2010 Best New Room: Snookers (Providence, R.I.)

EACH YEAR we run this competition, we have to explain to at least one winning entrant, sometimes more, that the number assigned to their room does not represent a ranking. We select 10 rooms and list them; since there are 10, each has to have a number, but that number is meaningless with respect to the other nine.

This year, we're able to deviate from that, but only slightly: Steve Goulding, of Snookers in Providence, R.I., is quite possibly the best-qualified owner we have ever had. In addition to being an avid player - a quality quite common in new room owners - he's an architectural designer who served as his room's architect, designer and builder.

Snookers is a reincarnation, first born in 1989. That version won an Honorable Mention award in our competition; the new one, adjacent to Interstate Rte. 95 and across the street from a Marriott hotel, opened exactly 20 years after the original did.

The building, an old industrial-metal fabricating and welding plant, was completely gutted. A new roof was added, new concrete floors were poured, new electrical and HVAC services were installed. Many of the artifacts and art pieces that gave the old Snookers its unique atmosphere were selected to make the journey to their new home, along with wooden railings, doors, lights, lampposts, etc.

The most notable addition to the new Snookers is a full-service restaurant (food was limited, and secondary, in the old location). The new Snookers menu lists nearly 100 food items, plus over 60 bottled beers and 20 drafts, and the dining room in which those items may be enjoyed seats 110 people. There are two bars, one that seats 35 and has a back-bar video wall with nine high-definition TVs and a focal-point 10-ft. video screen (40 HD TVs and five big screens altogether in the place). A smaller bar services the pool-table area, and also functions as a personal bar for private parties.

Those parties are a big part of the new Snookers business, and its party room can actually "morph" into several different size rooms. Drapery panels slide back and forth between the pool tables, to create rooms of one to seven tables.

As for the pool itself, a separate players' tournament room offers eight Brunswick Gold Crown IVs, for a total of 15 such tables. This room is also home to the New England Pool and Billiards Hall of Fame, and hosts many local and regional tournaments, particularly the Ocean State 9-Ball Championship.

Externally, Snookers sports a new street façade in addition to two outdoor patios, one for dining and one for smoking. There?s a new paved parking lot, and a 75-ft. tall pylon sign with a 20-ft. wide neon Snookers logo on top. Moving the room to its new home resulted in a better location, more parking, ownership versus tenancy, and a chance for the Gouldings to add, subtract and change all the things they learned during the past 20 years about owning and operating a successful billiard room. Their renovation costs ran about $1.5 million dollars.

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