Why is this recession different?

doitforthegame

doitforthegame

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I owned a pool room for about 12 years. I started my first one during the early 90's recession because I really didn't want another corporate job. Pool rooms are dying right now. But when I am out and about I see tons of activity in the private clubs or the bars. On one hand I see people that never played, playing, but on the other you room owners now are getting killed. I blamed my demise on the no smoking laws, but as time has gone by I am feeling that there was a deeper problem. What other activities do you feel are taking away your business now. There were always theme parks and movie theaters to divert the customers, but what is it now that is different? Part of me would love to open another room, the other part (as in my wife) says ARE YOU NUTS! Why is it so bad now?

Bob
 
doitforthegame said:
I owned a pool room for about 12 years. I started my first one during the early 90's recession because I really didn't want another corporate job. Pool rooms are dying right now. But when I am out and about I see tons of activity in the private clubs or the bars. On one hand I see people that never played, playing, but on the other you room owners now are getting killed. I blamed my demise on the no smoking laws, but as time has gone by I am feeling that there was a deeper problem. What other activities do you feel are taking away your business now. There were always theme parks and movie theaters to divert the customers, but what is it now that is different? Part of me would love to open another room, the other part (as in my wife) says ARE YOU NUTS! Why is it so bad now?
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Bob:

I can't emphasize this enough. Diversity, Diversity, Diversity.. It really hinges on the area, and who has the specific strong holds. Billiards is dying because no one takes to time to teach someone else the game. As egotistical the game has become hinders its succession.

You can also blame the local bars and vending companies showering areas with bar boxes, and nonetheless; local & national sanctioned bar leagues that feed them. You get more comrade forces with the bar type atmosphere rather at the local pool hall.

The best setting in my opinion for a successful billiard atmosphere is you have to offer it all. The Sportsbar theme is a sure heavy hitter generating revenue more so than just a box with 20 pool tables.

Oh, and you better serve up Hot Wings, Beer, and Booze and offer some type of live entertainment. If that is too much to ask, then I'd have to say, "good luck".
 
Recession

We are witnessing a national collapse of the billiard room business accelerated by a recession, not caused by the recession.
 
Perhaps you haven't read this but I posted it once.

IMO the reason pool is dying is video games and no support for youth to play the game. I had a poolroom for 4 years, no booze, no smoking 4-5 tables on main st in the heart of my city. I catered to nothing but youth on the weekends-NO ADULTS. During the week I ran leagues- no KIDS. These kids today are playing at the poolhall but no other young ones are. We need to spark the youth or the game is dead, sorry to say its almost there as evidenced by the fact of all the poolrooms closing. ITs about the same case as bowling.

Just because people purchase tables for extra rooms in their house doesn't mean the game is thriving does it. You can tell how the game is really doing by serious players. Today I don't think there are many(young ones like there use to be) and how are they going to learn if there aren't people at the pool rooms or I should say any poolrooms to go see how good they are. Junior tournaments, etc, youth nights, if a poolroom that wants to stay in business longterm is not doing this they will surely fail IMO.
 
In today's environment, poolrooms can't be all about "pool". They have to be about entertainment or they will not survive. The 9 to midnight young drinking crowd love to go out to the rooms and just bang balls around with their buddies, you have to cater to that crowd and provide what interests them, they are the ones that will spend money. You can include APA leagues and such into that crowd, as thats really entertainment/recreation more than serious pool. The "players" don't spend money in general, some do but in general they are not the ones who are going to put $20 in the juke box and run up a $30 tab..

And secondly, the way rents, insurance, utilities, etc..etc..have esculated over the last 10 years have played a huge part in the demise of the "players room", no way of surviving on table time and soda, times have changed. The only rooms to remain as "players rooms" in the future are the ones who bought their building 20 years ago or more and are to stubborn to give it up.
 
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selftaut said:
In today's environment, poolrooms can't be all about "pool". They have to be about entertainment or they will not survive. The 9 to midnight young drinking crowd love to go out to the rooms and just bang balls around with their buddies, you have to cater to that crowd and provide what interests them, they are the ones that will spend money. You can include APA leagues and such into that crowd, as thats really entertainment/recreation more than serious pool. The "players" don't spend money in general, some do but in general they are not the ones who are going to put $20 in the juke box and run up a $30 tab..

