photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

The Clemons AutoMax location near Sixth and Iowa street was closed and empty April 8, 2024.

Businesses are always looking for a big break. Lawrence businessman Chad Landis has never had to look very far. After all, when you are in the pool hall business, one is likely to happen at any table.

Soon, 30 of them may be happening at once.

Landis has plans to make one of Lawrence’s largest pool halls even bigger by moving it into a former car dealer location on Sixth Street, creating room for 30 pool tables, a sports bar full of TVs and a new restaurant space.

Landis and his wife, Anna Landis, have been owners of Empire Bar & Billiards near Ninth and Iowa streets for the last 10 years. The couple has purchased the former Clemons AutoMax building — perhaps you remember it as Lonnie Blackburn’s Academy Cars — at 1527 W. Sixth Street.

“It is on Sixth Street, right, one of the most traveled corridors in the city, if not the most traveled,” Chad Landis said of the appeal of the new location. I”m kind of tucked away in a basement right now. The visibility is going to be great.”

Empire currently is located on the back side of the shopping center that houses The Merc at Ninth and Iowa streets. The spot — which used to operate as The Pool Room under different owners for years — can be difficult to find if you don’t know it is there.

But the location has built up a loyal following, and Landis said he will keep the venue open as a more traditional neighborhood bar. A name is still in the works, and the spot will include a few pool tables, darts, Golden Tee video golf and other such offerings. Tortas Jalisco, the Mexican restaurant that leases the bar’s kitchen, also will stay, he said.

The Empire Bar & Billiards name, however, will be making the move to the new Sixth Street location. Importantly, so will the Diamond pool tables — a high-quality brand of table favored by more advanced players. There will be quite a few more of them. The current location has 20 tables. The new location will have 30 — 28 seven-foot tables that are the standards size seen in most bars and two nine-foot tables that are the size used in most professional pool tournaments.

The plans, however, also call for a good portion of the front half of the building to be set aside for a new restaurant. Landis said he doesn’t have plans to open a restaurant, but rather is seeking an operator who wants to rent the space. The space would be set up so that the restaurant could open as a standalone operation, but the expectation is that the restaurant also would provide food to the pool hall patrons. Landis said he thinks the location and unique arrangement will be attractive to existing restaurant operators, or perhaps successful food truck operators who are looking for a brick-and-mortar opportunity.

“I have 100 people a night in there Monday through Thursday, and I don’t serve food,” Landis said of his weekday pool hall crowds. “I think it is a great business opportunity for some restaurant.”

Perhaps you might be surprised that a pool hall is hitting triple-digit attendance on a night-in-night out basis. The sport doesn’t get the television or media exposure of many other sports, and it isn’t often mentioned with the cadre of trending games like pickle ball, corn hole other such offerings.

But pool does have more than a century head start on those games games, as it was once one of the most ubiquitous sports in America, even into the early to mid-20th century. Today, Landis — who has been in the Lawrence pool hall business as an owner, manager or employee for about 25 years — said the game is benefiting from one of its old-school elements: It involves people gathering at the same location.

“People really like to be around other people right now, but it is hard to do that for no reason,” Landis said.

Or as Landis put it: “If you’re 32, it can be hard to just go to a bar by yourself on a Tuesday night. It feels weird.”

But, if you are part of a pool league, you have a great reason to be there.

“We live in this digital age where people aren’t often together,” Landis said. “But you get a pool league with eight people on a team and it is something to do on a Monday night. Let’s go have a couple of beers and hang out with eight friends and play against eight people who are like-minded.”

Empire is a hub for pool league activity in Lawrence, and the new location will be as well. Currently there are three different associations that host league play, which is what draws the big crowds Monday through Thursday at Empire.

The leagues are becoming more popular as more people learn how they work, Landis said. The leagues are set up so that novice players can fairly compete against more experienced players. (Generally, a novice player has to win a fewer number of games in order to win a match.) An eight-player team has a mix of novice and experienced players, and the roster must be balanced between the two. That creates a pretty welcoming environment for less experienced players, Landis said.

“If you want to add a really high-ranked player to your team, that means you have to have a low-ranked player to counterbalance that.,” Landis said. “The novice is more than welcome, and actually is sought after.”

Landis said the larger size of the new venue — the 14,000-square foot building is about 5,000 square feet bigger than the current location — will allow for more tables that are set aside for casual players as well. People who aren’t part of a pool league but rather want to play with a group of friends on a single table will have better access to tables at the new location, he said.

The new facility also will significantly increase its number of televisions, and will feature multiple 100-inch screens, Landis said.

“We do pretty well on Sunday Chiefs games, and we want to keep that up,” Landis said.

Renovation work is currently underway on the building. Landis said he hopes to open in the new location in October or November.