. In the beginning there was a great lunch crowd of businessmen who liked to eat, have a beer or two and play a few games. Then the room owner hired a new female day manager who hijacked the only big screen TV. What once was constant ESPN became Oprah and soap operas. In a few days the room was empty.

The owner then sold out to a business man who bought the place for his worthless teenage son to run. For a while business picked up but soon all the teen manager's friends started taking free beer and pool time.

Next, those owners sold out to a creepy pervert whose only interest in a pool hall was access to teenage girls who might be agreeable to amateur hooking. None of the girls were interested so he sold to...

...a drunk who had no use for a cash register and made change out of a cigar box. The drunk once fired a pistol through the ceiling and roof. At times he would pass out on the floor at 3AM with the doors unlocked. Everyone got free beer and someone stole the cigar box. The drunk abandoned the business and moved away.

The building was empty for a couple of years but eventually the man who, for thirty years, was head city and county nark leased the joint. The former nark turned the room into a gay bar where he could sell cocaine out back like he does in his other eleven bars.

The room was located in Albany, GA

 

[hang-the-9]

Seeing a great pool hall go downhill is really sad.

I wont name the hall, but my favorite place to play a few years back went down the toilet. In the beginning there was a great lunch crowd of businessmen who liked to eat, have a beer or two and play a few games. Then the room owner hired a new female day manager who hijacked the only big screen TV. What once was constant ESPN became Oprah and soap operas. In a few days the room was empty.

The owner then sold out to a business man who bought the place for his worthless teenage son to run. For a while business picked up but soon all the teen manager's friends started taking free beer and pool time.

Next, those owners sold out to a creepy pervert whose only interest in a pool hall was access to teenage girls who might be agreeable to amateur hooking. None of the girls were interested so he sold to...

...a drunk who had no use for a cash register and made change out of a cigar box. The drunk once fired a pistol through the ceiling and roof. At times he would pass out on the floor at 3AM with the doors unlocked. Everyone got free beer and someone stole the cigar box. The drunk abandoned the business and moved away.

The building was empty for a couple of years but eventually the man who, for thirty years, was head city and county nark leased the joint. The former nark turned the room into a gay bar where he could sell cocaine out back like he does in his other eleven bars.

The room was located in Albany, GA

America, home of the creative business plans hehe.

 

[Toncam]

...a drunk who had no use for a cash register and made change out of a cigar box. The drunk once fired a pistol through the ceiling and roof. At times he would pass out on the floor at 3AM with the doors unlocked. Everyone got free beer and someone stole the cigar box. The drunk abandoned the business and moved away.

I laughed at this one, sounds like most of the guys i knew back home, lol.

Its amazing that people , not only in the pool room business but in many other businesses as well, will just buy a place and open the doors and think thats all there is to it. How they ever got the money to buy into a place is a mystery.