boingo
Verified Member
Many room owners do not realize the value of a daytime golf game in their pool room. Once they get going the regulars will be there from morning til dinner time.
In the 50's/60's/70's many of the rooms in CA had 5 x 10 or 6 x 12 snooker tables with daily golf games. They are few and far between now. I have to drive two hours from Sacramento to the South Bay to play on a 6 x 12. The room owners who took the tables out cite the amount of space they took up but did not try to promote the game and get it going when the tables were there.
California Billiard Club in Mountain View, CA has three 6 x 12 Riley's. Two are set up for snooker with the bi-directional snooker cloth and the other table has Simonis for the golf players. There is a huge Oriental and East Indian population in the area (Silicon Valley) that likes to play snooker.
The main push now is for league play and even adding more bar tables and taking regulation tables out. While that makes sense to increase the evening business, I wish there was a room with an active golf game a little closer to me. I would be there almost every day.
As an oldtimer, in my mind a pool room is not a pool room without a snooker and billiard table in it.
In the South Bay during the late 90's Campbell Billiards had one 5x10 which the owner later replaced with a 6x12. The fellow who owned it at the time spent his mornings playing the golf courses in the area and the rest of the day at his pool hall. The 6x12 was there for his enjoyment, it made no business sense since it was unused much of the time. Sadly, He sold the room and it closed two or three years later.
In Los Angeles during the 80's it was not uncommon for a room to have a 5x10 but they were often unused, at least in the evenings. I remember one Mexican place in Inglewood called Los Dos Hermanos which had mostly three cushion tables. That was the place where I first saw "french pool" played.
There was a Vietnamese place in the central San Fernando valley which had some billiard tables and snooker tables.
As for running a pool hall as a business, may I ask whether you have run a business before? I don't mean a profitable hobby, I mean supporting your family and maybe a couple employees for more than a couple years? If you've been able to do it before you'll be able to do it again. If you're looking at going into retirement and making your first attempt at a small business be very careful, that is not the time to lose your savings.
Should you give it a shot I wish you the very best. Let us know your location, I'd like to play your room if I get a chance.