How to price a game (and happy hour) on a bar table

There is no sacred dollar amount. There is the cost of keeping the table honest, and there is what your room will bear on a Friday.

Floor the price on maintenance. A recoth on a 7-foot commercial table is not a rounding error. Tips, chalk, a cue that becomes a spear, the occasional return jam. If a game is $1 because “that’s what the last guy did,” you will either skip maintenance or resent the table. Price a game so a busy month covers a year of keeping it playable.

Then look at the line. If people wait and still play, you are cheap or you are popular — usually both. If the table sits empty next to a packed bar, the price is not the problem. The room is, or the cues are, or nobody knows the table exists. Lighting and a chalk cube on the rail fix more empty tables than a 50-cent cut.

Happy hour is a switch, not a personality. Cut the price when you need bodies, not because a vendor programmed “fun.” Electronic tables can do this without a manager with a key. Mechanical tables need a policy: staff opens it, staff closes it, it is written down.

Time play vs per game. Time play (one price for 30 or 60 minutes) is kinder to people who are learning and harder on the line. Per game is cleaner in a bar. Some rooms do time play on weekday afternoons and per game after 7. That is a good split if your afternoon is students and your night is a wait.

Post it. A small card on the light or the coin door. Venmo on a handwritten napkin is how you get argued with. If you take bills, say which ones. If the acceptor is $1–$5 only, say that too.

When you request a quote, tell us if you want coin only, coin plus bill, or card. The hardware changes the number and it changes how you price. Do not buy a coin-only door and then decide you wanted happy hour from a phone.