Da Bank said:
I agree on this from a business standpoint, you need to have darts clearly separated.
I, as a would be customer, however would love it if you had no darts.
This is a hell of a project and I really do hope that you succeed and maybe lay a blueprint for how to do a pool hall today. I think there is an enormous gap in the market for a place like this in Dallas... I'm very interested to see how things go. Do keep us updated!
I?ll respond to several comments here.
Gastropub ?
My mother says it sounds like a disease, so why would I use the word anyway? There?s been a lot of thought in this. It?s a word I would not use if I had a business that tried to draw travelers in off the highway or if I was yet another food pub in an urban area that drew in customers off the street. But you have to understand the situation here. The metro population is 180,000 or so. This will be a big place. People who go out around here will know about it. Word spreads like wildfire when an interesting new place opens up. What I need to fight is the impression that many people most of whom have never even been in a billiard parlor have about a billiard place. When they hear ?Fargo Billiards,? there?s a little voice in the back of their minds that incorrectly says, ?oh, I know what that kind of place is.? ?Fargo Billiards & Gastropub? disarms that little voice. It says, ?maybe I don?t know what this is about.? The word is a little mysterious. A little bit of curiousity is OK. If the word generates a conversation at home about stomach acids and names and so forth, I don?t even think that?s a bad thing. Fact is, this place IS different from what is likely in their minds.
Darts ?
This one is subtle. As many of you know, I am serious about pool. I think it is a rich, complex, intricate game that has the power to help us find things out about ourselves and has an unusual ability to bring together diverse people. I?m pretty knowledgeable about a number of different aspects of pool and I will have staff who are knowledgeable about and proficient at the game. I have definite ideas of how pool should be brought into the next generation. In other words the place will be serious about the game. At the same time, I recognize I?m in the entertainment business. I?m selling, amongst other things, the opportunity to socialize and have some fun. There will of course be all kinds of patrons, from those serious about the game to those new at the game with an eye to improving to those who are just doing yet another activity who could care less about how it?s supposed to be played and so forth. Significantly, though, the opportunity to be cavalier about the game is offered by an establishment that is serious about the game. Once I start offering activities for which the establishment is not serious, the relationship with the patron changes, and that affects everything.
People associated with the bar/entertainment business are fond of looking at a particular offering/activity by how many square feet it takes and what income is generated, as though every activity and feature of the business was somehow independent of everything else. That?s not even close to true. What I?m creating requires looking, always, at the big picture.
Furthermore, it is common to imply what I see as a false dichotomy, that between on one hand the well meaning business unsavvy idealist creating the environment HE likes and hoping others will like it, and on the other hand the shrewd, intuitive business person who understands you need to give the customer what he wants and has a good sense of what separates a customer from his money. The reality is not so one dimensional. There?s a whole nuther direction to this gig. And that new direction involves VISION. It means recognizing you know something about your potential patrons that they don?t even know about themselves.
If we don't screw it up, pool has the power to bring together young and old, rich and poor, blue collar and white collar, men and women, liberal and conservative in a way these groups normally don't interact. Generating an environment that accomplishes my goals requires vision and discipline. It is important that I have an environment for which at first blush you can't identify WHAT "crowd" it's supposed to appeal to. Putting together pool and darts and juke box and video golf says these patrons can name numerous race car drivers but no NY Times columnists. A different environment might say just the opposite. I don't want that either. Some might say then I'm going to appeal to nobody. I firmly believe that's not true. I believe in the power of the game as a glue and a catalyst that if approached with discipline and vision can do things we don't see right now.
