How to kill your pool room's business.

Glad you don't run my place.

explain. i dont know what the area you live is like but people who are playing for high stakes are usually in the dope game. with drugs; violence follows. i guess you are ok with that...
 
explain. i dont know what the area you live is like but people who are playing for high stakes are usually in the dope game. with drugs; violence follows. i guess you are ok with that...

When word of a big money game gets out around here, it draws a crowd of pool players that want to watch the action. As for dope, well, that kind of goes hand in hand with a lot of pool halls regardless of any high-stakes gambling going on.

Joe
 
Advertise that the tourney starts at 7 pm and then wait to start it until the good (ALWAYS late) players show up after they just got out of bed.

Oh, and make the races so long that the winner gets home at 2 am so players who actually buy products there give up and lose on purpose because they have a life besides pool and need to get home.

That keeps those responsible guys with jobs (the paying custommers) on the losers' side.

Jeff Livingston
 
Hire you own children to run the place while they sit around texting their friends.. Funny thread but sadly true the place I play at does just about all of the things mentioned so far. If another room opened up near me I'd be gone and a second!
 
Tops all !!!

Put in a DANCE FLOOR!!!! WTF..., three in Houston have done it and the result is predictable!

Oh ya..., Poker tables for money games! goes with the dance floors!!
 
Hire you own children to run the place while they sit around texting their friends.. Funny thread but sadly true the place I play at does just about all of the things mentioned so far. If another room opened up near me I'd be gone and a second!


lol, I used to play at a place that hits six out of seven. They only reason they don't get a perfect score is that they don't serve booze.

Lou Figueroa
 
When word of a big money game gets out around here, it draws a crowd of pool players that want to watch the action. As for dope, well, that kind of goes hand in hand with a lot of pool halls regardless of any high-stakes gambling going on.

Joe

I enjoy watching good matchups too, but most 'pool players' live on coffee and free water. The business is better off without that type of busines.
 
1.) Hire lazy, clueless people, who don't give a damn and have absolutely no personality or people skills.

2.) Make sure the flooring or carpeting is filthy and sticky.

3.) Make sure the rest rooms are filthy and don't have any soap or paper towels.

4.) Make sure the cloth on the tables is worn super thin and is full of nicks, tears, holes, and stains.

5.) Never clean the tables or the cloth.

6.) Never clean the balls, and make sure all the house cues are shot to hell.

7.) Charge outrageous prices for beer and booze.

OK, what else could a room owner do to drive customers away?


As bad as all that is, there is one that's even worse, and that's an owner who doesn't know how to run a business. If you have a cash business, you had better make sure you have proper controls in place. One of the biggest problems comes from employees (and even partners) stealing from you.

If you can't pay your expenses every month because someone is embezzling from you, then it doesn't matter how clean your bathrooms are.

I've also seen cases of owners who take too much for themselves and not put enough back into the business to keep it up and running. That's also a formula for eventual failure.
 
Advertise that the tourney starts at 7 pm and then wait to start it until the good (ALWAYS late) players show up after they just got out of bed.

Oh, and make the races so long that the winner gets home at 2 am so players who actually buy products there give up and lose on purpose because they have a life besides pool and need to get home.

That keeps those responsible guys with jobs (the paying custommers) on the losers' side.

Jeff Livingston
Tap, tap, tap.
Thanks for posting this. In my opinion this is the single biggest thing that kills weekly tournaments and keeps the game down. The problem is I don't know of a room owner that recognizes or gives a crap about this.

Whats wrong with having a weekly tournament that starts at 5:00 on Friday or 2:00 pm on Saturday?:mad:
 
Tap, tap, tap.
Thanks for posting this. In my opinion this is the single biggest thing that kills weekly tournaments and keeps the game down. The problem is I don't know of a room owner that recognizes or gives a crap about this.

Whats wrong with having a weekly tournament that starts at 5:00 on Friday or 2:00 pm on Saturday?:mad:

That's exactly when my start... 2:00pm on Saturday. During the summer, I don't open until 2pm, but on tournament days, I'd open up at noon for anyone who wanted to practice for a couple hours before the tournament started...by doing that, I could also guarantee I was going to START the tournament at 2pm...not 2:15...or 2:30...you get the point.

Jason
 
Put 40 watt bulbs in over the tables and encourage the scum ballbangers to keep cussing loudly, any vulgar word that comes to mind, in spite of Mom's and Dad's playing pool nearby with their young teens. Free coffee to the one that uses the F word the loudest and most often. Hang porno in the men's room and don't forget to offer the dart league to set up against the top rail of your best table.
 
1.) Hire lazy, clueless people, who don't give a damn and have absolutely no personality or people skills.

2.) Make sure the flooring or carpeting is filthy and sticky.

3.) Make sure the rest rooms are filthy and don't have any soap or paper towels.

4.) Make sure the cloth on the tables is worn super thin and is full of nicks, tears, holes, and stains.

5.) Never clean the tables or the cloth.

6.) Never clean the balls, and make sure all the house cues are shot to hell.

7.) Charge outrageous prices for beer and booze.

OK, what else could a room owner do to drive customers away?


Clean carpet, clean rest room, clean tables, clean balls, provide soap and towels. This is simple and cheap manual labor and it address over half of the complaints listed above. I don't understand why room operators cant do the little things that have a huge impact on business.
 
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In an area that is mostly "country", only play acid rock so loud that you have to shout to the person next to you, and then continously have on about 6 different TV's all on different channels, then have the juke box randomly start playing a song, all of this with only the owner and me in the whole joint as I say "why don't you turn off all those TV's to save some money on your electric bill?" and the owner says "but then if someone comes in then I have to remember to turn them on". AND THEN - the next day you go to shoot some with the owner, it's 38 degrees outside and you walk in and it's very cold inside, I then go to look at what the thermostat is set on and it says 63, so I say "did you know that the heat is set on 63?" and he says "yes I know, I set it there cause I'm tired of paying outrageous electric bills". I then pick up my cue case and start to walk out the door and he says "where you going" and I say "somewhere that is warm".
Another good one that really inspires me to spen my money in your joint is when I beat you, cuss, throw things and tell me how lucky I am. The place is closed now, wonder why?
 
No sense to penalize the players who showed up on time. Why not go ahead and start the tournament with bye, if stragglers show up you can put them in place of bye (if there is room and match hasn't been completed). If its a double elimination, and they show up really late, then they could come in on the loser side.

Advertise that the tourney starts at 7 pm and then wait to start it until the good (ALWAYS late) players show up after they just got out of bed.

Oh, and make the races so long that the winner gets home at 2 am so players who actually buy products there give up and lose on purpose because they have a life besides pool and need to get home.

That keeps those responsible guys with jobs (the paying custommers) on the losers' side.

Jeff Livingston
 
Why not

Why not have the place smell like a dive,by letting people barf and spill beer on the floor and splash beer on the tables.
 
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