And secondly, the way rents, insurance, utilities, etc..etc..have esculated over the last 10 years have played a huge part in the demise of the "players room", no way of surviving on table time and soda, times have changed. The only rooms to remain as "players rooms" in the future are the ones who bought their building 20 years ago or more and are to stubborn to give it up.
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those are all great points!
 
Rent is a major killer for pool rooms, i have owned my billliard store for many years and have 2 tables in it to play on. During league season busy on those 2 tables from 1pm to close. I have wanted to rent a building for 5 years for a modest 8-12 table room and every one wants $ 3000+ avg. Rent for there space. So i have no pool room yet................
 
Everyone made some really good points! Kind of makes me wonder why someone won't open the 'right' pool room. :)

There's a new bowling alley opening Aug 12th here locally. The owner has over 3 million invested including real estate. 20k sq foot facility..Kind of a small alley, I think 25 lanes or so, compared to a 40-50 lane places closer to the city (which have become real bad places now..

They have 750,000 in just vending equipment alone going into this place. They'll probably do well in the first months, but I really wish them luck...

Kind of the wrong time to open up something like this, especially when there are over 20 restaurants and bars in a 2 mile radius of the place with full liquor licenses.
 
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The main thing I believe killing rooms is the rent. Real estate values which translate into rental rates have gone up at a rate that is not compatible with many businesses. Bowling lanes and pool rooms depend on low rent. Most pool players are low income and you cannot have something nice where a vast majority of your clients are used to lower prices. So you either have to rent someplace that is below par or supplement your income with alcohol, retail, video games, food and such. As I have stated in many threads, we own our building and rarely make money on pool playing. All the while I hear about how high my prices are at $1.80 and $3.60/ hour. If I had to pay rent in my neighborhood (which is below average) I would have to charge double what I currently charge for pool. And that is just to break even or slightly lose money or slightly make money. Then it becomes a no-win situation. The number of guys that want to invest a lot of money to work a lot of hours and make a blue collar wage have to really love pool to put themselves and their families through that. There are easier ways with less risk to make triple the income of a pool hall.
 
No, it is not the recession.
No, it is not because people don't have any money
No, it is not the rent.
No, it is not the utilities.
No, it is not the smoking laws
No, it is not poker
No, it is not the casinos
No, it is not because we don't have a new hit movie
No, it is not the selfish pool players that will not share their knowledge
No, it is not because pool is not in the schools
No, it is not because pool is not in the Olympics
No, it is not because the lack of TV coverage
No, it is not because of the bar tables,
No, it is not because the pockets need to be smaller
No, it is not because of unscrupulous promoters
No, it is not because there are not enough tournaments
No, it is not because of pool's poor image
No, it is not because no one cares
No, it is not any of the above

No one knows what it is and we are all just guessing. Pools troubles were around long before this recession.
 
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Think those who treat customers like they were important family members will have less problem in this recession.
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See, the deal is, if they don't provide you money, then they are not customers. When 2 kids used to come in my room with the four kids that wanted to hangout that was ok. I explained to the kids that weren't playing it was ok, but they still had to pay time. What??? They would all say...yup, see I make my money renting space. When you are here you have to pay to rent the space. Well we aren't playing! They would say.....and I would respond you might as well because if you are here, you have to pay. That is what I am in business for.

In my experience the people that were just hanging around caused all of the problems anyway.

I agree, take out the water fountains. And when they ask for water just pull the bottle out of the cooler, place it in front of them and say..."That will be $1 please"
 
OTLB said:
IMO the reason pool is dying is video games and no support for youth to play the game.
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I agree. I mean, 30 years ago, what kind of entertainment was out there? Going to somebody's house and listening to his new 45 rpm record. Movies, cruising hamburger joints. 10 channels on cable. That was about it.

We didn't have ultra-realistic video games, World of Warcraft, Ipods, blackberries, the internet, texting, huge malls, 57 inch LCD televisions, cable with 300 channels, laser tag, Schlitterbahn, you name it.

To a lot of modern kids, rolling a ball across a table with a stick is about as exciting as watching paint dry. That's the bottom line.

Sure, you can attract them with other "add-ons" like pizza, music, arcade games, etc. but that's not really attracting them to pool. The pool tables in some places are just something to do while you're hanging out doing the other stuff.

