Did Billiards culture strike out?
. It’s Saturday night in a college town.
In Moonshadow Tavern, called “Moonies” by the students who tend to frequent it, a group of mostly 20-somethings gathers along a wooden bar. Three bartenders rush to fill drink orders — mainly the specials. The dance floor is occupied by a row of six tables set with clear plastic cups filled with water for a beer pong tournament. In the back, a lone pool table waits unoccupied. Someone may strike up a game later tonight, but for now the traditional bar pas-time is forgotten.
Around the Commons, bars are trading traditional Billiards for a shot at creating a new bar culture.
Brian Falvy, the manager of Moonies, said the college population that mainly supports the bar uses beer pong as an icebreaker much like other groups use darts and pool. He said the demographic tends to prefer pong to pool because it’s less expensive to play and bar goers interested in pool tend to be older patrons.
“A pool league brings in a different crowd that doesn’t really mesh well with the college students,” he said. “We prevent it from happening.”
Jeff Mazer, a manager of The Chanticleer, said the bar caters to locals who are not college students and tend to be older than the general college-population. He said Chanticleer does not offer new-age drinking games like beer pong because those games inspire binge drinking.
“The group that plays Billards the most ranges from about 26-to38-years-old,” he said.
Up the street at Silky Jones, an older crowd settles in for the night. This group isn’t the beer-pong type, but Billiards isn’t their thing either. Silky’s, as it’s known, carved out its niche in the Commons by making itself home to a collection of new bar games.
Board games like Jenga and Apples to Apples are played on the bar’s many booths and patrons are invited to try their luck at any of the Wii video games set up on television monitors near the dance floor.
Barry, a bar tender at Silky’s, said the lounge was founded around the idea that people could find pool at other places and the board-game bar offered a new type of drinking culture.
“We’re just trying to carve out our own niche.”
To listen to audio of a local bar tender, click http://soundcloud.com/nataliekrawczyk/silky.
To see a map of local bars with pool tables, click https://www.dropbox.com/s/in0vu6a3a1wr2er/SearchForBillards2.swf
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