Looking for other people's opinions & experience with this.
I moved to NYC a few months ago and quickly sought out Amsterdam Billiards, having read about what a great pool hall it is. I love shooting there, as the equipment is immaculate and talented players and top pros abound. I've taken to calling ahead because it's not uncommon to encounter an hour or so wait even on a weeknight, and sometimes they kick you off your table if they need it for a league or corporate party. I call ahead because I won't bother making the trip there if I'm going to wait an hour just to play for 45 minutes before being kicked off. These are nuisances, but I am glad to see a pool hall doing such strong business and with such thriving leagues.
Here's my gripe. Today I call ahead and they tell me there will be a wait, but they'll put me on their list. But because I'm only 1 and there is likely to be a long wait list, they're going to charge me the rate for 2 people. So if I go practice by myself for 2 hours, I get charged $30 instead of the $15 it should be (roughly; I don't remember the rates exactly).
I understand the reasoning here: they have plenty of parties of 2, 3, or 4 on their list that they could be making more money off of than me solo, so why should they take a relative loss on me? Plus, no doubt multi-person parties are more likely to give the bar business than someone coming alone to practice. Even if they tick me off enough to lose my business permanently, it's no loss at all to them since they're hardly lacking for customers. But this still seems like a slimy business practice to me. It's almost like a restaurant charging a patron who comes alone for two dinners instead of one, just because there's a bunch of couples waiting in line behind him that they could be making more money off of.
I'm sure I'll go back to Amsterdam because it's such a pleasure to play there and I've found the customer service to be generally very friendly & good with the exception of this policy. But I certainly can't afford to pay double rates, and I'm bummed right now because I was excited to shoot tonight and there's not really another convenient pool hall near me.
So what do you all think? Is this simply a sensible business strategy, or yet another sad example of pool halls neglecting "players" in favor of the general crowds? Is this type of policy more common than I realize? More importanly, would anyone in the area like to make plans to shoot some friendly games together some evening so I don't have to worry about this party-of-one problem?
Andrew
I moved to NYC a few months ago and quickly sought out Amsterdam Billiards, having read about what a great pool hall it is. I love shooting there, as the equipment is immaculate and talented players and top pros abound. I've taken to calling ahead because it's not uncommon to encounter an hour or so wait even on a weeknight, and sometimes they kick you off your table if they need it for a league or corporate party. I call ahead because I won't bother making the trip there if I'm going to wait an hour just to play for 45 minutes before being kicked off. These are nuisances, but I am glad to see a pool hall doing such strong business and with such thriving leagues.
Here's my gripe. Today I call ahead and they tell me there will be a wait, but they'll put me on their list. But because I'm only 1 and there is likely to be a long wait list, they're going to charge me the rate for 2 people. So if I go practice by myself for 2 hours, I get charged $30 instead of the $15 it should be (roughly; I don't remember the rates exactly).
I understand the reasoning here: they have plenty of parties of 2, 3, or 4 on their list that they could be making more money off of than me solo, so why should they take a relative loss on me? Plus, no doubt multi-person parties are more likely to give the bar business than someone coming alone to practice. Even if they tick me off enough to lose my business permanently, it's no loss at all to them since they're hardly lacking for customers. But this still seems like a slimy business practice to me. It's almost like a restaurant charging a patron who comes alone for two dinners instead of one, just because there's a bunch of couples waiting in line behind him that they could be making more money off of.
I'm sure I'll go back to Amsterdam because it's such a pleasure to play there and I've found the customer service to be generally very friendly & good with the exception of this policy. But I certainly can't afford to pay double rates, and I'm bummed right now because I was excited to shoot tonight and there's not really another convenient pool hall near me.
So what do you all think? Is this simply a sensible business strategy, or yet another sad example of pool halls neglecting "players" in favor of the general crowds? Is this type of policy more common than I realize? More importanly, would anyone in the area like to make plans to shoot some friendly games together some evening so I don't have to worry about this party-of-one problem?
Andrew
Seems devious but a junkie's gotta do what a junkie's gotta do...
Weird. 