But again, I think the bottom line is that the game of pool itself just isn't that appealing any more.

Ruark
 
Changes in Recession?

This is a very relevant to all of us out there who make a living through the game. Myself, I am a table mechanic who is thinking about opening a room in the next few years. I have a few ideas that I have yet to hear on here..

1) pool players are typically bachelors or at least not married... Check the marriage rates in the 60's and you can see it helped that boom. Now the rate is much lower, a boom is on its way if you go by statistics (if you can catch them before someone else does!)
2) pool still has a less than stellar image (promotion and overall perception)... not enough positive action from the top players and sponsors to bring in droves of ball banging kids to fuel the fire.
3) pool world has shrunk... you need a lot of feeder fish to keep the food chain. Why would a top player work overtime for $40k a year?
4) you guys are gonna love this! Pool room owners are typically poor businessmen at best. I have met many pool room owners within 200 miles of Philadelphia area over the years, few even 1099 for maintenance on the tables. I can give thousands of examples of cases where pool room owners that I associate with regularly have made ridiculous decisions that will eventually bite them in the ass. (Not preaching to the choir, just making a point.)

Just my 2 cents, let me know what you think. Also, what do you guys think (as room owners) of service plans for pool table maintenance? Looking to get something going locally that helps room owners and keeps them from justifying getting the $100 hacks after I fix a room.
Rob from www.table-tek.com and soon www.vintage-table-tek.com
 
doitforthegame said:
I owned a pool room for about 12 years. I started my first one during the early 90's recession because I really didn't want another corporate job. Pool rooms are dying right now. But when I am out and about I see tons of activity in the private clubs or the bars. On one hand I see people that never played, playing, but on the other you room owners now are getting killed. I blamed my demise on the no smoking laws, but as time has gone by I am feeling that there was a deeper problem. What other activities do you feel are taking away your business now. There were always theme parks and movie theaters to divert the customers, but what is it now that is different? Part of me would love to open another room, the other part (as in my wife) says ARE YOU NUTS! Why is it so bad now?

Bob
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video games, internet and poker. And a few more things, pool is just out of date
 
The Friday and Saturday night scene started getting heavy at my pool hall with people there just to take up space. A lot of kids just getting dropped off by there parents thinking we'd babysit for free. We got a call from a parent because I caught an underage kid smoking so I threw out his smokes. The parent was mad as hell at me for doing that! The kids would come in and cause nothing but trouble and not even spend a quarter, not even in the quarter candy machines! It started getting so bad that these mouth breathers were pushing out our customers that actually were there to play pool. So I talked my boss into doing a cover charge on the weekends for awhile. The first weekend we did it, we were amazed! All twenty tables taken to people that actually wanted to be there playing pool. No kids standing around the tables and no one causing problems. Now that summer time has really hit and it's stopped raining we are losing business. I know that if we hold in there when winter time comes again and the weather outside is less then tolerable we'll get business rolling again!

We offer an in-house 8-ball league and that is grown bigger each year. We are getting new faces each session which is great, our handicap system is 2-9 9 being the best. We don't have as many strong players as we use to due to them not really caring as much about pool as they use to. Our average player is now either a 4 or a 5... Only three 9s in the whole league! The nice thing though is what our regulars are starting to do as well as myself. We see a new face we offer to play a game for fun, we perk their interest. Now those faces are coming in more and more. If we could all just show one person our passion for the game I think things can and will get better. But it always takes that one person to stand up and give a helping hand. So what the kid may not be pro in one week, tell him if he keeps it up he can be there some day. I've seen many people walk in the doors of my place and I enjoy the new faces each time, but I love to see the same faces.

I agree that due to economical times it is getting harder for people to find that extra couple of bucks to come in and play.. I had a group of three that came in the other day and count out to me in change they only had enough money to play for almost an hour. I told them when their time would be up.. I let them play for and hour and a half, they came up and said, I think we are over our time? I told them were and not to worry about it and just to come back again. They did, now they are regulars.

The cost of food, and drinks alone is ridiculous. The cost of electricity is getting up there too. The tax for our hall is out of this world. Yet we are still making it by? No clue how, but I know or at least I hope that some day the game will pick up again, and I just hope it is soon for the sake of all pool halls! I know I'm not the only one floating in this boat.
 
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