Upscale Pool Halls Emerge From Smoky Past

BELLTOWN

Pool is cool again.

Abandoning the image of dingy, smoke-filled rooms with hustlers, glitzy pool halls are opening locally for an upscale clientele.

Take Belltown Billiards, for example.

"I think pool is one of the boom industries of the '90s," said Steven Good, who along with his wife, Jennifer, owns Belltown Billiards.

This pool hall features polished wood dining tables, original paintings, a mural of pool balls, designer lights that hang from the ceiling like icicles and purple leather seats around a dozen Brunswick pool tables.

The Belltown also serves Italian meals, such as Fuzzoletti Con Funguhi pasta with wild mushrooms and pine nuts, and customers sip such wines as Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia 1989 while shooting a game of eight-ball.

"We're catering to a lot of couples, not old smoking pool- room types. Having women get involved in pool has changed it," Jennifer Good said. "This is the kind of place where you bring a date." Singles, of course, are welcome, too.

This is a setting far removed from the dark, menacing pool halls Minnesota Fats hustled decades ago, when bets could run into the thousands of dollars.

"Pool is something that universally has crossed over into everyone's life at some point," said King Cole, general manager of Jillian's Billiard Club & Cafe.

At Jillian's, a two-story high building with large windows overlooking Lake Union, it's not uncommon to find young people dressed in a nice sweater and jeans playing next to a man dressed in tuxedo and woman in a long evening gown. The staff serves drinks and food at the pool table.

"There is a big resurgence in pool across the nation and the reasons are that pool is an exciting game," Cole said. The game can be played well by males and females; short people and tall; small people and large.

The Billiards Congress of America says nine of 10 billiards players in the nation play traditional pool, where players call shots and sink seven balls before sinking the eight ball to win. The other 10 percent play snooker, which requires a bigger table, smaller pockets and more balls; or carom, with fewer balls and no pockets.

The number of players is growing. At least 50 percent more people shoot pool than play golf or tennis, the Billiards Congress said.

Many pool-shooters are affluent. Recent studies from the Billiard & Bowling Institute of America showed the number of players from households earning $50,000 or more has jumped more than 84 percent from 1987.

The study showed that billiards trailed only bowling (53.5 million) and basketball (39.8 million) in terms of popularity.

Billiards probably began in England, historians say, when lawn bowlers began moving indoors to avoid the rain. In the 14th century, the bowlers started using tables with pockets cut into the sides as a substitute for wickets. The French word "billiard" means "bent stick," because players used curved cue sticks.

And now its come to Belltown.

"You're getting a lot of upper-income people in the (Belltown) area," said Good, where several upscale high-rise apartment buildings have recently opened or are being built.

"Belltown is the alive area of Seattle, what Pioneer Square was 15 years ago with the art galleries and the sophisticated buildings," Good said. "A place where people go for nightlife."

Good, who opened the half-million dollar pool room five weeks ago, said there are few options in Belltown other than drinking or dancing. "We looked at this as an alternative," said Good, who also has co-owned the Queen City Grill for five years, next door to the billiards hall.

"As more housing and nighttime businesses come in, then you'll see people out and about at night without being apprehensive," said Lucinda Harder, co-owner of Antiques and Art Associates and a board member of the Denny Regrade Business Association.

"All of this is good," she said. "I like more people because, as a retail person, that means more business for all of us."