Danny Kuykendall - Open Bar: My Journey in Opening a Billiard Room and Sports Bar

INTRODUCTION

I began working on Danny Ks Billiards and Sports Bar 25 years ago, drawing up a sketch on graph paper of where the pool tables would be placed, the kitchen, bar, restrooms, etc. The old Powerhouse Gym had been vacant for over a year, and I had been eying this location for even longer, believing it to be an ideal location for my dream bar and restaurant. As I got closer to finalizing the paperwork that would make this space mine, the anticipation of finally opening the business of my dreams was palpitating. I had hoped for this through most of my adult life, and I couldnt believe my idea might finally come to fruition.

My passion for opening a billiard room began when I was just 19 years old. I recently contacted an old friend who told me that I had talked to him about my fantasy pool room when we were spending a weekend stint in a small jailhouse in southern Arizona. Any time I did something wrong in those days, I was thrown in jail. Maybe five times I saw the inside of a jailhouse, and it seemed that if I jaywalked or looked cross-eyed at a cop I ended up in the clink.

This was the late 60s, and the West Coast drug craze had rolled through Sierra Vista, Arizona, carrying almost the entire teenage population with it. I resisted at first, but found myself ostracized by close friends and relatives, and so I dove into the drug culture like everyone else. I became a businessman of sorts, running small amounts of marijuana from across the border in Agua Prieta, Mxico, to Douglas, and then to Sierra Vista, portioning it into baggies, and selling it to the local population of GIs and other users. After one unpleasantly long weekend in jail, I abandoned that line of business and took one of many regular jobs I would work in the next few years .

My parents divorced in 1969, my mother finally realizing that my father couldnt and wouldnt change his ways. So, at the age of 19, I moved to Phoenix with my father, while my mother remarried and moved to Orange County, California, with her new husband. Phoenix was a hotbed of all kinds of drugs, and I was trying to keep up with my peers in consuming as much as was humanly possible. I did not fit in well with this crowd, and was usually very uncomfortable around most of them. The drugs I experimented with didnt help much with my social skills either. LSD and I did not get along well. I still dropped it, even though every trip was a bummer. Why? I could not say no to my friends. I didnt want to appear mentally or emotionally weak, so I kept putting myself through this tortuous form of entertainment, each time hoping LSD would be kind to me, and each time experiencing nothing but another long, terrifying nightmare.

During this time, a girl I knew wanted to smuggle some Dexedrine (Dextroamphetamine) in from Mexico, and she had a foolproof plan. Dexedrine was mostly used as a diet pill in the late 60s, but strong doses worked as an upper and made the user feel euphoric for several hours. The plan was to travel to Nogales, Mexico, from Phoenix and buy Dexedrine capsules at a pharmacy across the border. The Dexedrine across the border was much stronger and would make for a much better high. After the purchase, she would sit in the back of my car and sew the pills into her tampon.

And so she sat in the backseat of the car, sewing those pills into a Kotex. Of course we had been observed by the US Border Patrol in Nogales the whole time, and eventually the red lights started flashing. We were pulled over in Patagonia, a few miles north of Nogales. Was I scared! The agent said he saw us buy the drugs and knew we had them somewhere. I denied, denied, and denied some more. They brought in a local female officer to frisk the girl. She saw the tampon and did not investigate. We were scot-free and relievedbut it scared me enough to get off all drugs, including marijuana. I was losing my mind, and the fear of spending a few months in jail put me over the top. Some experiences in life are wake-up calls. This was a major one for me.

The drug chapter in my life, albeit traumatizing, taught me the importance of moderation and how to treat people. I was in a bad mental state for a few years, but these experiences helped shape the person I finally became. I have always had compassion for people, especially those who can do nothing about their situation. Most people at Danny Ks will say that I care about others and genuinely try to understand where theyre coming from. Even though they may not be experiencing as much difficulty as I was at the time, I still understand what they are going through. I am thankful for these experiences in my teenage years and that I was able to emerge from the problems of that time. I would not be as successful without them.

From this point on, I still hung around with all my friends, but I was the only person not taking drugs of any kind. It made meand everyone elsevery uncomfortable. I needed new friends and a new climate, so when my mother moved out to Anaheim with her new husband in 1970, I decided to live with them. I was in serious psychological turmoil, having removed myself from reality with a combination of drugs and neurosis, and I needed help desperately. My stepfather had noticed a mental health clinic on his way to work, and made the suggestion that I seek some help there. Chuck, my stepdad, was a good guy and saw that I was in emotional distress, and wanted to see me get better. He introduced me to Dr. Pierce Ommanney, a local psychologist who had an office in Anaheim, and I slowly emerged back into reality. I cannot thank Pierce enough for his help. Without him, I would not be here today. Of course I had to work on myself a lot, but God sent me help and gratefully I accepted it.

I then enrolled in Cypress College in 1973, majoring in psychology; entered Cal State Long Beach in 1976, and finished a masters degree at Cal State Los Angeles in 1981. I completed my PhD in psych in 1988 from a small tutorial program in San Diego, and sat for the California State Exam twice in the early 90s, coming close but not passing either time. So what did I do with the PhD? Opened a poolroom! Makes sense, right? The psychology background, however, has been very helpful in operating this business .

I made my living during college doing an odd assortment of jobs: donut fryer, delivering newspapers, working at a 7-Eleven convenience store, selling shoes, and finally, selling pool tables and billiard supplies. I was already playing pool at close to a professional level, and on weekends I could supplement my income by playing for money in local bars and poolrooms. By this time, I had stopped hustling. I would ask the person to play for money, and then play my best game. Often, my opponent would quit after the first game.

My first experience with pool was a game called caromsa Christmas present from my mom. It was a board game that had rings (caroms) and four net pockets with a couple of pool cues. My brothers and I wouldnt use the cues, but just flicked the caroms with our middle finger. It was fun, but after playing on a regulation pool table, we were hooked on the real game of pool. Through the early years, my passion for pool never abated. I began as a 12-year-old, fashioning a pool table out of the dining room table by laying a blanket on top, using my fathers golf balls and the handle of his putter as a makeshift pool cue. The golf balls would just drop onto the floor. I didnt care.

The YMCA in Bisbee, Arizona, was a decent place to shoot pool, and I spent as much time as possible knocking balls around. The dynamic of colliding spheres and the challenge of figuring out how to control them on a flat rectangular surface with pockets had me mesmerized. In 1963, our family moved to Douglas, Arizona, and I was able to play on a Brunswick 4 1/2 by 9 foot, ball return pool table recently installed in the local bowling alley. Coronado Lanes was directly on the way home from school, and I was attracted to that pool table like a magnet to iron. We would play for quarters or dimes... whatever would make the game interesting. Back then, pool table time cost a dollar an hour, no matter how many players, and sometimes we would play simply for the time. So I could play for cheap and make some money as well.