A disturbance in the ether

A fine night of music and drinking at Salud tonight was rather spoiled for me by a sudden, startling, quite horrible suggestion (and from a most unexpected source).

Someone hinted to me that perhaps my beloved Pool Bar was not doing terribly well lately, and that the time might be ripe to attempt a takeover.

I do so very much hope this is empty talk. I think it is. The Pool Bar has had a bit of a slow summer (because so many of its regulars have left/been forced to leave); but everywhere has had a very slow summer. And there are signs that things are starting to pick up again now.

Doubtless, it could make more money as a different kind of bar. It could probably even make a bit more money as the kind of bar it now is, with some more aggressive promotion. But bars like this - most bars, in fact - have to accept the fact that they're going to be largely dead Monday through Thursday. The Pool Bar has seen some very good weekends. And it's almost never deserted (well, not after 9pm or so, anyway). It has a solid core of fiercely loyal regulars. And the pool table (a good quality pool table, one that regularly attracts a knot of good players to compete against each other) is a very strong draw, a distinctive attribute - nay, in Beijing, it might well be called a unique selling point, because the pool tables in every other bar I can think of are just CRAP (only the old Goose & Duck [demised a year or more ago] and Maggie's [in indefinite hiatus at the moment] have ever developed anything like such a reputation as a magnet for pool players). Apart from the core clientele who mostly live locally, the place also occasionally attracts people from all over town - it's amazing how many people I know have popped up in there once or twice.

No, I think that for a bar of its type - a no-nonsense neighbourhood bar of modest ambitions - the Pool Bar does pretty damn well. It may not be making anyone rich quickly, but I should think it's easily covering its overheads - even when business is a bit slow, as it has been over the past three months. It's probably one of the most successful bars in the whole Nanluoguxiang area.

My acquaintance tonight, the entrepreneurial vulture, actually had the temerity to ask me if I would consider taking a stake in an attempted buyout. I responded that I would sooner cut my right arm off with a hacksaw, sell my grandmother to vivisectionists, drop-kick a baby into a pit of fire.....

Hands off my Pool Bar! I like it fine just the way it is. It is, in fact, very nearly perfect.