Taking Their Cue

Since the arrival of such spots as the Hollywood Athletic Club and Gotham Hall, L.A’s pool scene has not been the same. Sawdust and beer bellies have been supplanted by expensive leather jackets, cappuccino and chocolate chip cookies.

And now comes another late-breaking development: Pool has come to the great American mall, in this case in the form of the Westside Billiards Cafe at the Beverly Center.

Purists may blanch. Others may call it progress. Mall-style billiards offer these novel sights: pool players wearing suits, ties and beepers; pool tables that are navy blue instead of green felt; beer served (unless, it seems, you request otherwise) in Pilsener glasses instead of bottles. The Westside Billiards Cafe is for folks who like their pool clean-cut, convenient and valet-parking easy.

Roominess is another consideration. “My likes are very simple,” says patron David Corwin, owner of Ambrosia Productions, a catering and event company. “You can get a table and there’s room to move. You can’t have your cue bumping into someone’s rear end.”

But, if you want to run into a famous drummer from a heavy metal band, go somewhere else.

Your body is pierced with 14 holes, not all of them on your ears? This joint is not for you.

“Melrose Place” is your life story? See ya around.

You’re an anesthesiologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (across the street) and want an after-dinner activity other than tuning in to Leno? Welcome aboard.

Great pains were taken to make the place hip, starting with decorative neon ceiling strips and halogen spotlights. But the atmosphere still falls short of cutting edge, somewhere in the land of Velvet Turtles and Vegas lounges.

Indeed, the combination of the decor and the after-work crowd make it tempting to give the place another moniker altogether--California Pizza Billiards?--but that may be because you can also order little pizzas between games.

Open since October, Westside Billiards seems to be finding a crowd, thickest on Friday and Saturday nights. Rather than spillover from the Hard Rock Cafe next door (“We get people from L.A., Hard Rock gets tourists,” points out Paul, a bartender), the clientele consists mostly of people living or working nearby who discover the place, located on street level, as Angelenos typically do: when passing by in their cars.

“It’s a prime location,” says J.R. Ahn, a Downtown corporate analyst still in his shirt and tie and sipping Bass Ale (from the bottle) with his buddies from USC. At a table nearby, two couples out for some entertainment after dinner at Cafe Maurice deem the establishment not cool enough for another visit.

Then there are Saul Bernstein and Claude Arnall, regulars who say they play pool here at least once a week. They’re heavy into a game, their iced teas perched nearby. Also nearby are their wives, Linda Bernstein and Etty Arnall. The foursome always comes together. The guys play pool. The gals drink cappuccino and hold onto the cellular phones.

“We’re happy and they’re relaxed,” Linda Bernstein explains. Why the phones? “My daughter lives in New York and has a date tonight, so I wanted to hear about it,” she says.

Back at his game of billiards, Saul Bernstein just grins and says: “This is the best place where you can take the wives out and still have fun.”

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Where: Westside Billiards Cafe, 8612 Beverly Blvd.; (310) 289-2626.

When: Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-midnight; Friday and Saturday until 2 a.m.

Doorman: None. A hostess checks to see that no one under 21 is admitted.

Prices: Admission is free. Pool tables are rented by the hour at $8 per hour before 4 p.m., $10 after. For more than one player, add another $2 per person. Pizzas, $3.75 at lunch, $6 at dinner; beers start at $3.50. A free buffet is served from 4 to 7 p.m. nightly.