TCB-Formerly College St. Billiards-Iowa City, IA

IA8baller

IA8baller

Family man.
Silver Member
I decided to go up to TCB, which is the former College St. Billiards in Iowa City last night because they have free pool on Sunday nights. I immediately noticed that the tables had been recovered since the last time I had been in there several months ago. Unfortunately it was red cloth ......... :angry: I hate red cloth, but that's just me. So I get my balls and head to a table, and as I walk up to them I get a closer look at the cloth, not only is it red cloth, but it's cheap, slow cloth. double :angry: :angry: Man I can't believe they put such slow cloth on big tables. You literally couldn't hardly hit a shot hard enough to go up table and back .......... AND ........... I had to go to 3 different tables to find one that was level enough to play on. Oh, and I almost forgot, the triangles were the cheapest, flimsiest ones made on earth, there's no way you can rack a decent rack.

I don't care if they have FREE pool. I'll never go back. It's a shame a place with several nice old Brunswick tables has no clue about how a table should play. :frown:

I know this is just a shameless rant with no real purpose other than to pitch a *****, but I have all but given up on having a decent place to play within 30-45 minutes of where I live. All of the places that could have decent tables around here don't take care of them at all. It just about makes me want to cry. :crying:

Someone please come to the Iowa City/Coralville/North Liberty area and open up a real pool room ............. PLEASE!!!
 
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I've been there before, its a college dive bar and has poor equipment and no action, not a good pool room at all, it is a bar attmosphere for sure
 
I used to live in Iowa City for many years. This is were I would play simply because it was the only 9 foot tables in town. The Cue bar had 7 footers (IIRC). I thought playing on a 9 foot home table with a wool sweater for cloth was better than playing on a 7 footer. Man those pockets were huge.
But No, it will never be a "good room". Maybe I would retire and open a room in IC. But you gotta wait about another 20-25 years.
 
You've got two things working against you...1) the owner probably doesn't have the first clue about pool equipment and 2) if they did, they wouldn't put it in jeopardy of a spilled beer.

College towns = lowest quality equipment...I know, I spent a decade in IC. I've won gallons of alcohol on IC's ill-rolling, soaked-with-beer, dead-rail SOBs...using a nearly straight cue with a push-on tip.

The student union used to have (4) 9' tables, but those are long gone. I cut my teeth on those tables...and we had to convince the manager they would get more life out of simonis versus the cheap sh!t they wanted to put on them.
 
Rude Staff, Long Waits

I had a very negative experience at TCB and would not recommend it to anyone. The bartenders were very rude and unhelpful with me. The table assignment system is flawed. They forgot to add my name to the waiting list. When I pointed out the problem, they made me start the entire process over again.

When the bartender served my drink, another customer accidentally knocked it over and shattered the glass. I was soaked and cut. The bartender still wouldn't refill the drink for me without charging me again. I asked the manager if they could make an exception and he was very hostile and arrogant. I've worked in retail before and I know that situations like this suck, but that's no excuse to treat your customers like filth. I will never visit TCB again.
 
???

Is that the pool room that is upstairs?? If so, I went there years ago...and it was decent.
 
Went to U of I for grad school

There was a place called Maxies - had one good 9 footer. There was also a bowling alley with some old 9 foot brunswick tables that were pretty sweet. This was all 15 years ago - sounds like the place has changed a lot!
 
Run the Century said:
There was a place called Maxies - had one good 9 footer. There was also a bowling alley with some old 9 foot brunswick tables that were pretty sweet. This was all 15 years ago - sounds like the place has changed a lot!
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Old thread but I was thinking about decent pool places in Iowa City. TCB still sucks. The owner doesn't care about the equipment and it's a shame since it has the most pool tables in one area.

Someone above mentioned the Que and their 7' tables. They actually had 9' Brunswick Gold Crown tables that were not the greatest but actually taken care of from time to time. Those things were bomb proof. Colonial Lanes still has those same old 9' tables too but they aren't kept up as well as they used to be.

Now you pretty much need to pick and choose where to play because there is no one good place to go play in town. Unless the bar owner is a hard ass and keeps on the vendors for upkeep it pretty much never happens.

I agree Iowa City needs a good pool hall again like the Que or Maxies even. Those places always had good crowds who can play.
 
The colonial lanes tables had buckets...even Craig Rice ran out on 'em. LOL

PM me Noodle if you were around in the mid-late 90's.
 
Noodle said:
Old thread but I was thinking about decent pool places in Iowa City. TCB still sucks. The owner doesn't care about the equipment and it's a shame since it has the most pool tables in one area.

Someone above mentioned the Que and their 7' tables. They actually had 9' Brunswick Gold Crown tables that were not the greatest but actually taken care of from time to time. Those things were bomb proof. Colonial Lanes still has those same old 9' tables too but they aren't kept up as well as they used to be.

Now you pretty much need to pick and choose where to play because there is no one good place to go play in town. Unless the bar owner is a hard ass and keeps on the vendors for upkeep it pretty much never happens.

I agree Iowa City needs a good pool hall again like the Que or Maxies even. Those places always had good crowds who can play.
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I used to love to go to Maxies. :thumbup: I was in my late teens/early twenties then and it was definitely the place to go to shoot pool. I learned a LOT there from the really good players back then. Unfortunately the place either closed down or took the tables out, don't remember which, but I took 4-5 years away from the game about the time they changed things there due to kids, jobs, life stuff etc. changing a lot of my priorities.

When I came back to the game in my late twenties thru my mid-thirties the Que or Colonial was the place to go and Soho's was a good place to find good games on the bar tables. Played in the Iowa City Leagues for several years and it seemed that pool was fairly popular in the area with a LOT of pretty good players to play with and I got my game to a fairly well respected level in those days.

My mid-thirties thru 42 (other than one 1 1/2 yr stretch I quit playing) was spent mainly in the SE Iowa leagues and spent most of my time playing @ my home bar, the CC Connection (Chat & Chew) here in Wellman. We had 3 - 8' Valley tables there that I helped take care of on a weekly basis and it they were the best kept, best playing tables in this area. But then the bar closed, I had some financial difficulties, had to unload ALL of my pool stuff etc and quit playing for almost another 2 years til last August I started playing again.

It took me til late Nov/early Dec to feel like I was actually playing decently/consistently again after a few years away. I noticed ALL of my ERO's came in the last 1/2 of the league season that has just ended last week and that definitely showed me it took a couple months to get my game back again. I got put in the "B" league and ended up with the most ERO's in that league despite not getting any in the first 1/2. :confused:

Anyway.........I guess I've really unloaded on this post, LOL. It was just nice to see an old post revived that brought back some memories.

There's still no great place to play in the Iowa City area, but I keep hoping ......... someday. Unless I win the lottery, then we'll have a first class place just as soon as I can get it built! :thumbup:

Getting ready to pack for Valley in Waterloo, leaving tomorrow AM for the 9-ball Open that starts tomorrow. Say, "hey" if you know me!

Trevor
 
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