Questions,
answered.

Not usually. With twelve tables there is nearly always one free, and most people walk in. If it matters, book a table here or ring us and we will hold it for you until fifteen minutes past the start time.

Friday and Saturday evenings are the busiest. If you are a group of four or more, or you want a particular table, booking is the sensible thing.

• Book a table
• Ring us

1pm to 1am Sunday to Thursday, and 1pm to 2am on Friday and Saturday. The last tables go out an hour before close.

• The week’s hours

No, and the reason is structural rather than reassuring: you pay for a table by the hour, so the table is yours and nobody is waiting on you. The most common thing beginners get wrong is booking snooker when they wanted pool. A full-size snooker table is enormous and unforgiving.

• What actually happens
• Which game you want

Yes. Solo practice is normal in any snooker room and it is the fastest way to improve, because you get every shot instead of half of them. You pay the same hourly rate for the table either way, which makes an hour alone the cheapest coaching there is.

• An hour’s worth of things to do

Yes. No alcohol is served here, so there is no bar to keep them away from. Under-16s come with an adult, who stays with them.

• Juniors

An hour is about two frames of pool for two people, or one unhurried frame of snooker. If you have never played snooker on a full-size table, an hour is plenty; if you are three or four people on one pool table, two hours goes faster than you would think.

• Planning for a group

$18 an hour for the table, snooker or pool, at any time we are open. That is for the table, not per person, so four people on a pool table are paying $4.50 an hour each. Cues, rest, spider, chalk and balls are included.

• The rate card

When you break, not when you walk in. It stops when you rack your cue and tell the counter you are done, and you are charged to the quarter hour, rounded down. So fifty minutes is charged as forty-five.

If you are queueing at the counter or waiting for a table to be set up, you are not on the clock.

• How the clock works

Yes. A snooker glove is $10 and it is optional; the counter will offer one, and you can say no.

You do not need a glove to play. It stops the bridge hand sticking on a humid night, and plenty of good players never wear one.

• What costs extra

No. Cues, a rest, a spider, chalk and the balls all come with the table. The house cues are decent ones and people say so in reviews: "good quality cues too" is a direct quote.

• What the price covers

Card and cash, both at the counter when you finish.

The rate is $18 an hour for everybody, at every hour we are open, which is already the cheapest way to fill an evening for four people. If we run anything special, it goes up on the board behind the counter.

Size, mostly, and everything follows from it. A full-size snooker table is 12 feet by 6, with rounded pocket jaws that reject anything not struck cleanly; our American pool tables are 8 feet long with generous pockets. Snooker is 22 balls and a scoring system; eight-ball pool is 16 balls and a race to the black.

• The full comparison

Not to start with. The house cues here are good, and a cue you have not learned on is no better than a good house cue. Buy one when you can tell, blindfold, that a particular house cue is the one you keep reaching for.

• Choosing a cue

Both. The pool tables have pool cues with the wider tip that a larger, heavier ball wants, and the snooker tables have snooker cues. If you would rather play pool with a snooker cue, or the other way round, ask at the counter.

• The tables and the cues

Agree before you break. That one habit prevents almost every argument. Eight-ball in particular is played to at least three different rule sets in Australia, and two people can each be certain and both be right about a different code.

• Pool rules, and which one you mean

Sit down when it is not your shot, stay out of your opponent’s line of sight, and never put a drink on the table rail. That is most of it. The rest is quieter than people expect. Nobody in this room is watching you as closely as you think.

• The unwritten rules, written down

Twelve. Eight full-size snooker tables, 12 feet by 6, in the long room, and four American pool tables beside it. Every table sits under its own raft of lights.

• The floor plan

With eight snooker tables there is usually at least one free, and a customer put it the same way in a review: "they have 8, so there’s usually at least one free." The pool tables go first on a Friday and Saturday night. If you are coming then, book.

• Book a table

Dark, quiet and unpretentious. The most accurate description anybody has written is a customer’s: "It’s dark u kinda feel alone with ur friends even when others there, great place to relax." The crowd is mixed and multigenerational, and the staff are the kind people describe as welcoming.

• What people say

Yes. Every table, snooker and pool alike, sits under its own suspended raft of lights, and the rest of the room is kept dark on purpose, so the cloth is the brightest thing in it.

In the car park at the front of the building, off the corner of Regency Road. The entrance is a few steps from it.

• Parking and getting here

Yes. The entrance is level from the car park, there is room to move between the tables, and the staff are happy to help. If you want a particular table, ring ahead and we will keep it for you.

• Getting in and around

No, and not by oversight. There is no bar here and there never has been. Tea, coffee, cold drinks and hot food come from the counter. It is also, we would argue, the room’s best feature.

• The counter

Not alcohol. The room is not licensed and no alcohol comes onto the premises, yours included. Everything else is at the counter.

Yes. Tea, coffee, cold drinks and hot food from the counter, including rolls. It is a short list rather than a menu, and it changes, so ask at the counter what is on today.

• What the counter does