The Billiard Club/Pub 161 is one of those places that could be awesome, but for a few annoying reasons, it isn’t. It is mostly a hard-rock club and has a Tuesday Night Acoustic Open Mic.
Good points: Lots of pool tables; both coin and hourly. Servers who take orders from the pool tables. Impressive beer selection compared to a lot of other places. The bartenders are not stuck-up bitches. Lots of tables in the bar section; several booths along two walls. Good P.A. system the last time I was there, but previous visits were not as impressive.
Bad Points: Lots of thugs and wannabe-thugs. This probably has a lot to do with the location. All of the booths are along the walls, which means you can’t see the stage (or get only a partial view) if you sit in a booth. The club charges about 2 bucks for both Coke AND water! Rarely is there a large audience, most people come to see their friends play and then leave.
I hate this venue. The stage is crammed into the corner and it sounds like shit. They also have way too many low end speakers, and only two 12″ speakers which are situated atop the mountainous stacks of low-packs, far above the audience’s ears. This setup makes it difficult to hear the vocals. Add to that the price of a coke and the $5 cover to see your friend’s band play for 35 minutes, and you’ve got an expensive hour on a saturday night.