Best of 2000: Best Barroom Pool

The Board Room
2237 First Avenue,
Banker's Hill
(619) 544-1173

Here's a universal truth (widely accepted myth?): the more you drink, the better you shoot pool. It's a confidence thing -- who cares if it's the boozy, false kind? You got game! So it stands to reason that the drunkest lot are shooting the best pool. And the drunkest bunch of sharpshooters in San Diego are hanging around the pool table at the Board Room. Swilling schooners, challengers wait for their names to be called off the chalkboard, above the din of the blaring jukebox. Good selection in the jukebox, by the way. This is barroom pool, on one squat little table in aged disrepair, shot with cues crooked as a lame dog's leg. Winners hold break, and challengers buy the rack. Step right up for a spoonful of humility. The Board Room is an afterthought of a joint, tucked in a corner, wedged between a Laundromat and a taco shop. This funky little plaza makes an evening: throw in your laundry, grab some rolled tacos, and go watch the regulars at the Board Room take barroom pool to a "higher" level. It's like going to school...with sharks. See Sondra behind the bar a schoonerful of false confidence.