Players asking Room Owners

blah blah

blah blah

Shoebat
About a year ago I played in a tourney in SoCal that was so Anti-Player it was amazing they did any business at all. The following is a list of things a poolroom should have or do (most come from that experience, but there are others.) I was hoping other players would add to the list and that this would be helpful to roomowners who are just starting out or who wonder why they don't get much business. I don't want to embarrass any rooms so I'll leave them nameless, but I have seen all of these mistakes...

. Have a place for players to put their cues. Round tables that stand far away from any wall just don't do.

. Have chalk, and don't act like it's an imposition to look for chalk that isn't a deep well. Chalk really is cheap- I've seen it in bulk on the Internet.

. Have carpet. Cues (whether yours or the players') should never clatter on tile or concrete if they fall.

. Try to have an area for serious players that is separate from the ballbangers, the meatmarket, and the kids. If this is not possible, at least try to have the tight 9' tables together and not mixed in randomly with 7' and coin-op tables.

. drinks should have lids and straws. period.

. coffee refills should be free, or at least discounted. It's your regulars who're going to be staying up drinking coffee and playing and playing, and the more energy they have, the more likely they'll pay for more time. Why deter them from that for an extra 75 cents? sheesh.

. duct tape may do for your home or your car, but it doesn't do for holding the cloth down on the table. Shame on you.

. No drinks or anything else on the rails. ever. don't be afraid of offending the ballbanger who does this, because ten serious players are blessing you silently when you insist.

. don't let you or you staff get the old poolroom "i'm better/know more than the customers and i'm gonna run everything around here" attitude. most room staff have this attitude, and they stick up for each other in a "We (staff) vs. Them (players)" mentality.

. actually encourage the regular ballbangers who haven't a clue but still come in five nights a week to try the b or c tourneys. they might even become players one day, and they'll be flattered by the encouragement.

. get those marker beads above the tables that tell scores. This is good business because it discourages arguments.

It's late and I can't think of anymore right now. Can you?
 
When it is raining or humid outside, don't be TOO CHEAP to run the air conditioner. I don't care if it's 33 degrees outside, if it's humid/raining outside, the playing conditions inside will be too wet for real players.

If you watch the bottom line so much that you can't stand to run the air conditioning, go to sears and buy a few dehumidifiers.

For gods sake, have running hot and cold water in the mens and ladies room with soap and paper towels.

Caring for a pool table means more than brushing the cloth, wipe down the rails too, and it wouldn't hurt to clean the balls once in a while.

This goes for some rooms:

Wow, these are really nice old Gold Crowns, would you mind putting some Simonis on them.

or

Wow, these are really nice old Gold Crowns, it was really nice of you to keep them in nice shape with Simonis Cloth and everything. Why the hell didn't you spend a couple of bucks on some Centennial Balls?
 
btw, I really like this post and hope that some room owners read it and improve where they are lacking.
 
I had friend that worked at a room and the owner was so tightit was unbelievable. The owner knows about pool and deals in custom cues. They had 5-6 guys that came in to play 3 cushion 4 to 6 days a week, getting charged per player. Well my friend gets caught giving one of the guys a free refill on his coffee and the owner goes ballistic. These guys spent a fortune in there every week, these are the guys you should give a little extra to. Sam
 
Even if the owners like the temperature at 78 degrees in the winter it doesn't mean the players do.

When people show up wearing shorts in January something is wrong.
 
How about fix the pockets once in a while, so they don't spit balls back out!

Clean cloth lasts longer! You save money by keeping it up.

One working toilet, with a seat, and a friggin door on the stall would be nice.

Pool players like nice clean hands. Put some soap in the dispenser!

Carpet is nice. Carpet torn so bad you trip over it is NOT nice.

Teach the waitresses/waiters how to walk around during tournaments and money matches. It isn't rocket science.

Do you think we're so stupid we won't notice that you've slipped in some cheap ass bar-box balls with the aramith sets? Give me a break. They're not even the same size.

50 tables. No ball cleaner. Huh?

This is pool, not golf. I don't want to have to read the green for slope.
 
this place is quiet. Yea, like a church. The church of the hustler. No, quiet because of all of the above. Sam
 
After managing a room for a while, and knowing proprietors of 2 other rooms, I've come to the conclusion that room owners really don't care about the PLAYERS. They care about Joe Shmoe coming in off the street looking for something to do while they drink. Pool rooms tend to cater to the non-player because, let's face it, we don't spend near the same amount of money. Personally, I spend money on table time, a soda, and that's it. The most my home room is going to get from me is probably around $20 over a 5 hour period. Get a drinker in there over that same time period, and the room could take in double, triple, or quadruple that amount. It's just economics.

