What do people really want from a pool room?
- Thread starter ignomirello
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And we have a winner!
Equipments, friendly stuffs, reasonable rates, decent food and cleanliness/safety are among the important ones. I'm less concerned with music and other stuffs. I believe pool halls will not survive easily if owners only make money from table time. Ultimately, they need to profit from something else in order to keep the place up the par.
I think it's unreasonable for us folks to demand, let's say, $5/hr on well maintained tables and kick those folks at the bar (who, btw, actually spends money on more profitable items) out because they like to listen to music that we don't.
I guess:
1) equipment HAS to be good
2) stuff needs to be polite (not treat clients as VIPs, just nice is enough)
3) Cleanliness
4) Rates need to be reasonable, at least for the people that spend their day in the hall. If a couple of beers/water/coffee/whatever and a couple of hours practise costs a million and a half, I am not going back. As said before, people that spend many hours a week there expect to be treated a bit better on pricing.
Anything else is secondary for me. I hope this helps
1) equipment HAS to be good
2) stuff needs to be polite (not treat clients as VIPs, just nice is enough)
3) Cleanliness
4) Rates need to be reasonable, at least for the people that spend their day in the hall. If a couple of beers/water/coffee/whatever and a couple of hours practise costs a million and a half, I am not going back. As said before, people that spend many hours a week there expect to be treated a bit better on pricing.
Anything else is secondary for me. I hope this helps
I know its the reality but I doubt recreational players went to see the owner and said:
WE WANT HIGH RATES.
WE WANT LOUD MUSIC SO THAT I HAVE TO MIME TO SPEAK TO SOMEONE
WE WANT CROOKED TABLES
WE WANT PMS-INS WAITRESSES
Come on! The recreational player will come once a week or once every 2 weeks. It just happened that on that night the group gathered and discussed
" Alright guys, what do you wanna do?...-We can go have a few drinks and bang some balls around while spilling drinks on the cloth....the owner loves it! "
It might just happen that they won't come back for a few weeks because they have a list or things to do on rotation.
The pool player will come back many days a week and make put some life in a sunday afternoon or monday morning.
Unfortunately, the pool scene is a very sad and unlucrative one. If pool was so popular that players would fight to get a table and I had a room, recreational players wouldn't be allowed in my room.
Most Pool in the Valley of the Sun is played in Bars, or Sports Bars. Can only think of ONE PLACE CLOSE TO A REAL POOL ROOM (Kolby's in TEMPE) like we had years ago, in the Valley of the Sun. Most Bars, and Sports Bar Pay the BILLS OFF SELLING BOOZE, and Pool IMHO take second fiddle to what pay the bills. Take away the Booze Sales and these places would close. JMHO.
So the old time REAL POOL ROOM that many of us recall from our younger days are GONE. Like Doctors who make house calls, and charged $5.00 for an office visit. Pay telephone booths on ever busy corner in the USA are gone. Kids who pumped your gas, cleaned your windshield, and checked your oil level, and tire pressure when you bought Gas at a Service Station are not there also.
So the old time REAL POOL ROOM that many of us recall from our younger days are GONE. Like Doctors who make house calls, and charged $5.00 for an office visit. Pay telephone booths on ever busy corner in the USA are gone. Kids who pumped your gas, cleaned your windshield, and checked your oil level, and tire pressure when you bought Gas at a Service Station are not there also.
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Good points.
And those places that run their businesses with both spectrums of customers in mind end up running a successful business. I know a few of those places, and I know a bunch of others that gear too much toward one side (especially toward the side of pool players) are struggling and will eventually be forced to shut down.
I know and its somewhat sad.
Sometimes I feel like room owners do everything they can to get rid of pool players. Yeah recreational players spend more THAT ONE NIGHT but pool players play a lot more pool, have lunch and have a few drinks here and there. Add it all up and its gonna make more than those recreational players spent before they come back again...in 2 weeks.
I guarantee kolby's is making way more off beer and food sales than they ever do off table time. You're nuts if you think otherwise. Times have changed.
From first hand observation as a house man for 3 years: the problem is many of them don't want to spend any money. They want free or nearly free pool, want to bring in their outside purchased lunch, and want to sip coffee or soda (with free refills) or water all day. I am not saying all players were like that, but a good percentage of the semi-serious players were deadbeats like this.
Oddly enough it always seemed to be the mid or low tier players who were like that. The nits who didn't gamble but had $700+ cues and ran drills all afternoon and railbirded the real serious players. The top tier guys who came into our place to gamble were not that way at all, they bought lunch, didn't ***** about table time, etc.
