The phrase:In the kitchen

I believe its origin came from the fact that houses back in the day were small and pool tables were large. Therefore, when a pool table was in a house it spanned the length of the living room and part of it was literally in the kitchen. So when someone scratched, the had to take the next shot "in the kitchen".
 
From Wiki:

The area on the table behind the head string.[5] The origin of the term has been the subject of some speculation but the best explanation known is that in the 1800s, many homes did not have room for both a billiard table and a dining room table. The solution was a billiards table that had a cover converting it into a dining table. Kept in the dining room, play on such a table was often restricted by the size of the room, so it would be placed so that the head rail would face the connected kitchen door, thus affording a player room for the backswing without hitting a wall. A player was therefore either half or sometimes fully (literally) "in the kitchen" when breaking the balls.[1] See also baulk.
 
My friend Debbie, before she married Bobby Hunter, lived in an apartment that didn't have room for a pool table, but she's such a pool addict that she squeezed one in anyway. The way she told it the table literally extended into the kitchen and you had to go through another room to get to the foot rail.

Bobby's got his hands full.

pj
chgo
 
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I actually know why...

So according to mark from CSI. It was during one of the matches I forget which one but he was telling Bobby Cotton.

Back in the day, the way a house was structured the dining room was the only space big enough for a 9ft table but it was directly in line of the kitchen. So when you broke you had to break from the kitchen side just in case the CB hopped off the table it wouldn't go into the kitchen where ppl were cooking.

Makes sense to me.
 
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