Santa Rosa Billiards opened in April 1969, at a time when the city had only 40,000 residents. The Dettlings, who own the low, white building at Mendocino and Seventh, said they are renting it to an upscale bicycle distributor. "We will probably do some traveling and stop in to see what other billiard parlors look like." "It is bittersweet, it really is," Sandra said. The cost of operating the hall with only a couple of employees for long hours became a strain when they could only charge so much to rent the tables before customers balked.
The bad economy is forcing customers to be more selective about their entertainment. The Dettlings, both approaching their mid-50s, said they are simply tired of operating a pool hall that stayed open, on average, 12 hours a day. We have some special-ed kids come in, finding a place they feel comfortable. "We've seen the image of billiards change a lot since we opened in 1969," Joe Dettling said. Santa Rosa's once-popular upscale billiards parlor, Team Players on Fifth Street, now houses the downtown offices of the Sonoma County Public Health Department.
The parlor has been around long enough to witnesses several cycles of interest in pool, stimulated in 1986 by the "The Color of Money" film and the mid-1990s when halls catered to the young and trendy set by offering cigar bars and valet parking, imposing dress codes and high cocktail prices. But her husband, Joe, suggested that they take over the business in the 1980s when her parents became too ill to run it. For a time, Dettling attempted to stay out of the family business, taking a high-tech job with Hewlett-Packard for 18 years. "I remember sleeping upstairs from my parents' hall in the city and using the chamber pots at night because they said all sorts of unsavory things might happen downstairs."Īfter her parents sold their parlor in San Francisco, they bought and renovated a grocery store at Mendocino Avenue and Seventh Street. I was picking up ashtrays on the corner of every table," she said. "As a kid, I was putting pool tables together. Her parents, Donald and Cecylia Schmuck, ran Red's Billiards in San Francisco and, before that, her grandparents operated a pool hall in Milwaukee. Although dozens of bars have pool tables, there are only a few billiard parlors left: one in Cotati, one in Petaluma and one on south Santa Rosa Avenue.īut for Sandra Dettling, it was much more than a game because she had green felt in her lineage. With 15 tables that offered snooker, carom and pocket billiards, nine-ball and straight pool, Santa Rosa Billiards was the dean of Sonoma County pool halls. If things get serious, you may want to join a league at a place like Gotham City Billiards Club, rather than subjecting your friends on a regular basis to your obsession with winning.After four decades, the Dettling family closed the doors Saturday night on their Santa Rosa billiards parlor, a Mendocino Avenue institution that was part community center, part lunch counter and all about the game. Marvel at the skills on display at places like Amsterdam Billiards, or test your own mettle with a game of one-pocket and, just maybe, a friendly wager. Expect a mix of novices and experts playing eight-ball and other variations of the game during busy nights out. Rather than judging, we have more productively spent our time searching out the best places to play pool, billiards or snooker in New York. Be honest: these games are about playing it cool in front of your friends while slyly winning.
The real objective for both is to look like you are barely trying when you are putting your heart and soul into a game. Both may be cue sports, but games can have different objectives, whether it is to pocket balls or to move those balls around the table in a precise way. Before we begin to write about the best billiards in New York, let us claim that we know there is a difference between pool and billiards.
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