As Published in Richmond BizSense
Monday, August 18, 2014
‘Servant to the game’ set to open downtown pool hall
BY MICHAEL THOMPSON - [email protected]
Taking some cues from the past, the
newest commercial tenant at the
Residences at the John Marshall is
ready to break into the downtown
market.
Greenleaf’s Pool Room, a restaurant,
bar and pool hall, is set to open Aug. 23
at 100 N. 6th St. on the ground floor of
the John Marshall hotel building.
Jim Gottier – who owns Greenleaf’s
with his wife Andrea Ball – knows his
way around a pool table.
Gottier, 59, is a former antique textile
dealer who
started playing pool
Photo by Michael Thompson
hustling in California halls as a
teenager. In 2009, he placed ninth at the World’s 14.1 Straight Pool Championship in New York.
Jim Gottier started playing pool as a teenager and will soon open his first pool hall in the John Marshall
building downtown.
“I’ve quit pool off and on over the years,” Gottier said. “I’m a bitter servant to the game. I always come back.”
Greenleaf’s has 13 pool tables bought from a shut-down Chicago pool hall.
Gottier said he and Ball spent $650,000 to open Greenleaf’s. They also got help with renovations from Dominion Realty
Partners, the firm that redeveloped and owns the John Marshall building. Gottier and Ball have a 10-year lease on the 5,400square-foot space. Gottier said renovations began eight months ago. Richmond-based Conquest Moncure & Dunn was the
general contractor. Gottier and Ball designed the space.
Greenleaf’s has a bar and dining area and a space for 13 pool tables
that came from a pool hall near Chicago that went out of business.
Some of the space’s fixtures are made of slate from old pool tables.
“I wanted to do something that reflected the pool room of the past
that I like so much,” Gottier said. “We got a historical space, which is
what we wanted.”
In another nod to the sport’s history, Gottier named his new
establishment after Ralph Greenleaf, a world champion pool player
in the 1920s and ‘30s.
Greenleaf’s has 13 pool tables bought from a
shut-down Chicago pool hall.
Photo by Michael Thompson.
Greenleaf’s shares the John Marshall’s first-floor retail space with the John Marshall Barber Shop, caterer Homemades by
Suzanne, and Dominion Realty Partners. Greenleaf’s sits on the ground floor of the John Marshall hotel building.
John Marshall property manager Wendy McLeod said 99 percent of the building’s residential space is leased. The 16-story
building has 238 apartment units.
Greenleaf’s sits on the ground floor of the John Marshall hotel building. Pool at
Greenleaf’s will cost $14 an hour for up to four players. The pool hall will be open
Tuesday through Saturday between 11 a.m. and 2 a.m. On Sunday and Monday,
Greenleaf’s will be open between noon and midnight. Gottier expects some players
will come to Greenleaf’s during the day when the rates are discounted. In the
evenings, he said he hopes to attract the happy-hour crowd, league players, and
service industry workers looking to unwind.
“The great part about a pool hall is that it comes in waves throughout the day,”
Gottier said of foot traffic.
Greenleaf’s won’t be without some competition. Other area pool halls include
Sharky’s Bar and Billiards in Innsbrook and Diamond Billiards on Midlothian Turnpike
See the original article here.
Greenleaf’s sits on the ground floor of the John
Marshall hotel building.
Photo by Michael Thompson