Ocean’s 8 in Park Slope fully demonstrates the transformation of the sport that followed the release of “The Color of Money” in 1986. Rates: Monday–Thursday, $10 per table per hour. Today, Balukas still presides over its 42 pool tables and six Ping Pong tables - and maintains the no booze rule. Sure, Balukas won the US Open at age 13 and later became a five-time Player of the Year - but she got her start right here, playing at age 4 at the 45-year-old pool hall owned by her dad. Not only is it one of the oldest pool halls in the city, but it’s owned by the best female pool player ever - the Brooklyn native, Jean Balukas (see interview). You can’t talk about pool in Brooklyn unless you talk about Hall of Fame Billiards. Rates: Before 6 pm, $4.50 per person per hour after 6 pm, $5. If you’re not as good, take a regular table - and thanks to Gotham City’s 1,000 instructional books, you can get ready for the big time. “People are scared of the table,” said co-owner Isabella Buckley. Gotham City Billiards has it - a decades-old, hand crafted Vitalie that’s so beautiful that no one even wants to play on it. Pool skills as beautiful as yours deserve a pretty table. Rates: Monday–Thursday, $5.50 per person per hour Friday–Sunday, $6.50. Pros like Liz Ford, Caroline Pao, Mika Immonen, and Mark Vidal are there almost every week - but before you think of taking them on, consider that the professional tables have smaller pockets.Īnd it takes a full wallet to get into a game with the likes of those pros. Its 17 tables are not only spaced far apart (eliminating the inevitable poke), but a handful are reserved for high-stakes games. This Bensonhurst pool hall is the real deal for real players. If you’re playing pool to drink, Skyline Billiards is not your place. Rates: Noon–8 pm, $8 for one table per hour 8 pm–closing, $10. “It is an original pool hall and a sports bar at the same time.” “Status Q is a true blend of the two best things in the pool world,” said Mike Trig, a frequent player at the hall. In keeping with the Midwestern bar feel of the place, there are big TVs that play every football game and is the only pool hall in Bay Ridge with a full bar. In the case of this Bay Ridge haunt, Status Q has 10 of the regulation nine-foot tables and two seven-footers. Apparently, that’s a big Midwestern thing. Midwesterners will feel right at home at Status Q Billiards - that rare pool hall that offers both tavern- and regulation-sized tables. Rates: Monday–Thursday, $5 per person per hour Friday–Sunday, $6. “If you’re British, American, or a Brooklynite, this place is for you.” “We are the biggest hall in Brooklyn, that’s all we have to say,” said James Lee, a manager. (It’s a fun game - if you’re feeling Cockney.) That’s the high-class British cousin of billiards, featuring 15 red balls, six balls of different colors and a very specific order for potting them all. With his help, The Brooklyn Paper created a list of the six best places to pot some balls.īrooklyn has many mega-pool halls, but Platinum Café and Billiards in Sunset Park is the biggest of them all, with thousands of square feet of space, 36 tables, a bar, a full kitchen, and a roof deck.īut Platinum also offers that bastardization of good ol’ American pool: snooker. Through his the American Poolplayers Association, with its 1,500 members, Banfield has played on every respectable (and, let’s face it, unrespectable) table from Greenpoint to Gravesend. “Now, it’s my full-time job.”īanfield spends almost every night of the year pushing a cue across felt somewhere in Brooklyn. “Thirty years ago, my dad never let me go into pool halls alone,” said Ross Banfield, who runs the largest amateur pool league in Brooklyn. It’s still the same game of geometry, concentration, angles, and good aim in a dimly lit place, but now, billiards’ reputation has a clean slate. The stereotypes of the past - think Minnesota Fats playing in haze of cigarette smoke and spilled beer - are gone, replaced by people that may not know the rules, but are having fun. Whether you’re a pool shark, a mark, or a stakehorse, Brooklyn’s pool halls are the best place to play a couple rounds.
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