Spot 5750 in Hollywood
When most of us hear the word “pool,” we think of old sharks in leather jackets, peeling off bills and throwing them onto the green felt, challenging us to a game where we can’t save ourselves with the usual slop shot into the corner pocket.
At Spot 5750, the spit-polished revamp of Hollywood Billiards, the pool tables — with red felt, not green — are open for accuracy-challenged shooters as well as “The Color of Money” types. With more staff, new carpeting, new paint, a new exterior and several other changes to the 25,000-square-foot space, co-owner Don Conner wanted to create a concept that was “hip, approachable and upscale.”
On an early Saturday evening, a few of the 20 tables are occupied with casual players knocking around the stripes and solids for $18 an hour. In Spot 5750’s main room, outfitted in gray tones designed by Bret Witke, the USC- UCLA game is playing on most of the plasma-screen TVs, eliciting cheers and pained cries in equal measure.
Conner and his business partner, Billy Rogers — they met via their former employer, Saddle Ranch — joined forces with original Hollywood Billiards owner Jeff Bey earlier this year, hoping to breathe new life into an iconic pastime in moderate decline. They sought to broaden the crowd, pulling in clubgoers who frolic west of their Hollywood Boulevard location and their artier counterparts who frequent dives of Los Feliz and further east.
As a result, they created a hybrid space that functions as a sports bar (with 60 TVs, a mini-arcade and shuffleboard), a nightclub and an unexpected dining option. Umami Burger visionary Stephen Ramos designed the menu, working in some Thai touches on the California-style bar grub.
On Saturday nights, the spot’s lounge, ELXR, takes over the second-floor space, occasionally hosting aerial performers — that means live human beings twirling from the club’s stunning boat truss ceiling.
At the moment, Spot 5750 is decorated with swaths of fabric hovering above the pool tables, the only chance, one supposes, at a safe fall for those suspended bodies. Hopefully they will take them down to show off the space’s best feature. Besides, they’re too flimsy to save a life anyway.
Alas, any of these missteps in Spot 5750’s vision are forgiven, for now, by its new clientele. George Wellinger, who’s lived in Hollywood for four years, came to Spot 5750 for the first time last Saturday to root for USC. “I think this place is cool,” Wellinger said. “It offers a different aesthetic than Big Wangs or what it was before.”
It’s still a pool hall but it’s locking in on the eight ball, to flirt with a little billiards metaphor. “It used to be pretty sleepy,” Conner said, “but now we’ve got energy.”
Spot 5750
Where: 5750 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood
When: 4 p.m.-2 a.m. Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m.-2 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays
Price: Tables are $8 an hour before 7 p.m on Mondays through Sundays, $15 an hour 7 p.m.-2 a.m. Sundays through Thursdays, $18 an hour 7 p.m.-2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays
Contact: (323) 465-0115