All that being said, if a room decides to do something which does cater to players, then they should do it right. If you're going to run a tournament, do it for the players. Don't treat the players as non-players. Non-players don't know anything about chalk, but we do, so give us some decent pieces, etc. I don't think I need to add anything to the already fairly large list of gripes we as players have against room owners.

Lucky for me, I frequent a room which has a good mix of players and bangers alike and the owner manages a good balancing act as far as to whom he's catering. Drinkers like the place because it has a full service bar. Bangers like it because they can drink, eat, and play. Players like it because they have top notch equipment (GC IVs with 860) and they take care of all of it. The tables get recovered every year, Centennial balls get cleaned, house sticks are in abundance because they actually repair and replace them (yes, even the tips!), temperature and humidity are controlled, and there aren't lots of high school kids who think they own the world running around.

I learned to play pool in the usual type of room, which ignores the players and their pleas for new cloth, decent stools/chairs to sit on, new bulbs in the crappy lights, etc. Now, I'm kind of spoiled, and I hate going to those types of rooms. After seeing it done right, I don't want to go to those types of rooms anymore (but hey, I still go, you never know where the action is! :D ).

-djb
 
Players may only spend $20 at an outing, but they do this several times a week. Bangers who go and blow $50 or more in an outing, don't do it very often. Plus, they're hard on the equipment and the place. And you probably have to hire a bouncer to keep things under control. I'm not convinced that the economics support the banger theory.
 
I believe the bangers spend more money than the players. I know of too many players that spend a minimal amount at the poolhall, just to have gambling money. Looking at myself, I dont spend hardly any money at my local room (prob should try to). Since I am married, with a family, and have my own table for practice, I tend to not spend that much money towards the room. The only time I get to go out to pool rooms is for a reason. Competition with tourneys, or to WIN money. With this said, I know that I spend more money than my friends do, and that isnt all that much.

A good poolhall tends to have a good amount of both players and bangers. Pool players dont care about putting $20 or more on 1 Game of pool, but wont tip a waitress or overlly support the establishment. Its the backers/hardcore gamblers that tend to free spend their money while they are there. If I was a pool room owner, I would look for Bangers, Sweators, Backers, and Players in that order of priority, if I was looking at it economically. But as a player now, I would want the top equipment and conditions.

IMO
 
I would love to open a pool room as the one near me has sooo much wrong with it, unfortunately it's the only pool hall in my area so I have no choice but to cope.... god I wish I had money to open a pool room...anyway in the spirit of the thread here's a list of stuff I think is wrong with my local pool hall...

1. This is #1 on my list in any establishment. rude/non attentive employees - There have been soo many times that I was in a match at the end of the bar and was going to order another drink but can't find the bartender because he/she is at the end of the bar talking to their buddies. I've done some research and 90% of a pool rooms income is beverages, if you have an employee ignoring customers you're losing money! Employees should be attentive to the customers. See someone getting low, ask them if they want another, if I was paying someone to work for me they should be doing just that, working. In addition to this the employees are rude, I used to lay down 5 dollar tips, and they are still rude, I don't even bother tipping anymore, when an employee is rude to the point that I am entertaining thoughts of dragging them over the bar and beating their ass somethings wrong!

2. Carpet is nice but my local pool room doesn't have any in the play area, OK I can deal with that if I have too but at least clean the freaking floor, if you are too cheap to put in carpet or simply can't afford it at least mop the floor, mops don't cost that much and if your employees are ignoring customers anyway you would think they could at least be ignoring customers for a good cause, I mean crap, they are paying people to run their business into the ground.

3. Cleanliness/clutter - The pool hall I go to has so much clutter and crap behind the bar and around the place in general it's ridiculous, it makes it look like crap and degrades the entire establishment. I guess the employees are so busy talking to their buddies it's too much trouble to tidy up so why bother trying to tidy up the place that pays your salary.

4. Put some lights outside - The place inside is lit up fine but outside there isn't a single light, just a big dark parking lot. They don't need to put in poles or anything, a couple of flood lights on the building outside would do just fine, I mean spend 100 bucks at home depot and people won't be afraid to walk from their car to your establishment.

5. Clean up outside - The place I go to looks like crap outside, they have like 4 bushes along the building in front and a bunch of trash and cigarette butts outside the door. What's sad is that 2 hours with a broom, a trashbag, and some hedgeclippers would make the place look like a million bucks, in combination with some outside lights it would look like 2 million.

6. A maintenance schedule of some kind for the equipment, I mean these guys don't maintain crap, there are a few tables that are OK but that's mainly because they are newer and haven't been around long enough to fall into total disrepair. If I was a room owner and paid people to work for me and paid for equipment, when those people weren't making me money attending to customers they would be maintaining my investment so that I could make more money.

