Everybody Into The Pool -- Seattle Baby Boomers Can Cue For Billiards At Plush Jillian's

When William Aldrich, a 37-year-old advertising-account supervisor, leaves his downtown office at night, he hungers for a relaxing game of darts or pool. Two problems: His spiffy ``ad-guy'' suit isn't exactly standard pool-hall apparel, and the smoke in some of the regular dives makes his eyes water so badly he can barely see to shoot straight.

But, yup. Right on cue, Seattle gets a swank pool parlor to rescue maturing baby boomers from behind the recreational eight ball.

You wouldn't recognize the former Frank Kenney automobile showroom (on Westlake, overlooking Lake Union's southwest corner). It's now Jillian's Billiard Club. We're talking class. It's all mahogany paneling, brass rails, polished oak floors, plush green carpet and Ralph Lauren designer wallpaper in an opulent green-striped maroon.

Once again, just as in Edwardian days when billiards was played in black-tie elegance, pool is cool.

``I think that pool's heightened popularity is partly because of the crackdown on drinking,'' says Mike Panozzo, editor of the authoritative Billiard Digest. ``Bars are looking for other forms of revenue. And young professional people find that upscale pool rooms are very appealing places to relax.''

As an example, Panozzo points to Chicago, where his publication is based. He says that as recently as 18 months ago the downtown area was totally devoid of

Seattle baby boomers can cue

for billiards at plush Jillian's

pool halls. But now about a dozen have opened, and pool is making a similar splash in other major cities such as New York, Atlanta, Boston and Dallas.

An estimated 30 million Americans now play pool (incidentally, these days the words ``pool'' and ``billiard'' seem to be used almost interchangeably, even though they're technically different games). ``It's hard to come up with statistics,'' Panozzo says, ``but nationwide there's a new pool room opening up just about every day.''

Though the phone book lists six billiard parlors in the Seattle area, including two in bowling alleys, none match Jillian's plushness. However, Kelly Klahn of American Games, a distributor of Brunswick tables in Seattle, expects that will change as soon as new salons open in areas such as Bellevue. Sales manager Ray Brown speculates that many young people are tiring of video games, ``and now they want to play another person instead of a machine.''

American Games installed all the Brunswick Gold Crown 3 tables at Jillian's, and Klahn, office manager of the company, says that both home and office sales also are strong. ``Many parents are installing a table in the rec room to keep the kids occupied and away from drugs,'' he says. ``It's no longer true that being a good billiards player is the sign of a misspent youth.''

But few at-home or at-office pool parlors could match the opulence of Jillian's, which opens officially today. Downstairs are nine tournament pool tables, plus the very bar (according to an engraved glass mural hanging above it) where sat F. Scott Fitzgerald, Irving Berlin, James Dean and scores of other celebrities when this polished hardwood cocktail pit graced New York's celebrated Algonquin Hotel. (Well, yes, the bar does look awfully new for an 84-year-old antique, but Jillian's publicist Barbara Travers says that's because they've cleaned it up).

Need coaching in pool's gentle art? Just a short shot away from the semicircular memorial bar are small green-marble tables where you can snack while viewing a training video. Upstairs you find more green carpet, mahogany and brass, another 24 pool tables, a snooker table, a billiard table, three dart boards, a bar, food service and a sweeping view of Lake Union.

Aldrich, who has offered to captain a Jillian's darts team, already has scored a private victory. He says he happened to drop by the club the other day when workmen were installing the three dart boards, and he just happened to have his darts with him. And: phtt, phtt, phtt . . . he scored the first bull's-eye on each board.

Jillian's is the third chic pool parlor established nationally by partners Steven and Gillian Foster (the chain's name is a play on Gillian), Kevin Troy and Howard Glickman. They opened their first in Boston in 1988, another in Miami Beach last year, the Seattle one this month and now, Steven Foster says, they're eyeing other West Coast cities. The boom is on, and Foster attributes it to the ``appetite of the baby boomers for an alternative type of activity.''

Billiard Digest's Panozzo says that the billiard boom mirrors urban resurgence as ``young professional people with pretty decent incomes'' come back to live in the old metropolises. And the game itself is gentrifying along with the cities. ``This was always just a dollar-an-hour sport, and nobody dared charge more,'' Panozzo says. ``But now you can charge $8 or $10 an hour and nobody bats an eye.''

That's true at Jillian's, where a pair of pool players divvy up $8. Snooker or billiards is $10 per person.

But for free entertainment, the walls are decked with framed enlargements of movie stills that remind us of how closely Hollywood linked its glamour to billiards. George Sanders, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, James Cagney and Kim Novak. They're all there, cue in hand. And, of course, Paul Newman. Remember, ``The Hustler'' in 1961? And ``The Color of Money'' in 1986?

Both films had a powerful part in reviving pool's popularity, say many aficionados, including Patrick McKernan, owner of McKernan's workshop near Green Lake. McKernan's skill links pool's past and present. He restores antique and classic pool tables, one of which - a Brunswick Monarch - he sold for $65,000. And he makes what he calls ``the world's finest pool-cue cases.'' You saw Newman and Tom Cruise toting his products in ``The Color of Money.''

Other than that, Seattle's link to big-time billiards seems pretty tenuous. John Teerink, proprietor of the 50-year-old 2-11 Billiard Club on Second Avenue, says that's partly because touring professionals seem to skip Seattle because of its inconvenient location.

Teerink's club, in contrast to Jillian's, proffers a more rugged aspect of pool. Not a woman in sight, the floors are bare concrete, clothing is mostly work overalls or T-shirts.

As Aldrich says, ``Your traditional pool hall is not where you'd usually take a date.''

All that changes with the arrival of Jillian's. Aldrich plays coed soccer in the Co-Rec league at Lower Woodland Park on weekends. Now, ad-guy suit and all, he's shooting for some weeknight coed pool.