Thursday, July 7, 2011

Pool Billiard, Or Lack Thereof, in Madrid

Summary: the two pool billiard halls in Madrid easily found by googling, Shooters Bar and Masterpool, do not exist anymore. I don't know about others.

I just came back from Madrid, the capital of Spain with over 3 million residents. It was just a regular holiday with my wife and a friend. And also a get-together as my wife's brother lives there. The big event during our visit was the Madrid Orgullo 2011, which is the gay pride happening of Spain. It gathers a huge amount of people to the center of Madrid.

Gran Vía during the Orgullo Festival. 

But anyhow, one slow Monday morning I decided to take a look at Madrid's pool halls, maybe for some cheap action. Or so I thought. The two pool halls I found by googling do not exist.

There is supposed to be a bar called Shooters near the main street, Gran Vía, couple of blocks from the hotel we stayed at. But, as far as I could tell, it was no more. I swung around those streets and didn't see anything resembling a billiard bar. I do in fact remember seeing the place two years ago, when I last visited Madrid. But I think Shooters Bar Madrid is closed down now.

This was supposed to be a picture of Shooters Madrid,
but as there is no such thing, here are some tapas.

OK, no problem, I thought, at least there's the other place. Masterpool.

Wrong again.

The place isn't as close to the center as Shooters used to be, but thanks to Madrid's awesome Metro system, it didn't take long for me to arrive at Calle del Doctor Fléming. Only to find out that the place has been closed. And this time, I could take evidence with me.

"For rent."

Abandoned.

View of the inside.

So, no pool for me in Madrid.

There might be other pool billiard halls in Madrid, but, as far as I know, these two are closed.

4 comments:

  1. Awwww sorry to hear your billiard traveling experience did not work out! Next time we could leverage the vibrant billiards community online in order to find you the right places to go!

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  2. Yeah, but I wasn't too disappointed. It was just an afterthought to visit some pool halls.

    But I decided nevertheless to serve the public and inform that these places do not exist anymore.

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  3. Jarno,

    Me and 11 others guys are coming to Madrid in May 2012 and thought we might spend a few hours in a pool hall. I did some research and found "Shooters". As per http://www.madaboutmadrid.com/guide/2007/01/shooters_americ.html it says its underneath cafeteria Zahara so it may be hard to find and therefore you might have miised it. I'll be disapointed if its no longer there.

    Don't suppose you have found any other pool halls since?

    Thanks

    John

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  4. I'm pretty the Shooters doesn't exist anymore. I circled around the area and didn't find it. I remember seeing it one year earlier.

    ReplyDelete