But that is a digression I guess.
Edit:
That's a nice theory, but I'll just say this: there's a reason there are tons more places offering league and league nights than there are tournaments. That speaks volumes by itself.
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2-7, mainly, with 2,4,5 being the most important to me.
Great post.
I would like to see cheaper rates. Here in MTL it costs me about 15$ an hour to play on 9' tables.
So I normally end up playing at the little dive to play on the Bar tables at 1$ tables.
What I have seen in some places in the mid'80's and ealry 90's were membership tables. You pay an annual membership fee and this tables where very well maintained, cloth changed at least once a year, depending the wear and tear. I have seen them changed up to 4 times in one year.
There was only one down fall, when I was going to these places and having the membership. You almost had to book a week or 2 in advance if you wanted to reserve the table(s) on a Friday or Saturday night.
Plus, one of the perks was, if there wasn't a membership table free, you got a little discount off the hourly rate. Able to buy an extra beer is always good ;-)
I would like to see cheaper rates. Here in MTL it costs me about 15$ an hour to play on 9' tables.
So I normally end up playing at the little dive to play on the Bar tables at 1$ tables.
What I have seen in some places in the mid'80's and ealry 90's were membership tables. You pay an annual membership fee and this tables where very well maintained, cloth changed at least once a year, depending the wear and tear. I have seen them changed up to 4 times in one year.
There was only one down fall, when I was going to these places and having the membership. You almost had to book a week or 2 in advance if you wanted to reserve the table(s) on a Friday or Saturday night.
Plus, one of the perks was, if there wasn't a membership table free, you got a little discount off the hourly rate. Able to buy an extra beer is always good ;-)
15$/h in Montreal? Where the **** are you playing? You know can get fixed rate at Boul Noir on Mont-Royal street.
I live on the south-shore and there a few good pool halls here that you can get a fixed rate (depending on the hour)
Skratch (Brossard)
Maximum (Saint-Hubert)
Dooly's (Longueuil)
Billard le Diable (Longueuil)
there are many more but these are the closest to a bridge leading to the shore.
9. an endless supply of ice cold beers at my fingertips
10. an effective exhaust/ventilation system so I can smoke cigars without disapproving scowls and stares
11. free snacks delivered to my table
12. TV with remote control at my table
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I guarantee kolby's is making way more off beer and food sales than they ever do off table time. You're nuts if you think otherwise. Times have changed.
From first hand observation as a house man for 3 years: the problem is many of them don't want to spend any money. They want free or nearly free pool, want to bring in their outside purchased lunch, and want to sip coffee or soda (with free refills) or water all day. I am not saying all players were like that, but a good percentage of the semi-serious players were deadbeats like this.
Oddly enough it always seemed to be the mid or low tier players who were like that. The nits who didn't gamble but had $700+ cues and ran drills all afternoon and railbirded the real serious players. The top tier guys who came into our place to gamble were not that way at all, they bought lunch, didn't ***** about table time, etc.
But that is a digression I guess.
Edit:
That's a nice theory, but I'll just say this: there's a reason there are tons more places offering league and league nights than there are tournaments. That speaks volumes by itself.
This post is spot on. 100%.
If the "real pool players" don't like these aspects of the places where they play, it's a shame. But they are going to either have to come to grips with it, play at home, or else not play at all. Most places, anyway. However, if the conditions bother them that much, perhaps instead of complaining they can try working with the management to come up with a compromise. Maybe "quieter" periods of time early in the day, etc, etc.
The booze and food and music pay the bills, and keep those tables available.
Players VS Bangers
This is true but I was thinking a happy medium Or seperate sections
This is true but I was thinking a happy medium Or seperate sections
and
They want EVERYTHING a room owner DOES NOT have.
or can`t afford, Just that simple.
They want EVERYTHING a room owner DOES NOT have.
or can`t afford, Just that simple.
second the action
This is true but I was thinking a happy medium Or seperate sections
Yeah, similar to that and what Justadub mentioned, we used to do 'gambling/quiet time' during the day with the jukebox turned down, etc for the serious players. Worked pretty well as the casual crowd isn't out during the day generally. I still heard "hey can you turn the jukebox up?!" at least a dozen times a week. :grin:
I'm not really sold on the idea of separate sections though. If you have one area for 'serious' players all the recreational guys will want to think they are real players and will want to shoot there anyways. We had one specific 9 foot that was super tight and was on permanent reserve for the gamblers. Guess which table all the worst hackers and nits always wanted to shoot on?