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The Big Shuffle
Doc’s Clock Finds a Simple Point of Difference
The concept is simple: Push the puck to the end of the table without it
falling off the board. But it’s all about having the right touch.
Improving at the game becomes addictive for a number of patrons, and
that spells repeat business. Table shuffleboard provides hours of fun
for bar-goers, an increase in revenue for bar owners and brings out the
competitiveness in everyone.
The Easy Shuffle
“It’s a really great bar game,” says Carey Suckow, owner of Doc’s
Clock in San Francisco. “Anybody can walk in off of the street and do
it well the first time, especially when you show them how to do it.”
Suckow believes that having shuffleboard can be a point of difference for a venue, because it is rare in bars.
“It’s something different,” he says. “There aren’t many bars in San
Francisco that have shuffleboard games, but there are plenty of bars
that have pool tables and darts.”
Companies such as Champion, Venture, Rock-Ola and others supply
coin-op shuffleboard tables. Table-style shuffleboard also is known as
American shuffleboard, but across America itself, people change up the
rules from location to location.
“We have a longer style of the game,” Suckow says. “Each team has a
different color of pucks, and the object of the game is to be as close
to the edge of the board as possible without falling over.
The winner of the first round goes until they are knocked off of
the board,” he says. “People typically play the game all of the time
and add their own spin on the game.”
Friendly Competition
Doc’s Clock uses shuffleboard as an avenue to bring in new
customers and retain old ones. “We started hosting Sunday tournaments,
because we needed a way to get customers in and get competition going,”
Suckow says, and the adjustent has worked.
“Usually we would do tournaments every week, but now we host one tournament a month to get more competition on Sunday.”
Shuffleboard — in the form of regular casual play and tournaments
as well — has turned int a new means of marketing for Doc’s Clock.
“For the winners, we typically give away free drinks, T-shirts, and other merchandise from Doc’s Clock,” Suckow says.
“On tournament nights, we usually have about five or six teams that
come in to play, but sometimes we’ll have too many people, and it can
become a long night.” NCB
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