King Kong

Outside, you get the feeling that you might see a knife fight in here when the money gets funny.
I went in with Matt O. You get buzzed in and the first thought in my head was, «where is the backdoor?». It just looks like something is about to go down but nothing really happens there and no one pulled a knife… damn.
It’s just a chill poolhall with some chill cats playing 3-​ball and some cards with very bad lighting and tiled floors. No booze and a good mix of young and old guys. We stood out against the backdrop of Vietnamese guys so most likely we will not be invited to get in on any action but I’m glad they let us chill and shoot some pool.
No booze but they do allow smoking… chain smoking.

Daaaam… I’ve always wondered about this place.
For years, I’ve walked by and peered into the door (all other windows are permanently shuttered closed) and seen extremely shady, young local Tenderloin residents playing pool inside this place.
I always assumed that this place was reserved exclusively for young Vietnamese troublemakers!
Finally, 2 pals and I (safety in numbers) decided to walk into this place and see what was up.
Inside, you feel like you’ve stepped into some local Southeast Asian poolhall. There are a few billiards tables and only one pool table. The place was absolutely hotboxed with cigarette smoke.
We turned everyone’s heads when we walked in – we were obviously out of place. There was a gaggle of about 8 people playing some strange game I’m never seen, with 8 or nine kings from a chess set with dice.
The place sells random asian beverages (soy milk, lychee juice, etc) from a small cooler. They buzz you in. Pool is $ 10 an hour and the guy writes your time on a chalkboard.
We played an hour of pool and tripped out on the atmosphere. Finally some crazy looking African guys came in and stared at us till our time on the table was up. We took off and considered it a success although we were slightly bummed that it wasn’t a bit more dangerous. We’d have to go back later in the evening on the weekend.

Played some 3-​ball here last week. Not very busy, and the tables were OK.