The Shuffleboard Factor

One Table Could Be Your Point of Difference

Pool, Golden Tee, MegaTouch — they all keep you in coins, emptying pockets while patrons sip suds. But chances are, the competition across the street has those games, too, and if that bar has better music playing or better atmosphere, the potential customer making his decision may lean toward that side of the street.
    Then again, by adding a not-so-secret weapon to the gaming mix, he might shuffle on over to your door — maybe even at least one night every week.
    Shuffleboard’s unique draw is well-suited to the laid-back balance of friendly competition and holding a cold brew in one hand. Those customers who get hooked on pushing the puck seek the venues that boast the board, and in many neighborhoods or markets, those venues may be few. By adding a shuffleboard table, a bar can establish a point of difference that can attract new customers and convert them into regulars.

Capturing an Audience
    The Warehouse District in Austin, Texas, is just west of the central business district and has been called the upscale cousin to 6th Street. With a variety of restaurants and clubs that have been renovated from former warehouses into restaurants and bars skewing a little pricier and more hip than in some other areas, the district offers much to entertain. But there is only one beacon in this part of the city for shuffleboard fiends.
    “I’d say (the Lavaca Street Bar) is pretty well known for its shuffleboard table,” General Manager Travis Jones says. “Lavaca is one of the first bars in the warehouse district that as far as I can remember always had a shuffleboard table. The bar’s been here 15-plus years, but we took it over four years ago and kept the same name and the shuffleboard table, so it’s kind of iconic with that shuffleboard table.” Jones says the table was there when they moved in, and they inherited it.
    With just its one table, Lavaca has established a weekly tournament, with 6-8 teams of two. Until just recently, the tournament has been held each Tuesday night at 7 p.m.
    “It’s a pretty big hit,” Jones says. “There’s not a lot of shuffleboards around town. There are a few, but not as many as you find pool tables and things like that. We offer a nice special that we do on Tuesdays, with $1 Tecates. We started the tournament a couple years ago, right around the time we started the special, and the $1 Tecate has really taken off.”
    In fact, the tournament has become such a sturdy, solid draw that Lavaca Street Bar stands ready to leverage its power to boost more than just Tuesday sales.
    “With that captured audience, I’m trying to switch the tournament to Wednesdays to see if I can fill my Wednesdays up a little bit,” Jones says. The Tecate special will continue on Tuesday, and the Wednesday’s special will stay the same as it has been, with Miller Lite for $2 to quench the thirsts of the shuffleboarders.
    Promotion for the night is basic and minimal.
    “Any time we put out any kind of blurb in The Austin Chronicle, we always mention the different things we have, shuffleboard being one of them,” Jones says. “We also have a pool table, Golden Tee and several different TVs. We do (weekly) e-mail send-outs as well that advertise our Wednesday shuffleboard tournaments.

Revenue, One Way or Another
    Lavaca’s table is so old, Jones isn’t even sure what brand it is, and there is no charge to play. “People come in, and they get excited about the fact that we have shuffleboard, and they get even more excited when they find out it’s free,” he says.
    The Jewel Box in San Diego is another bar with one, ancient table. “It has been at this bar for at least 15 years,” says Owner Holly Peterson. “It is a very old table; it’s probably 30 years old.” A permit sticker on the table dated 1973 backs up Peterson’s estimate.
    Maintenance is a key consideration, Peterson says.
    “One of the owners, about five years ago, imported a service man,” she says. “There’s only one in southern California, and he has to bring him down from L.A. It’s very, very expensive to have him work on it. He stripped it, planed it and refinished it. It’s one of the best tops in San Diego. That’s why it’s so popular. It’s one of the most level, unpitted, well-finished tables around.
    “A lot of it is keeping maintenance. You have to keep it clean, you have to make sure nobody puts their drinks on it, no food gets spilled on it, that you have the proper equipment to play on it, including a full set of pucks and the proper shuffleboard wax. Ours is very old, so it does not have the automatic scoring.”
    Of course, today’s table manufacturers offer service that’s a little more convenient and easier on the overhead — as well as offering the added revenue stream of tables that are coin-operated. Companies such as Champion Shuffleboard (www.championshuffleboard.com) manufacture state-of-the-art coin-op tables, with service for supporting operators.
    As far as revenue, Champion, for instance, estimates that a bar owner generally may expect a low of $40 up to a high of $225 and an average of $80 per week in coin box proceeds from a coin-op shuffleboard table. But perhaps the most important gain from the tables comes at the bar as patrons who come for the competition wet their whistles. Well-planned tournaments also are a boon for bar business as players come to the bar for the game and bring their friends.
    “Whenever I put out banners or flyers, I include the fact that we have shuffleboard on it,” Peterson says. “Although it does not cost anything to play the game, I receive a great deal of business just from the fact that we have a shuffleboard table. It’s kind of a yuppie game, to tell you the truth. It seems like a lot more of the middle-class to upper-class — a lot of shirts and collars.
    “Since they don’t have to pay for the game, we have to check out the shuffleboard pucks to everyone. They have to leave their ID in order to receive the pucks, because these pucks are very expensive, and people like to walk off with them.” NCB