7. Airconditioning - I have an older gentlemen that's a good friend of mine, he's a big guy, not fat just big, almost 7 feet tall, pretty bulky, starting to have some health issues but he loves to shoot pool and shoots well. He went 5 and 0 in leauge last night and often he'll stay around to shoot with me after but the last 2 times it was just too hot for him, because they won't run the AC, my wife has asked to leave before for the same reason. I mean these are people that won't to stay, and spend money, but it's too damn hot. In terms a room owner will understand, money is walking out of your business because it's too hot.

8. Furniture - The local pool hall frequent has a real lack of seating and tables. Leauge sucks because only about 2 people out of 5 has a place to sit. This is my first and last leauge in this establishment. Buy some furniture already, it's not that expensive, get a few peices at a time if you have too but get it. I shouldn't have to walk from one end of the place to the other to find a chair to carry it back to my side of the room only to have it confiscated by someone else when I get up too shoot.


Anyway these are all real problems with my local pool room and the only reason I still go to this place is there is simply no alternative locally. If this place had any kind of competition they would go out of business. I was just there last night for leauge, we decimated the other team, I played a good buddy for an hour afterwards, and it still felt like a mediocre to bad experience because the help was rude and the place looked like crap. Despite loving pool, and not having anywhere else to go really, I am seriously entertaining the notion of not frequenting the business anymore, it's that bad. What's really sad is that a majority of the stuff I mentioned could be corrected fairly easily by some good management at minimal expense.

my 2 cents.
 
Pool halls don't make enough money to stay open from the serious player. They need the bangers.

I know many players that would bum a quarter from you rather than breaking a dollar they got in their pocket.

What you really need is pool leagues. It's where the occasional player can play once a week to get out of the house and party with friends.

Where would bowling alleys be without bowling leagues? They would be closed. I live in the midwest, and any and every bowling alley you go into is packed from about 5 PM to 9-10 PM.

In the pool hall I frequent the most, they have leagues every night of the week,. except Fri and Sat. Their business has picked up dramatically since they got a full service bar. But the main bar business is from the occasional player.
 
Chokeinator said:
I would love to open a pool room as the one near me has sooo much wrong with it, .............
Click to expand...

Chokeinator,

Maybe you should mail this thoughtful post anonymously to the hall owner. Who knows it might help.
 
Wally in Cincy said:
Chokeinator,

Maybe you should mail this thoughtful post anonymously to the hall owner. Who knows it might help.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a good idea, I think I'll do that with a little editing to be a tad less abrasive and edit out identifying information so I don't get the boot. ;)
 
jer9ball said:
Teach the waitresses/waiters how to walk around during tournaments and money matches. It isn't rocket science.
Click to expand...

Owners have to let the waitstaff do what they have to do..if you're distracted, stand up and wait, but those girls and some guys have to hustle to make a tip. Some will pick up on it when there is something serious going on, some won't, no big deal. Now what I can't stand are snipers who stop dead cold right before they walk in front of you...just keep walking and I won't notice you! I know some of you are reading this. So if you tell the waitstaff to watch out for serious games, next thing you know your playing pool in a wax museum.
 
Wally in Cincy said:
Chokeinator,

Maybe you should mail this thoughtful post anonymously to the hall owner. Who knows it might help.
Click to expand...

I am thinking about mailing this to my boss. If he got any tighter, he would squeak.

Kent Mc.
 
The pool hall I play at has gone from being one of the best places to play to one of the worst. The staff don't any knowledge of pool or common etiquette, half of the staff are cracking gum, whistling, rubbing the table as they walk by the tables and balls have gotten filthy. They have free pool on tuesdays no serious players show up (or any other time )because of all the non players that show up with no idea how to behave. Anytime I've made complaints they treat me like I'm crazy, It's hard to believe the place is owned by a very good player (who's never there).
 
Good thread.
Most of the pool rooms around here that sprang up like daisies over the last ten years have all gone out of business, and rightly so.
most of them were run by ignorant fools with more money than brains (where do idiots get so much cash??)
The list of bad goes like this.
dirty tables
damaged tables
crap tables
crap cloth
dirty balls
tables too close
rude owner/staff
no food
crap food
coffee $1.00 in a crappy little dixie cup
no single player rate
music so loud you can't think
dirty washrooms (wonder why no ladies come here??) and I hate the smell of stale piss too!
dirty room
broken equipment
no pro shop, not even a tip FFS!

most of them know sweet FA about pool and even less about customer service. they thought it was a way of making a quick buck.
I will open a room one of these days and blow the remainder of these losers out of business :)
My biggest gripe is rude owners, they think they are doin you a favor by being open, FU! when I walk through the door I dont care if you think I am an asshole, I pay your way so treat me like a human being.
end rant
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top